Green Paddler

This book on paddlesports details using kayaks and other small boats with an eye to environmental sensibility and affordable recreation. In it, author Paula Johanson reprises her short articles from Kayak Yak website and brings new insights & humour to the time she spends on the water. As a teenager, she learned kayaking and canoeing. After a sudden hearing loss took her sense of balance, she returned to paddling for fitness and vestibular improvement. Finding a calming oasis of nature in cities is a bonus! Whether she's at home on a west coast island or travelling in Canada to promote her writing, her kayaks make it possible for this stocky little woman to haul her own gear so she can paddle in harbours, lakes, and rivers. Though she doesn't own a car or a couch, her "Affordable Fleet" of kayaks includes three Advanced Elements folding inflatables, as well as wheels for a Necky Eliza sea kayak and an old Pamlico to loan to beginners. "With the finely-honed body of a freelance writer, I turn heads as I bring my inflatable kayaks on buses, trains, and airplanes, or wheel my sea kayak along a road," she says. "...but it's the kayaks that get all the attention." Doublejoy Books is thrilled to release this practical discussion of using small boats. The enjoyment of kayaking shows on every page as paddler Paula Johanson presents ways to get out on the water, even when one doesn't own a motor vehicle. This is the author's forty-fourth nonfiction book, and her confidence is clear whether she welcomes the reader to paddlesports or environmental concerns.