I'm here near the northern tip of Cape Breton Island, in an atmosphere of memorable clarity. Surprisingly, to me, plants are still growing and the land looks almost as lush as it does hundreds of miles south, though the colors of the maples remind you of how late in the year it is. The vegetable gardens are still producing crops, though I suppose that may change in a few days.

Though there is much poverty, the houses and farms are neat, adding to the sense of coming into a more innocent, or at least more dignified, world.

I wish I were here in May to see the icebergs calved off the Greenland Ice Sheet float by off the point here.

The place evokes a Rockwell Kent picture.

--- Robert Whitcomb