ThePADDLER 104
Stepping away from normal life – a Journey through T H E
INSIDE
PASSAGE
Anna is a wanderer at heart. She loves to spend her life in pursuit of new and intriguing experiences and is always quietly planning her next endeavour. While not at her day job or out exploring the world, she enjoys trail running, backpacking, and eating delicious food.To find out more about her Inside Passage trip, check out https://kayaktheinside passage.com
Words: Anna Grondin Photos: Anna Grondin and Jeremy Nylander The idea of this expedition, and probably the success of our relationship, started with a seemingly benign question asked late one night while packing for another trip. Jeremy turned to me and asked if I’d ever wanted to kayak the Inside Passage. Since I had spent two seasons guiding sea kayaking trips off the coast of British Columbia, Canada, I was familiar with the route. While I had never considered it a real possibility, it had always intrigued me. “Sure, of course,” I replied, smiling. It takes a special kind of person to find a 90-day sea kayaking expedition in some of the wettest country around a desirable idea, and we were both thrilled to have found such a person. The Inside Passage is a waterway that stretches 1,200 miles, winding its way through the islands that form the upper west coast of North America. These islands and coastline receive about 200 inches of rain a year and are home to the largest temperate rainforest in the world. The shores are covered with Sitka spruce and hemlock forests where grizzly and black bears, moose, river otters, and other animals make their homes. Thousands of humpback whales reaching 60 feet in length and 40 tons migrate to these waters every summer to feed. A large population of resident and transient orca whales also reside here.
