midnight
PART ONE It was just striking three as I came up the companion-stairs on to the deck of the Cottage City , into the clear topaz light of a June morning in Alaska : light that had not failed through all the night , for in this far northern latitude the sun only just dips beneath the horizon at midnight for an hour , leaving all the earth and sky still bathed in limpid yellow light , gently paling at that mystic time and glowing to its full glory again as the sun rises above the rim . Our steamer had left the open sea and entered the Taku Inlet , and we were steaming very slowly up it , surrounded on every side by great glittering blocks of ice , flashing in the sunshine as they floated by on the buoyant blue water . How blue it was , the colouring of sea and sky ! Both were so vividly blue , the note of each so deep , so intense , one seemed almost intoxicated with colour .