Aki and I walk on the spine of a long, gray gravel snake stretched out on the forest floor. On either side, the white flowers of food plants—crab apple, high bush cranberry, and Labrador tea—break the monopoly of forest greens. The snake will lead us to a beach where white gulls harass eagles away from food exposed by the ebbing tide. But my eye will be drawn to Lynn Canal where a complex of clouds, from white to dark gray, water the sea.