Oonalaska is like a human hand spread out, with the fingers northeast,
the arm end down seventy miles long toward Oomnak Island. The entire
broken coast probably reaches a circuit of over two hundred miles.
Down the centre and out each spur are high volcanic mountains, two of
them smoking volcanoes, all pitted with caves and hot springs whose
course can be traced in winter by the runnels of steam {85} down the
mountain side. On the south side, reefs line all approach. North,
east, and west are countless abrupt inlets opening directly into the
heart of the mountains down whose black cliffs shatter plumes of spray
and cataract. Not a tree grows on the island. From base to summit the
hills are a velvet sward, willow shrubs the size of one's finger, grass
waist high, and such a wealth of flowers--poppy fields, anemones,
snowdrops, rhododendrons--that one might be in a southern climate
instead of close proximity to frozen zones. Fogs wreathe the island
three-quarters of the time; and though snow lies five feet deep in
winter, and such blizzards riot in from the north as would tear trees
up by the roots, and drive all human beings to their underground
dwellings, it is never cold, never below zero, and the harbors are
always open.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124