The act of sketching changes how I perceive the world around me. My sketches become visual missives from my daily discoveries. Some are life-changing realizations — life lessons from the brush tip. Others illustrate a heightened awareness of the details around us. But you know what happens next: some pictures lead to a thousand words. And this blog.

As a kid, I absolutely detested everything related to science. Yet, because I loved outdoor adventure, I toyed with a natural history major in college as a way to work outside. This inclination wouldn’t last; on a rainy field trip to diagram glacial layers in a Minnesota gravel pit — yes, in a gravel pit, not even on a dramatic mountain scarp — I ditched the idea for good. I decided that I wasn’t curious enough. And I certainly had no interest in quantitative documentation.

This is the first panel of a 22” by 30” fold-out sequence, recently created entirely outside on a six-week kayak trip. My husband Ben and I paddled out of Ketchikan on April 20, determined to experience the Tongass in the first flush of spring. We planned to taste wild edibles when they are sweetest and skip the bugs. I expected a relaxed project of documenting plants at first sighting. By the time I reached Wrangell at the end of May, I had many unexpected lessons about Tong