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Compiled in no order other than as I remembered them, this list reminded me I’ve been reading paddling books long before I ever owned IKs and packrafts. Or should I say, I was always into paddle adventures, but the reality of owning a hardshell was never an option.
Then inflatable packboats came on my radar and here we are many years later, full of hot and cold air. My own Packrafting and IK titles banged out during Lockdown were both produced with the knowledge and experiences contained in all the books below.
Some reviews have exceed the full span of my piscean memory, but all remain in print, used, on e-book and even audio. Used prices are UK based; some may be found cheaper abroad.
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The Dangerous River: Adventure on the Nahanni
R. M. Patterson
1953

I found this one while reminding myself what I’ve read over the years and apparently it’s the definitive Canadian canoe classic.
Born in 1898, after serving late in WW1 Raymond Patterson left a cozy London bank job in 1924 for a life of adventure in Canada, perhaps like a lot of traumatised young men in that post-war era (thougb this is not mentioned). After building a ranch in Alberta, between 1927 and 1929 he explored, trapped then built a cabin (with a pal) and over-wintered up the Nahanni with a canoe to carry the loads. The account was written 25 years later, based on detailed diaries.
Besides being a great writer, what strikes you is the uncanny endurance and sheer competence in dealing with the many dangers of terrain, wildlife and climate and pioneer tools. And a fair bit of luck which many others lost in the Nahanni ran out of but gave the place its reputation. Poling a loaded canoe upriver took days what could be reversed in hours. Supplies getting low, head out and shoot a moose, butcher it, then build a cache platform on truncated trees and let it all freeze.
Adventure aside, the motivation seems to have been trapping animals of all sorts for their furs and making a killing flogging the pelts in Fort Simpson, just before the ’29 crash. A bit of idle prospecting is hinted at too, based on the Headless Valley legend and that this was one way of getting to the Klondike which came and went only 30 years earlier. It’s thrilling stuff – more adventure than paddling yarn – and ends with a gruelling, 400-mile mid winter trek to Fort Simpson along the mostly frozen Nahanni after his pal is overdue returning with supplies.
A couple of quotes which stood out for me.
“The Dangerous River tells of trips made in the North just before the aeroplane made all places accessible to any kind of man… Those of us who had the good fortune to be on the South Nahanni in those last days of the old North may, in times of hunger or hardship, have cursed the day we ever heard the name of that fabled river.  Yet a treasure was ours in the end:  memories of a carefree time and an utter and absolute freedom which the years cannot dim nor the present age provide… we were kings, lords of all we surveyed.”
Foreword to 1966 Canadian edition

So there are cows here. Thank God, then, that I had had sense enough to camp on the far bank. My Lord, I thought, back to cows! And as I ate my supper by the fire I grieved for the clean northern country that I was leaving, for I knew, even then, that nothing could ever bring back the, or give again, the wonder of that vanished summer.

I can’t recall where my paddling fascination with the Nahanni started, possibly seeing the 1958 film Headless Valley (below) before realising it was potentially doable in an IK. The Nahanni’s mystique is catered by organised tours which cost thousands last time I looked. ‘No one paddles the Nahanni alone‘ but years ago I plotted the logistics of getting to Moose Ponds for the full sweep down to Nahanni Butte. The crux is getting off and portaging before you tip to your death over the 300-foot Virginia Falls (right) which lead the the towering Gates narrows featured on the cover of most editions of Patterson’s book. Below the Falls is where most tours set off from, but way back in 2011, at the dawn of packrafting in Europe, this intrepid Swede went all the way.
The Wind River was another far northern Canadian, fly-in, paddle-out adventure which looked intriguing. Sadly, not all my plans leave the launch pad. I’ll have to settle for recollections of a sodden motorbiking trip we did in 2001 which took us over the Rocky’s watershed into the NWT on the western slopes to the Little Nahanni at the Flat River watershed, getting as far as we could get. 
Good 2025 article on BBC Travel, doing Nahanni the easy way, and a nice family vid from the 1970s and a 1962 doc of Albert Faille who lived in a cabin of the Flat River tributary for decades.
Used from $40-1000 (rare in the UK), kindle £6.

Argonauts of the Western Isles
Robin Lloyd-Jones
1989
Elegiac memoir of a life paddling Scotland’s magical west coast; the title alone is compelling, if not the original paperback’s ‘spirit paddlers’ cover. I’ve done a few laps of the goldfish bowl since, so can’t remember much more, but loads of episodes over many decades in various Hebridean locales and highly recommended if you know or like Scotland. ‘A wonderful tale that covers years of paddling … from post-war bathtubs and broomsticks, to the start of the sea kayaking boom‘ I wrote at the bottom of this page.
Since republished as Argonauts of the Scottish Isles (2022) with a much better cover and five additional chapters. That gotta be worth six quid.
Both editions used from £6; new edition kindle £8.

Blazing Paddles: A Scottish Coastal Odyssey
Brian Wilson
1989
Along with Paul Caffyn’s exponentially greater epic (see below), you wonder was there something in the water in the 1980s which affected certain men? The year is 1985 and aged just 22, Brian Wilson zipped up his clammy wetsuit and set off to paddle 1800 miles around Scotland, from Solway to Berwick. Kayak and nav gear would have been pretty basic which makes the adventure along Britain’s finest coastline all the more gripping. I write a bit more about the book here; it succeeded in putting me off sea kayaking for life! Interview here with Simon Willis – both have great voices for audio!
Used from £3

A Long Trek Home: 4000 Miles by Boot, Raft and Ski
Erin McKittrick 
2009
In 2010 I took my first, lip-chewing overnight packrafting expedition into the depth of the uncharted Scottish west coast in my new Alpacka Denali Llama. Keen to learn more of their potential, I’m pretty sure A Long Trek Home, published just a year earlier, was the first proper packrafting adventure on land, sea (and snow) from Seattle, 4000 miles up and around to the outer Aleutians. Using some home-made gear which caused online controversy with the know-alls, I recall an early episode when they drift into ice floes in the dark, and one of the finale chapters on an Aleutian island after a bear clawed big shreds out of one packraft. As they’d done over the months to get to that point, Erin and Hig calmly set about sewing and taping up the tears and paddled on to settle in Alaska.
New paperback/audio £15, kindle £10, used only in the US

Voyageur: Across the Rocky Mountains in a Birchbark Canoe
Robert Twigger
2008
I wasn’t so impressed with Robert Twigger’s Saharan stunt, pushing a trolley through the Western Desert, but this was a great read. Twigger and his pals go full ‘Ray Mears’, not only building a birchbark canoe straight off a tree, but then setting off to retrace Alexander Mackenzie’s pioneering 1793 continental traverse, paddling, portaging and lining over the Rockies’ watershed to the Pacific. Fur hats raised to a true adventure!
Used from £3, kindle £5

The Dreamtime Voyage – Around Australia Kayak Odyssey
Paul Caffyn
1994
Self-published, well illustrated and lacking only good maps (iirc; I tried to follow on Google Maps), this account of Kiwi Paul Caffyn’s 10,000-mile, year-long voyage in 1982 must be the ultimate hardcore coastal sea kayaking caper. Caffyn went on to tackle many more sea kayaking epics with little recognition outside the paddling community where he’s in a class of his own. Being familiar with the north and west coasts, to me this gruelling combination of cyclones, hunger, sharks, snakes, crocs, the Kimberley’s vicious 12-m tides, and unbroken, multi-day stages along the cliffs of the Great Australian Bight takes the biscuit. Paul Caffyn’s website.
Now sold in the UK from £32, can be much higher used.
Want to read something similar for free? Try Kimberley Challenge from the late 80s by Ozzie Terry Bolland with a similarly extreme paddling CV to Caffyn.

River: One Man’s Journey Down the Colorado, Source to Sea 
Colin Fletcher
1998

I read this before I got into packboats which must prove I’ve had a curiosity for paddle adventures. How auspicious. In 1989 aged no less than 67, Welsh-born Colin Fletcher – an ex-WW2 commando later known as the father of backpacking for his 1968 guide, The Complete Walker (right) – puts his raft in close to the Colorado’s source in Wyoming, and keeps going for 6 months and 1700 miles to the Sea of Cortez. You can pretty much guarantee doing this will produce memorable episodes and encounters. Ironically, after navigating the Grand Canyon’s rapids and days of flatwater headwinds, as he approaches the estuary, so much water has been abstracted that the mighty Colorado never quite reaches the sea. Short bio here, and there’s even a full bio: Walking Man: The Secret Life of Colin Fletcher.
Used from £6; new paperback from £14

The Practical Guide to Kayaking and Canoeing
Bill Mattos
2002
Getting into IKs in 2005 following a memorable baptism of spume on Idaho’s Salmon river, this big format and well illustrated book was an easily digestible introduction to the ways of the blade: essential gear, techniques and know-how and all the pursuits you can follow with a paddle. It predated packrafts and had virtually nothing on IKs, both which still remain marginal in the UK. The author was more into hairboating, but stuff like anticipating eddies and the dangers of weirs are all well explained. There must be loads of similar books – and by now, videos – but even if dated, for a couple of quid used online it’s still a useful intro to hardshell kayaking and canoeing.
Used from £3, there was another edition in 2015.

White Water Massif Central
Peter Knowles
2002
Along with Bill Mattos’ book above, White Water Massif Central was my second great paddlebook discovery and something to which an easily portable packboat was well suited – not that you’d know that from reading White Water which is very shuttle oriented. The author is a well know old school expedition leader and instructor, but the scary title rarely gets any more kinetic than the original’s front cover. Over the years I ticked off just about all the book’s major rivers. There’s more about paddling in southern France here.
In 2018 it was republished as the internet friendly Best Canoe Trips in the South of France, with a couple of additional small rivers but, along with the absurdly faked cover slapping on a SUP and ironing out off-putting riffles, I thought it a missed opportunity to drag the book into the 21st century. Still, either edition offers a great spread of thrilling and packboat friendly rivers. My detailed review here.
Used from £6, current paperback £19.

The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us
Nick Hayes
2020
Getting into freshwater paddling in England and Wales, you can’t help becoming a bit political about the lamentable access situation compared to the Continent, or even just enlightened Scotland, where rivers are (or have become) rights of way since immemorial times.
Illustrated by the author and mostly concerned with land access, this is still an engaging read on how, since Norman times and again following the Enclosures from the 18th century onwards, the right to access England’s land and rivers has been lost. Several exciting accounts of actual trespass liven things up, and it’s possible the boat-living author owned an IK himself.
Used from £4, new paperback £9, kindle £8, audio.

Barbed Wire Babushkas : A River Odyssey Across Siberia
Paul Grogan
2004

You can’t beat getting stuck into a big-arsed river and Russia’s Amur winds its way across far eastern Siberia for nearly east for 4500 km before spilling into the Sea of Okhotsk, opposite Sakhalin island. Paul Grogan and a pal drag their boats as close to the source as possible in Mongolia’s northern mountains, then release the brakes all the way to the Pacific. Not one of the classics in this list, it’s still enjoyable to read about a place you’ll never paddle and challenges you’ll never face.
Used from £3.

Moderate Becoming Good Later:  Sea Kayaking the Shipping Forecast
Toby Carr, Katie Carr
2023

Recommended by a friend who’d recently rediscovered sea kayaking and, like The Salt Path, still top of the paddling charts on amazon, this is the sad tale of Toby Carr who set out in 2018 to paddle in all 31 Shipping Forecast regions (right) before his congenital illness overtook him. Carr managed to kayak 16 out of 31 regions; his sister, Katie, then paddled 11 more, skipping seabound Sole, Bailey, Dogger and Forties. Some episodes felt a bit box ticky; you can’t help feeling it was an irresistible concept, but I finally learned the word ‘Utsire’ and where it was. Toby Carr died in 2022, aged just 40. The book was written from Toby’s notes by Katie Carr.
Used from £3, new paperback £8, kindle £1

Paddling North: A Solo Adventure Along the Inside Passage
Audrey Sutherland
2018
Hats off and paddles raised to pioneer IK adventurer Audrey Sutherland who over several summers and well into her 80s, paddled Alaska’s Inside Passage to Skagway in a Semperit IK. As far as I know this is the only unabashedly IK travelogue out there. Audrey also wrote Paddling Hawaii and Paddling My Own Canoe. You can read my full review of Paddling North here.
Used from £4, new paperback from £12, kindle £7, audio.

The Bombard Story
Alain Bombard
1953
Neither IK or packraft, canoe or sea kayak, Alain Bombard set off across the Atlantic in a rib to prove one could survive at sea indefinitely drinking seawater and eating marine life.
A bold and daring experiment: read the full story here.
Free online, used from £5.

Rivières Nature en France
Laurent Nicolet
2021
Yes, it’s in French and I can’t pretend to read French like… a book. But there are so many well detailed-, fully illustrated- and clearly mapped ideas in here – 100 routes covering 2500km – that this is your bible for exploring France by paddle. All are freshwater excursions and almost all in the more interesting and warmer southern half of the country. And if you’re fond of your Gumotex IKs (as some people are), then just about every page shows a Gumo IK, canoe or raft splashing about.
Read my full review here.

We, the Navigators, the Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific
David Lewis
1972
How on earth were the islands of the vast Pacific populated long before humans even reached New Zealand in about 1001AD? (and all, genetically emanating fromTaiwan). Paul Lewis explains the many combined techniques he tested with old-time Pacific Islanders half a century ago: sun and especially stars, but also winds, refracted waves, the nature of the swell, bird types, water colour and so on, used before any sign of land came into view.
Unfortunately, although the author had lapped the planet in a catamaran, and sailed 2000 miles across the Pacific a la polynésien, the first edition I got read like a repurposed thesis (the research was funded by an Australian Uni), rather than the thrilling read it could have been, but it’s still an amazing story that might get explained better. Or just scan the Wiki summary to get the idea. A second edition was published in 1994. Hopefully a better read.
Free online pdf, new from £27, used from £20.

Sea Kayaker’s Deep Trouble: True Stories and Their Lessons from Sea Kayaker Magazine 
Matt Broze
1997
While set on the Washington coastline, this is a compelling study of accident reports and survivors’ recollections on all the many ways things can go wrong while sea kayaking. A must read for all in that game, you’ll come out a lot wiser. The sequel Sea Kayaker’s More Deep Trouble had more of the same but is also a bit pricey new.
Used from £5, new paperback £18.

On my to read pile…

The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific
Paul Theroux
1992
I read and enjoyed a few of the acerbic Theroux’s travelogues many years ago, but so far Happy Isles has passed me by. Theroux doesn’t really ‘paddle the Pacific’ like Caffyn might have done. As far as I know he covered relatively short hops between island groups in an unmentioned Klepper folder, gathering stories as he went. Theroux + tropical sea kayaking = something worth a look.
Used from £1, new £14, kindle £8.