Sutherland entered UCLA at 16, taking a degree in international relations. She and her sister also worked as riveters on the Liberty ships being built during World War II. She married and had four children, moving to a house on the north shore of Oahu in 1952. Her husband went back to commercial fishing in California, however, while Audrey and the children stayed in Hawaii. She worked at many jobs in education and counseling, notably working with the tenth grade children of U. S. army families.
Sutherland’s published adventures began in 1964 when she explored the wild north coast of Molokai, swimming while towing her camping equipment, food and wine on a rope. It was a hallmark of her trips that Audrey never stinted on food, most of which she dried and packed herself, while also using the fish, shellfish, seaweed and mushrooms she found along the way. Identifying wild food and monitoring it, along with water, for pollution were among the survival skills she learned and then taught to many others. Good wines she labeled and packed in 35mm film cans!
At 60, Sutherland planned a trip along the inside passage in southeast Alaska, island hopping from Ketchikan to Skagway, 850 miles, which became the book Paddling North. This book is a powerful, yet humble, account of the trip in her yellow rubber blowup kayak which she could pack into a duffel, yet load with supplies for many weeks, bottles of wine stowed fore and aft. It begins with the topographical maps she orders, choosing a route and convincing herself to go.
“On all my expeditions,” Sutherland writes, “I’ve kept a daily log. Not just the sailor’s course and weather, but also the thoughts, the small events, the jeering at myself and some detailed drawings. Long ago recollections are always distorted. Time empurples the prose and the only reality is recorded within a day or two. The writer will need to satisfy the grey, fragile lady at age 90 reading her memoirs from these salty pages.”
Not mincing words about the wind, cold and damp, Sutherland asked herself why she kept coming up to southeast Alaska (as she did for the next 20 years), when her home in Hawaii was in the most marvelous of all climates. “Because it isn’t overrun with people,” is the answer. In Paddling North, Sutherland details many interesting encounters with fishermen, students, park rangers. But her most intimate writing is about the cabins and camp sites she sets up, cooking and keeping herself as comfortable as possible. She is good at nesting, bringing her adventure down to earth.
While she records many animal and bird sightings, including wolverine, wolf and bear, on this trip Sutherland does not have any dangerous encounters. She writes of her fears, however. She uses her knowledge of tides and her topographical maps to keep herself located, but paddling eight hours a day, often against a headwind, was hard. The first half hour of the day was tough, but then she found her steady, rhythmic stroke. Stamina, not muscle strength, kept her going. She always had a goal for the day and at night rewarded herself with hot food and a carefully prepared bed. Finding a well-fitted out cabin among those she had rented through the Tongass National Forest or a hot spring were rare pleasures. She always tried to leave firewood ready for the next camper.
In the years to come, Sutherland traveled to Japan, Scandinavia, Ireland and France, as well as returning to Alaska. Some of her journeys are driven by literature, some by interest in natural phenomena, some by the desire to know more about wine and vineyards. Her only other writing, however, relates to informative books about kayaking. She continued to live in the same house on the north shore of Oahu until her death in 2015. One of her sons, Jock Sutherland, has been named among the 50 best surfers of all time.
Not myself an adventurer, what I found inspiring about her work was the nesting which she did as she traveled. Paddling North is full of useful ways of doing things and thinking about things, a thoroughly rounded story. Its tone is intimate and friendly. Being outdoors all day Sutherland became part of the sea and animal world. “I forgot I was human,” she writes.
