The Nixon and Ford Administrations, 1972–1977
All morning they made their way southeastwards down the strait between Canada and the United States, taking continuous bearings through the periscope, keeping a running plot at the chart table and changing course many times. They saw little change on shore, except in one place on Vancouver Island near Jordan River where a huge area on the southern slopes of Mount Valentine seemed to have been burned and blasted. . . . [I]n it no vegetation seemed to grow although the surface of the ground seemed undisturbed. . . .
Soon after midday they were off Port Townsend and turning southwards into Puget Sound. They went on . . . and in the early afternoon they came to the mainland at the little town of Edmonds, fifteen miles north of the centre of Seattle. They were well past the mine defenses by that time. From the sea the place seemed quite undamaged, but the radiation level was still high.
—NEVIL SHUTE, ON THE BEACH