far north along the Canadian coastline. Mount Baker lorded over the glinting horizon of the Cascades to our east, highest ice-flame among dozens of ice-flames, while the Olympic range crowded full the sky south and west of us. Dungeness seemed more astounding than ever, a gift of promontory grafted carefully amid the mountains and strait.
The knot on his forehead barely visible beneath his cap bill, hands fisted for warmth into his jacket pockets, the bosunâs mate looked around at this ice-and-water rim of the Pacific Northwest in a quick expert glance, then turned to us.
âIâm a shallow water sailor,â he announced as if introducing himself. âA true coastie.â
The Dungeness light has blinked through a number of hundreds of nights since then, and today in bright sun Carol and I casually prowl the inside shore of the Spit, around to where smaller Graveyard Spit veers off from Dungeness. In outline from the air Dungeness and Graveyard together look like a long wishbone, Graveyard poking shoreward from near the end of Dungeness like the briefer prong of the forked pieces. Out there now just beyond where they join, the lighthouse and outbuildings sit in silhouette against Mount Baker, a white peg and white boxes beside that tremendous tent of mountain.
I am watching for snowy owls. This is a year in their cycle of migration which brings them far south from the Arctic, and we once sighted one here, a wraith of white against the gray driftwood. Pleased with ourselves, we returned to Seattle to discover that another snowy had taken up a roost on a television antenna above a midcity restaurant and half the population had been out to see him. No owl today, nor the blue herons who often stilt along Graveyard Spit.
We stay with the inside shore, the one facing Graveyard. The wild-fowl side, commissary for migrating ducks and brant, as the outward shore is the lagoon for seals who pop up and disappear as abruptly as periscopes. Todayâs find presents itself here on the interior water: a half-dozen eider ducks making their
kor-r-r, kor-r-r
chuckles to each other, then, as if having discussed to agreement, all diving at once.
An edge of ice whitens the shoreline, a first for all the timesâfifty? seventy-five?âwe have come here. Full-dress winter greeted Swan once, in January of 1880:
We arrived in Dungeness harbor at 10 AM and found three feet of snow had fallen during the night. Everything was covered with a white mantle, our boatâs deck was loaded with snow and the light house tower on its north east side had a thick coating from the base to the
lantern. Fog signal house and all the other outbuildings were covered, and the whole scenery of Dungeness Spit and bluff was the most like an Eastern winter of any I have seen in this country.
This afternoon, mountains stand in all directions with the clear loveliness Swan observed during one of his early visitsâ
unobscured by mist or clouds their snowy peaks shone most gloriously.
...Across the Strait at Vancouver Island, where we can see in miniature detail the tallest downtown buildings of twenty-mile-distant Victoria, Swan had marveled at the endless timber
level as a field of wheat, following the undulation of the ground with a regular growth most wonderful for such a dense forest.
How cold the day, but how little wind, not always the case in this restless spot. Swan on an excursion past the Spit on a day in May of 1862:
Stopped for the night at the light house where Mr Blake, the keeper treated me very politely to a supper & a share of his bed.
Next morning:
Left the light house at 3:15 A.M., calm. Passed round the spit where a breeze sprung up which freshened into a squall wth rain. A tremendous surf was breaking on the beach & we for a time were in great peril. But finally we managed to get ashore at Point Angeles where we found shelter....
Dark settles early, the sun spinning southwest into the Olympic Mountains instead of
The knot on his forehead barely visible beneath his cap bill, hands fisted for warmth into his jacket pockets, the bosunâs mate looked around at this ice-and-water rim of the Pacific Northwest in a quick expert glance, then turned to us.
âIâm a shallow water sailor,â he announced as if introducing himself. âA true coastie.â
The Dungeness light has blinked through a number of hundreds of nights since then, and today in bright sun Carol and I casually prowl the inside shore of the Spit, around to where smaller Graveyard Spit veers off from Dungeness. In outline from the air Dungeness and Graveyard together look like a long wishbone, Graveyard poking shoreward from near the end of Dungeness like the briefer prong of the forked pieces. Out there now just beyond where they join, the lighthouse and outbuildings sit in silhouette against Mount Baker, a white peg and white boxes beside that tremendous tent of mountain.
I am watching for snowy owls. This is a year in their cycle of migration which brings them far south from the Arctic, and we once sighted one here, a wraith of white against the gray driftwood. Pleased with ourselves, we returned to Seattle to discover that another snowy had taken up a roost on a television antenna above a midcity restaurant and half the population had been out to see him. No owl today, nor the blue herons who often stilt along Graveyard Spit.
We stay with the inside shore, the one facing Graveyard. The wild-fowl side, commissary for migrating ducks and brant, as the outward shore is the lagoon for seals who pop up and disappear as abruptly as periscopes. Todayâs find presents itself here on the interior water: a half-dozen eider ducks making their
kor-r-r, kor-r-r
chuckles to each other, then, as if having discussed to agreement, all diving at once.
An edge of ice whitens the shoreline, a first for all the timesâfifty? seventy-five?âwe have come here. Full-dress winter greeted Swan once, in January of 1880:
We arrived in Dungeness harbor at 10 AM and found three feet of snow had fallen during the night. Everything was covered with a white mantle, our boatâs deck was loaded with snow and the light house tower on its north east side had a thick coating from the base to the
lantern. Fog signal house and all the other outbuildings were covered, and the whole scenery of Dungeness Spit and bluff was the most like an Eastern winter of any I have seen in this country.
This afternoon, mountains stand in all directions with the clear loveliness Swan observed during one of his early visitsâ
unobscured by mist or clouds their snowy peaks shone most gloriously.
...Across the Strait at Vancouver Island, where we can see in miniature detail the tallest downtown buildings of twenty-mile-distant Victoria, Swan had marveled at the endless timber
level as a field of wheat, following the undulation of the ground with a regular growth most wonderful for such a dense forest.
How cold the day, but how little wind, not always the case in this restless spot. Swan on an excursion past the Spit on a day in May of 1862:
Stopped for the night at the light house where Mr Blake, the keeper treated me very politely to a supper & a share of his bed.
Next morning:
Left the light house at 3:15 A.M., calm. Passed round the spit where a breeze sprung up which freshened into a squall wth rain. A tremendous surf was breaking on the beach & we for a time were in great peril. But finally we managed to get ashore at Point Angeles where we found shelter....
Dark settles early, the sun spinning southwest into the Olympic Mountains instead of
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