The 30-mile Cross-Admiralty Canoe Route could be seen as a straightforward trip: start in Angoon (Aangóon, or “isthmus town”), where Tlingit people have lived since time immemorial. Travel to the head end of the at-times treacherous Mitchell Bay, don backpacks, hike into the rainforest and portage and paddle a series of Admiralty Island’s lakes, until you get to Mole Harbor, on the other side of the island. Along the way, you may fish for cutthroat trout; you may see brown bears. You’ll clamber over slippery logs and use them to cross beaver-flooded sections of trail. You’ll glimpse deer along the lakeshore. You’ll see flickering schools of juvenile fish, eat wild mint and you may get a few new blisters and calluses.