Author Bryce Andrews rowed his way up the Salish Sea from Seattle as he got to work on a future book exploring the area’s ecosystem.
Along the way, he’s also encountered plenty of other folks on the water, and Andrews says he’s been struck by their kindness and manifest decency.
“People are often just so willing to share the shelter they have on their boats, willing to share, food and stories and everything.”
People First Radio reached Andrews during a stop in Lund, B.C. He spoke about the overlap between his project looking at the ecosystem and his encounters with people along the way.
“The way we treat the natural world has everything to do with the way we treat each other and the way we interact,” he said. “Those two things to me are inseparable.”
“Being on the water and particularly being approached by somebody in a tiny little boat on the water, a person who’s visibly vulnerable, it brings decency and empathy out of people in a way that, if we could draw out a similar, decency, a similar empathy in regards to the way we treat the natural world around here, I think we would be pretty darn far ahead in terms of, of figuring out some solutions going forward.”
Andrews says he’s “left feeling more hopeful” having seen the various communities he’s visited than he was at the beginning of his trip.
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