This book contains ten paddling adventure stories that take place in locations across the US and Canada. In each location, the author is surrounded by nature offering whatever conditions the natural world presents. Sometimes they are beautiful, offering deep transcendent moments, but at other times the author is cold, wet, frightened, or driven mad by swarms of bugs. These trials are the dues paid to experience a glorious sunrise over a salt marsh, or to watch manatees playing in the shallows, or to hear the muttering of a group of Ibis foraging along the shore of a beautiful river. The stories show one man’s attempt to regain a deep connection with the natural world through wilderness experiences that challenge, frighten, confound, and glorify, in the hope that his adventures may inspire others to experience the same.