AUDREY SUTHERLAND Haleiwa, Hawaii


On a cold blustery day


along the Gulf of Alaska in 1981, a sea kayaking guide named Ken Leghorn was leading a wilderness expedition around Chichagof Island when he spotted a lone kayaker in the distance ahead. The kayaker was in an inflatable boat that rode high in the water and was being half-paddled and half-blown across the choppy sea. The boat didn’t have a proper spray skirt to keep its cockpit dry, and the paddler was soaked. As Leghorn approached he saw that the paddler was a woman. She had white hair. And she was singing. “My first reaction was, ‘This is


a crazy person,’” Leghorn recalls. “I thought it must be somebody who was totally unprepared to be out there. Then I found out it was somebody who has more long-distance sea kayaking experience than I’ll ever have.” That woman was Audrey Sutherland, solo paddler extraordinaire and epic free spirit. In a kayaking career spanning


five decades, Audrey has paddled an estimated 12,000 nautical miles. She racked up almost all of that mileage on long, lone voyages in the stubby little blow-up boats she adores, going solo not out of misanthropy or because she’s antisocial but because it’s just easier that way. Her wilderness sagas are not so much about getting away from anything as they are about finding simplicity, with all of the stormy weather, photogenic wildlife, idyllic campsites and cozy little wilderness cabins that go along with it.


44 | ADVENTURE KAYAK


The Pioneer


PHOTO: DANA EDMUNDS


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