Our adventure will start in the the village of Angoon, the home of the Kootznoowoo Tlingit, in the heart of the Tongass National Forest, and takes us into the “Fortress of the Bears.”

The move from the capital city of Juneau to the village of Angoon, located on the west side of Admiralty Island is a dramatic one. The hustle and bustle you experienced in Juneau fades away as you arrive in this village of 450 residents in the middle of old-growth temperate rain forest on the shores of Chatham Straight. This village is deep in the Tongass National Forest, home to generations of Tlingit people who have named this area Kootznoowoo or “Fortress of the Bears” for the dense population of brown bears on the island. There are many more bears on Admiralty Island than there are people but, not to worry, your guide lives and works in this temperate rain forest, and has traveled through it safely and respectfully for years.

We will get our gear sorted, inflate our packrafts and have a safety talk. Shoving off, we explore our first lake while paddling its shores and floating into camp for a dinner, a campfire and maybe a little fishing.

Our trip will have us hiking over portages between inland lakes as we move across Admiralty Island. We are living and traveling in one of the largest expanses of wilderness in the world, an intact ecosystem containing a wide and diverse number of species including brown bears, Sitka blacktail deer and moose. As we hike and paddle from one lake to another, we are constantly on the lookout, hoping to catch a glimpse of these wild creatures.

As our week comes to an end, we will emerge from the forest onto the tidal flats of Mole Harbor, a bay on Seymour Canal. If we are on schedule, we can set up camp and explore the shores of this salt water bay on foot or by packraft, maybe glimpsing humpback whales or seal ions from our stealth craft. Waking on our final morning as we wait for our float plane to take us back to civilization, we can take the morning to explore Mole Harbor further or just hang around camp relaxing as we wait for our ride and the showers that await us back in Juneau.