And so it begins...

Hello to anyone and everyone! 

Here's a quick introduction to those of you that don't know us. 

Casey - Born and raised on San Juan Island in Washington State, I have spent my years since high school exploring other states through college and work. I always return home to the San Juan Islands in the summer months to work with Crystal Seas Kayaking. My college degree is in Outdoor Recreation and Leadership and I want to work in the recreation field, hopefully enabling more and more people to enjoy the outdoors in any way. I love planning expeditions and back country trips and this is by far the largest expedition I have undertaken.




Brooke - Grew up in Michigan, spending my summers at Girl Scout camp and exploring the outdoors with my family, where I learned to be independent and embrace being weird. I played volleyball in college and occasionally skipped class to run away to climb or ski. When I was 21 I completed a 3 month National Outdoor Leadership School semester, where my independence in the outdoors solidified. I graduated from Central Michigan University in 2015 and since then I have chose the places I live based on the amount of fun outdoor activities I can partake in. I wandered to Colorado and Minnesota and then ended up in the San Juan Islands in 2017. I met Casey through work and we've been best friends and partners ever since. Our adventures have taken us all over western North America and we are excited to explore further north and share it with you!


What exactly does "Kayaking the Inside Passage" mean?
The Inside Passage is a waterway that connects the Puget Sound with the Alaskan Panhandle. The route winds its way through the thousands of islands scattered along the coast of British Colombia and Southeast Alaska. For those of you in Michigan, imagine kayaking from Davison all the way down to Orlando on I-75. Its a long way.

Most of the passage is within the Great Bear Rain Forest of Canada and Alaska's Tongass National Forest - also a rain forest. Together, these two rain forests make up the largest intact stretch of coastal temperate rain forest in the world! This is a wild environment where animals like brown bears, black bears, wolves, and cougars are all known to roam from the shores to the mountains. 

So for us, it means sitting in a kayak for 3 months and paddling from the San Juan Islands all the way up to Skagway, Alaska. That's heading northwest for roughly 1,300 miles. We will be setting up and breaking down camp each night and cooking all of our own meals. We will send additional food in resupply boxes to the major towns and ports along the route ahead of time.


Most common questions
Since we have been planning this trip, it has come up a lot in conversation. We often get asked these two questions, so here they are along with our answers:

How can we follow along?
- Well, if you have found this blog, that's a good way! We also be posting updates via social media. During the trip cell service and WiFi are hard to come by. Because of this we won't be posting daily, only when we can.

How can we help?
- Support of any kind is awesome! Reaching out with words of encouragement are very appreciated. It is always nice to know that someone cares about what you are undertaking. If you would like to help financially, we have started a GoFundMe which can be found below:

Brooke and Casey's GoFundMe


That's all for now! We will post a couple more times before we launch about trip preparations/planning. Thanks for taking the time to read and we hope we enjoy it!

-Brooke and Casey