"This is really some country," says my friend Arnie Erickson. He, his young son and I make our way down a steep slope toward Otter Lake, through a grove of centuries-old spruce, some of them with trunks 4 and 5 feet thick. We're scouting for spring steelhead fishing and next fall's deer in a rugged corner of Alaska's Tongass, our country's largest national forest, which encompasses nearly 17 million acres. The pristine landscape seems serene and timeless. But as things stand now, this place is doomed. Late last month, the Bush administration announced it would exempt the Tongass National Forest...