The north wind howled, the bay bent and twisted, mountain islands towered, and the coastal cliffs jutted in jagged ranks. The Zheyang Sea Ship adjusted its sails and navigated the bay with the utmost caution, not daring to go too fast. This rugged, complicated coast was called "Tongass" by the local Tlingit tribes, meaning "windy bay." In later generations, it would inherit the name of the indigenous people and be called Tongass National Forest Park.
Since it was called a "forest park," then it truly was dense with forest and crowded with trees. Green and red filled the eye; high atop the rolling mountain islands along the shore grew straight-soaring redwoods, as well as hard maples that had not yet turned red. The trees between these mountain cliffs were so tall and magnificent that only by looking up from the ship could one barely see their crowns.
These redwoods were usually more than thirty or forty meters tall, packed densely together. And that vast spread of branches cast a faint blue-green reflection over sea and sky alike. Who knew how many winters and summers they had endured to grow from mountain and sea all the way into the clouds?
"Bodhisattva! There are actually so many, so many tall, straight Damu!... Main God as my witness! If these endless Damu before our eyes could be felled, I fear they could build a thousand thousand-liao ocean ships!..."
"Haaha, Main God as my witness! Shipwright Kim, you still haven't seen the redwood great forest along the West Coast, where the Tolowa Tribes are! That stretch of fifty-step-tall Damu all rise like cliffs, their crowns piercing straight into the clouds. And the tallest Giant Divine Tree among them can even reach a hundred steps!..."
"What? A gigantic Divine Tree a hundred steps tall?!... How