Genre:

Essay, Travelogue, Serial

Subjects:

Exploration, Geology, Popularization, Imagination, Reading, Glaciology

    While travelling along the rocky coastline of Labrador in Northern Canada in a one-man canoe, the narrator reflects that 'Geologists would have much to tell about the granites, gneiss, traps, basalts, and porphyries that generally compose the coast. But the general reader needs chiefly to imagine all these rocks heaved up along the sea' with 'varied forms in some places set off by veins and strata of strong colors [...]. With these features in mind, he sees Labrador' (656). Also proclaims that 'I have never seen anything more rare and fascinating than icebergs', and describes the ever-changing 'polar sculpture' of the region which is created by the constant fracturing of 'these strange shy phantoms of the north' (664).