FOREWORD

In recent years the body of literature about the Inside Passage, much like the number of people discovering sea kayaking, has increased exponentially. The objective and subjective aspects of this long-distance human effort achieve the best balance in Kayaking the Inside Passage. This select guide provides more detail dedicated to a kayaker’s interest than any other book to date and is the necessary companion to invite on your trip through the Inside Passage.

Like the Inside Passage itself, Robert Miller offers up moments of slap-your-head comprehension; glimpses of fin, flipper, and paddle receding into timeless mists; and a wealth of plain, rock-hard detail. This guidebook will aid kayakers in planning and carrying out trips on the rugged Pacific water artery that pulses along the western edge of North America. From the riches of the densely packed introduction to the surprise—under the heights of the Muir Glacier—found in the final sentence, printed in words of but two syllables, there’s the feel of a fine tool, sharpened by requisite data and personal experience, ready to cut a keen course of one’s own.

In the first paddle strokes out of Boston Harbor at Olympia, Washington, at the southernmost end of Puget Sound, there’s reference to the introduction of smallpox to the Western Hemisphere by a Cuban slave in 1520; George Vancouver’s population estimates; the 1814 Treaty of Ghent; a discussion of bridge construction vis-à-vis underwater topography; and the geographic distribution of red-barked madrona trees—all this on the first 6 miles northward on the Cascadia Marine Trail’s 150-mile portion of the 1,200-plus-mile-long Inside Passage. Two harbor seals tail along for the discourse.

Miller was first bitten by the Inside Passage in 1973 on the way to a Denali climb. More than 20 years later—probably highly infectious and with his wife catching the fever to go north as well—he was journeying by kayak. You may, as I did, get a case of Inside Passage fever reading this book. To fully enjoy this siren song of the Northwest, surround yourself with maps, charts, tide tables, and a dictionary, at least, to take the place of raven and eagle, bear and whale, cedar, cliff, and sand. Whether this book is a short reach from a living room armchair or drybagged on a kayak deck, the pull of powerful currents lies within its covers.

Kayaking the Inside Passage is an excellent compendium, achieving an expert pilot’s trim. The Inner Passage cannot be traveled without an awareness of historic human use and misuse of coastal and inland resources; the shaping power of the aquatic and land mammals topping their food chains; the geological and meteorological forces constantly at work; or the challenges of one’s life. Reading and learning from this book are the first strokes of an Inside Passage adventure.

still life with slug

BY REED WAITE, Executive Director
Washington Water Trails Association & Cascadia Marine Trail