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any level shore--the land rose precipitously thousands of feet until it became a towering mountain. But where the [[crossed-out]] s [[crossed-out]] shore did show, what a fabulous world of good things it was! There was s small area for swimming at high tide, and a boat launch, and an oyster bed crammed with all the oysters one could want. You just picked them off the rocks--a dozen or 5 dozens in a few minutes. They were as huge as pumpernikel bread. We ate them in as many different ways as one cooks zucchini on Monhegan! And next to the oysters was a tidal flat in which lived the sweetest clams, which me dug for by the pailfuls. We also went deep-sea fishing in a row boat, and in the channel where the water is 250 feet deep, I caught several deep-sea rock cod the color of cadmium red light. We ate salal berries and huckleberries and limpets and sea cucumber and crabs, [[crossed-out]] as [[crossed-out]] and as I took delight in them I though of Monhegan's own bounty--the wild strawberries and raspberries and mussels and pollok and flounder and the lamb's quarters [[crossed-out]] and [[crossed-out]] of Lobster Cove. 

But so much for Vancouver and Japser--you must want to know about Alaska--[[crossed-out]] I [[crossed-out]] and I would want so very much to write you about that fabulous part of our summer. But it is simply impossible to describe that part of the world. The post cards I sent must have made it sound not much more than picturesque, or scenic, at best. I wish I could describe how it affected me. Now, all I can say is that there is on this planet a long coastal passage of such wonder that words, colors, maps, graphs, letters and cards can only barely hint at. The Inside Passage contains every conceivable shape and form, every gradation of dark to light that can possibly exist in our earth's geology. You wake up in the early dawn and there outside the cabin door is a wall of dark crags that blot out the sky. And where the summits should be are cascades of cloudy matter that hurl themselves over the ridges. These are more than clouds forms are more than mountains. And every league the passage reveals new islands and fjords and inlands and other unknowable features, all joined by the shimmering waterway and held together by one's anticipations. Blue glaciers appear unexpectedly in the folds and gorges of peaks and some plunge into the ocean. Sometimes a mountain would be total- green with spruce forests, but the range behind it would be all white with snow and glaciers. 

We had unusually good weather (they tell us) all the way.