Brian Perusek

“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

“When I get home I spend a few hours typing customer service emails and working on the listings in my online bookstore, which is the other half, besides the dog-walking, of what I call my “Portland hustle”- the way I make my living in this strange city where hipsters with masters degrees fight each other for barista jobs.”
― Carrot Quinn, Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart: An Adventure on the Pacific Crest Trail

“It was partly sunny, with light winds from the west. The mind and body absorb these things. There was no thinking process like “The wind is blowing the trees. They are bending toward the east. It is a west wind.” Instead, it all osmosed into the subconscious, and the body walked on, skin moist from the air and hair ruffling like an animal’s fur in the wind.”
― Audrey Sutherland, Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage

“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