 Carbon, a building block of life. It's one of the most important and common elements in the world, and it's found just about everywhere on Earth. Most carbon is locked up in soils, rocks, and the deep ocean, but some is constantly moving around and getting used in countless ways. The soils of the North Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest are especially rich in organic carbon, and this dynamic coast offers many possible routes for it to travel down into the ocean where it has the potential to significantly affect the water and life within. But not much is known about what exactly happens when organic carbon moves from freshwater sources to ocean along this coastline. Some monthly surface water samples were collected over the course of three years to study organic carbon across time and space. Water samples were also collected during two rainstorms. It's now clear more dissolved organic carbon washes into the ocean here than almost any other coastline on Earth. Despite this, the amount of organic carbon coming into the ocean from freshwater sources in this region is small relative to that created by microscopic plants and other organisms living in the ocean. But it's a defining feature of near shore surface waters during the fall and winter months when there is more rain and limited primary production. Summer storms also pump significant amounts of organic carbon into the ocean, a boon to microbes living there. Creating an important, though probably short-term connection between the coastal temperate rainforest and the near shore surface water environment. More research is needed to deepen our understanding of the role of freshwater sources of organic carbon in the coastal waters of the Northeast Pacific. Further work is especially important as climate change has the potential to increase the amount of freshwater running into the ocean, boosting these carbon connections between land and ocean.