Like many life-altering ocean odysseys, the one a Haines couple took through the Inside Passage earlier this year began in a shipyard.
Well, more precisely, it began in a work space inside Viking Cove in Mud Bay where Liz Landes and Ben Aultman-Moore arranged a work swap so they could build a pair of beefy expedition boats to carry them the 1100-ish miles from Bellingham, Washington to Haines.
In January of 2024, they set about building two fiberglass and wood rowboats following plans from adventurers Julie and Colin Angus.
After some hemming and hawing, the two decided to follow the advice of accomplished Alaska rower Jill Fredston, who said wooden oars were the way to go. They built hollow-core oars out of Sitka spruce, with blades of Douglas fir.
Aultman-Moore, who has a background in carpentry, said the project included a lot of difficult, specialized woodworking.
“The journey was better than the build,” Landes said.
After a year of work, the couple was ready. They loaded a ferry to Bellingham with their 18.5-foot-long, 100-pound boats and a lot of gear and dry goods, including at least 60 pounds of dehydrated banana bread, and they set off.
They arrived on June 20 and a lucky streak that re-emerged several times throughout the trip started with people pointing the couple, and their piles of gear, toward a nearby boat ramp.
The paddlers followed the ferry route and adjusted for weather along the way. For communication they had VHF radios, a Garmin inReach satellite device, and a trusty air horn. They did not have paper maps, but they had a British Columbia guide book and used an iPad for marine charts. There was no signal for most of the trip, so they downloaded the maps in advance.
Altogether, the trip took 8 weeks of what Aultman-Moore called “the most intense living.”
As they watched the British Columbia terrain turn into the Alaskan coast the two endured five full days of rain and then later on, four more, broken up with weather Landes described as “obnoxiously hot.”
That made sun exposure a big concern.
“We were dehydrated every day after drinking three and a half liters of water each,” Aultman-Moore said. “Whenever we could get in the shade of an island, we did. We wore hoods, hats, all long sleeves.”
Each night, they’d find a new place to pitch their tents, though they did mix it up with a stay in a hostel, one night on a sailboat and another on a homestead.
The two have kayak and rafting backgrounds, but now they were rowing in boats with sliding seats. And, for the most part, the design worked in their favor. The boats are big, 4-6mm thick wood depending on the section.
But the drawback of the design is that it’s heavy which made dragging it up the beaches hard.
“If you’re in a swell, it’s very easy to smash your boat on the rocks,” he said. “We definitely built those for long expeditions and very little resting.”
The two rowed for ten days straight before taking a break at Serpent Point, on the north end of Hunter Island, British Columbia.
Landes described that first day off as a feeding frenzy of sorts, no rowing, no tents to pick up, no thinking about rowing. She said she journaled, hid from the sun, and drank tea.
“We ate so much food. There was never a time we weren’t eating or drinking tea or building a fire to eat or drink tea,” Aultman-Moore said.
The couple brought dehydrated beans, veggies and all of that banana bread. They also had resupply stops in Kake and Ketchikan and they supplemented their dry goods foraging, catching rockfish and salmon, including one giant coho.
“That took two days to eat,” Aultman-Moore said.
They saw three black bears, porpoise, seals and countless whales including a dozen humpbacks Landes described as “having the time of their lives in Frederick Sound.”
By Aug. 10, the two had made it to the Dixon Entrance, a 50-mile long strait at the border of the U.S. and Canada.
They didn’t know it, but at 5:30 that morning a landslide in Tracy Arm, hundreds of miles north, generated a tsunami wave that was estimated to be 100 feet high, according to preliminary estimates. A group of kayakers camped on Harbor Island, near the slide, woke to missing gear, swept away by the wave, and had to be rescued.
But neither Landes or Aultman-Moore noticed anything amiss as they paddled through the unprotected strait. It wasn’t until a full day later, when they landed on an island and got a brief cell signal, that they got a barrage of texts from friends warning them about the danger.
Aultman-Moore said the two got lucky.
“I firmly believe that everything that happens out there is based on luck. It’s out of your hands. You can be more prepared or less prepared. But it’s luck,” he said.
They landed in Paradise Cove on Aug. 20, welcomed by a crowd of friends and well-wishers.
The couple are reintegrating into daily life on land. Landes is back at her job gardening at the Henderson farm and Aultman-Moore is doing carpentry work. Both agree that getting outside and staying active is the best way to process their journey.
The two just went for an overnight camping trip and hike up Flower Mountain. They have been driftnetting the Chilkat River in their canoe, foraging for chanterelle mushrooms, and making sauerkraut and kimchi. All to reconnect with their surroundings.
“We still like each other, after all of it,” Landes said.
But some of the harder portions of the journey linger. Landes said even now she’s exhausted.
Both Landes and Aultman-Moore feel changed by the experience. Landes called it a pilgrimage. She’s done a number of long through-hikes and bike trips but spending this much time on the ocean was different. Each day on the water came with its own high stakes, potentially life-altering decisions.
She described floating offshore from islands, questioning whether they’d actually be able to land their boats on the beaches or if they should move on to the next island, which could take hours to get to.
“I always felt that paddling the Inside Passage was huge and wild and mysterious. After eight weeks of doing so, that feeling hasn’t changed,” she said.