Michael Burke has lived countless days on rivers, coasting down tranquil passages and riding roaring waters.

“Within me there’s an affection, a pleasure I get from traveling by river, floating along on the currents,” he said.

But it was one river journey in 1991 that changed his life and brought him in touch with his roots as a river man.

From that journey Burke wrote the book, “The Same River Twice: A Boatman’s Journey Home.” This Saturday there will be a reading event at the Wind and Tide Book Store on Pioneer Way during which people can meet the author and hear his introspective tale of life on a river that touched not only his life, but that of a distant relative and Whidbey pioneer named Sid Barrington.

Threaded throughout “The Same River Twice” is Burke’s decision to take a raft trip that had him floating along British Columbia rivers once traveled by Sid Barrington, “champion swiftwater pilot of the north,” and his brothers Hill and Harry.

Burke took the trek in 1991, a time when his wife was very pregnant and the only companion he could wrangle was someone he barely knew. It was at a time when he’d forgone guiding to focus on his life as a husband, father and academic. He was an 18-year river guide veteran who had stories of his own as wild as him riding the rapids on an LSD trip all while nakedly bobbing downstream, feather earring flapping in the breeze.

But Burke wanted more. The adventure was still out there.

While Burke was born and raised in Concord, Calif., by his parents Geraldine and William Burke, he spent much time on Whidbey during his adolescence. He frequently visited his grandmother Verelle Jungbluth who shared stories with Michael about his links to Whidbey’s pioneering days.

“She’d always tell stories of these amazing people — sea captains and original pioneers,” he said.

One of those stories involved Sydney “Sid” Barrington.

“I remember it was shortly after I’d started guiding she told me ‘your uncle Sid was a river man too,’” he said.

That statement stuck with Burke until he decided to follow that commonality and explore some remote British Columbia areas named for Barrington who had been a successful steamship captain during the Yukon gold rush.

Burke admits the two men are worlds apart. For starters, Barrington’s mother and his great-great-grandmother were sisters.

“The places and times are so far apart,” he said. “And we had totally different environments, myself a raft guide and Sid a river boat captain.”

The book also tells tales from Burke’s now 35-year career as a white water guide.

Burke holds a degree in philosophy and a masters in English. He is currently an associate professor at Colby College in Waterville, Maine.His writings have appeared in publications such as Outside, Islands, The New York Times and Boston Globe

He currently lives in Wilton, Maine with his wife, Patricia and their daughter Harper, 15.

“I plan to take her out on a trip this summer,” Burke said.

It’ll be the first time Burke will float a new river since he decided to raft the unfamiliar in 1991.

“Sometimes I think people think the trip was one that could be replicated,” he said. “It was pretty out there  and hard to make happen. It’d take a lot for it to align again.”

Whether Sid actually said it or passed it down genetically, Burke knows the two share a bond.

“We both have a love for rivers,” he said.