After exploring the Sumdum and Tahkoo fiords and their glaciers, we
sailed through Stephen's Passage into Lynn Canal and thence through Icy
Strait into Cross Sound, searching for unexplored inlets leading toward
the great fountain ice-fields of the Fairweather Range. Here, while the
tide was in our favor, we were accompanied by a fleet of icebergs
drifting out to the ocean from Glacier Bay. Slowly we paddled around
Vancouver's Point, Wimbledon, our frail canoe tossed like a feather on
the massive heaving swells coming in past Cape Spenser. For miles the
sound is bounded by precipitous mural cliffs, which, lashed with
wave-spray and their heads hidden in clouds, looked terribly threatening
and stern. Had our canoe been crushed or upset we could have made no
landing here, for the cliffs, as high as those of Yosemite, sink sheer
into deep water. Eagerly we scanned the wall on the north side for the
first sign of an opening fiord or harbor, all of us anxious except
Stickeen, who dozed in peace or gazed dreamily at the tremendous
precipices when he heard us talking about them.
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