Brian Perusek

“To the east the land was darkening. Night does not fall. It rises from the earth as the sun sinks low, sets, and embraces the land with its shadow. How could I describe this place? Words could only be read and the scene imagined. Even a photo could only be seen. It would not include the sound of the water on the stones, the scent of the spruce trees, the coolness of sea wrack under my hand, or the weary satisfaction of just sitting there after paddling six hours that day, and six weeks before that. The size of these islets and their details of sand, shell and rock beach, grass, driftwood, and flowers, the small woods back of the shore – these are proportioned to kayaks and close-ups, not big cruise ships or ferries. Those get a far outline of the shore, but their only close-ups are of the docks and the towns. This country is made for the pace of a kayak.”
― Audrey Sutherland, Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage

“She smells like hotel soap and the mountains, like wind and fabric softener.”
― Carrot Quinn, Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail

“I went out to the area of drift logs on the shore, looking for dimensional lumber or plywood to repair the cabin’s wood box. Ninety-eight percent of driftwood is logs. They have their own beauty; shades of blond and gray, curved and hollowed and sleeked like a human body – or perhaps we’re like them – aged and smoothed by years of tumbling in the seas and on the rocks.”
― Audrey Sutherland, Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage

“Adventure. The word is ad-venture, to venture toward. No big declarations of peril, challenge, daring, conquest. No guarantee of making it. Just trying toward.”
― Audrey Sutherland, Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage