Stephens Passage is a long stretch of dark water filling the gap between mountain ranges in Southeast Alaska. The water is deadly cold and rich with sea life. Fog and low clouds usually hang in the Passage, which is an arm of the Pacific. Fjords with emerald rivers pour in and it is lined with conifers, blue stone and rocky hollows. It rains often. It is indescribably beautiful. In Stephens Passage, on a chilly day, with low-hanging fog,here is what you can see: pods of Orca knifing through brackish inlets; humpback whales, their flukes high, plunging towards the ocean floor; clear water gushing from crevasses; a brown bear with three cubs scouring the beaches for salmon remains; blue glaciers calving into bays with rifle-shot thunder; harbor seal; bald eagles; hundreds of birds, their calls filling the air. The wilderness almost inviolate.