Dressed in camo fatigues, Billy Sullivan tends two pans of sizzling oil in his one-room "fish camp" on the Gulf of Mexico. He reminisces about a childhood spent running wild in boar- and tick-infested swamps ("I never knew what underwear was 'til I joined the navy"); shows off his collection of rattlesnake tails and raccoon penises; and insists that I, the gun-shy Canadian, gaze through the scope of a high-powered rifle.

"I'm gonna see just how Southern y'all are," he hollers, piling Styrofoam plates with deep-fried mullet, venison, french fries, cornmeal hush puppies, baked beans, hot dogs, coleslaw, and locally harvested (i.e., poached) "swamp cabbage"—the tender shoots of palm trees, chopped and boiled. He instructs me to lob my empty beer cans off the deck, where they join dozens more in the bed of a pickup truck.

"My escape is to just get in a boat and disappear on the water.” —Carl Hiaasen

State recreation planner Liz Sparks insisted that lunch with "the emperor" was a must-do on our sea kayak trip on the Big Bend Saltwater Paddling Trail, which follows 105 miles of Gulf Coast south of Tallahassee, Florida, and includes eight primitive campsites. Sullivan's fish camp overlooks salt marsh, sea grass, and the chocolate-colored Spring Warrior Creek. Together, they form a loose bulwark between land and sea that's kept out the condos and crowds of modern Florida.

Sparks's promise of secluded campsites tucked beneath native palms, crystalline spring-fed rivers, and encounters with Gulf wildlife pulled me to this overlooked corner of Florida. On our first day, we watched soaring swallowtail butterflies and paddled through a gauntlet of gators on the Aucilla River, en route to the Gulf. That night, we pitched our tents on aptly named Rock Island, a slab of limestone surrounded by a watery horizon. We wrapped up our journey at a campsite on Butler Island, where a shell midden indicated we were part of an ancient tradition.

The Big Bend's wildlife is compelling, but so are its quirky, resilient people. We received warm Southern welcomes at Steinhatchee, where entrepreneur Dean Fowler is breathing new life into an old fishing village, and from passionate, hand-to-mouth kayak outfitters Russ and Kay McCallister in Suwannee. It's as though Big Bend is a secret locals can't help sharing—albeit in hushed tones.

At Sullivan's fish camp, I feel like the guns and cheap beer should make me uncomfortable. But I'm not, and I can appreciate why Sparks, a liberal Midwesterner, was compelled to make backwoods Florida her adopted home over a decade ago. I feel a kinship with Sullivan when he recalls the speculator who, at the peak of the housing boom, offered him $8 million for his 20 acres of land. "I could've been rich," he says, "but I wouldn't sell this for all the money in the world."