Following Audrey — A Sneak Peek

The first half of life is discovering the script, and the second half is actually writing it and owning it. ~ Richard Rohr, Falling Upward

TWELVE YEARS AFTER MY FIRST SOLO JOURNEY along the Inside Passage, I felt the pull to return.

But this time, it wasn’t only about distance or endurance. It was about following the paddle strokes of my hero, Audrey Sutherland — and discovering whether I still carried the courage, grit, and quiet resolve that kind of voyage demands.

In this blog, I’m sharing an early chapter from my forthcoming book, Following Audrey. In “Inside Passage, Take Two,” you’ll glimpse the turning point — the stirring that made a second journey feel not just possible, but necessary. It’s where admiration deepens into calling, and the quiet question forms: Do I still have it in me?

I hope you’ll step into the kayak with me.

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THE IDEA to take on a second through-paddle up the Inside Passage came to me just before dusk on a crisp fall day. Prudence, my purple kayak, glided through the water as I drifted deep into my thoughts. Two hours earlier, I’d launched from the pebble beach below my home on Lummi Island and headed south along the shoreline toward a cluster of rocky islets where seals, ducks, and cormorants often gather. After circling the islets, I turned for home. My thoughts finally settled on the restless feeling weighing me down for months. Something was missing in my life, though I couldn’t yet name it. Nearly ten years had passed since my last big voyage, and I wondered if I was resting on my laurels. I was growing weary of telling the same story again and again. I needed a new quest, a new goal—a new adventure narrative. And just like that, the idea surfaced and would not let go. The following spring, May of 2020, I would launch from the same beach I was now paddling toward: a tidy, tenth-anniversary paddle—The Inside Passage, take two! 

Exhilarated, fueled by new resolve, I paddled back to the beach, retrieved my kayak wheels from the neighbor’s beach shack, strapped Prudence’s stern onto it, and towed her up the long, winding gravel driveway to the old house at the top of the hill. Even Prudence seemed to have a skip in her step. 

Later that night, I plucked my copy of Paddling North from a six-foot-high mahogany bookshelf, where it stood bracketed between Wylie Blanchet’s The Curve of Time and Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From the Sea. If my paddle back from the islets was a nudge, this was a shove. A myriad of other seafaring adventure books crowded the shelves above and below. But Audrey’s book—gifted to me by a bookseller friend for inspiration to write my own story—stood out. I’d read Paddling North several times, its pages dog-eared and feathered with sticky notes, long before I ever imagined tracing those same waters myself.

What we most regret are not the errors we made, but the things we didn’t do. These words nearly floated off the first folded page I turned to—a classic Audrey quote. Still standing, I laughed at her descriptions of parading around her Hawaii living room, ensconced in thick yellow oilskins and a floppy yellow sou’wester hat, palm trees swaying in the warm trade winds outside her window. She was giddy with excitement because her foul-weather gear, ordered from a paper catalog for an upcoming trip, had arrived at her doorstep. 

Seated cross-legged on the floor, I began to reread this tender, simple, yet elegant book, internalizing its ode to simplicity, passion, and adventure. With a new perspective, I focused on her self-sufficiency, her knack for settling into wild places, and the interconnections she drew between people and place. I adored how she favored inquisitiveness over acquisitiveness. I admired her unflappable attitude in the most dire of situations. Each time I closed the covers, I felt like I’d left a good friend behind.

In the first few pages, I had a clear sense of why she wanted to do this. But as I sat with the book, perusing highlighted sentences, comments, sticky notes, and marginalia, one question kept surfacing: who was this woman, this solo adventurer, this writer, this mother? What drove her? 

Between the pages of adventure, intrepid spirit, backcountry cuisine, challenges, and luminous descriptions of the Alaska scenery, there was little that revealed her inner life. She wrote sparingly of herself, and when she did, it was modest and unpretentious. Even her foreword is no-frills: one short paragraph, eight sentences, ending with her familiar proclamation: Go simple, go solo, go now.

She drifts through the pages as a nebulous protagonist against the backdrop of Alaska’s beguiling, unforgiving seascape—present and yet simultaneously absent. Paddling North documents an extraordinary accomplishment, but what’s missing is a more intimate sense of her motivations and convictions that carried her there. 

One thing was certain: Audrey was an unsung hero. She didn’t make excuses; she acted on the life she imagined. She left a small footprint, yet her enthusiasm and wisdom were immense. And she understood what mattered most—that time and freedom were the greatest riches. 

Suddenly, it seemed, my second paddle up the Inside Passage had a purpose. By following in Audrey’s paddle strokes, I might begin to understand the woman who drifted so quietly through her own pages.

Audrey died two and a half years after Paddling North was published, so I couldn’t barrage her with my questions. But there were other ways to learn. Audrey presented only what she wished the world to see. By following in her paddle strokes, listening to people who knew her, visiting her old haunts, and largely recreating her experience, I could pay homage to her while searching for what lay beyond her pages. 

With Audrey as my guiding light, I hoped to understand not only who she was, but how she lived—and what her example might teach me about aging with authenticity, grace, and the quiet courage to remain oneself.

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Charting a course

A wee bit excited on the ferry ride to the starting line

On my way

My Hero, Audrey Sutherland, always paddling her own canoe

Sheer gratitude that EXPED is always along for the ride!