One insistent reporter kept prodding: OK, sure they learned about bears and mosquitoes and wild seas and tidal rips, but what larger lessons about life were they learning? And Peter responded, flashing that great grin which is his illustrious trademark, "The importance of the rear." (In other words, there can never be too much padding for rowing more than a thousand miles while sliding back and forth on a small metal seat.)

More seriously, he added, "I have also learned that men needn't despair at the lack of new frontiers."

The most impressive feature of Peter's boyish good looks is his wonderful smile. He is a hail- fellow-well-met, willing to lend a helping hand. Still, there's a cer-tain rebelliousness in his spirit. He sports the rumpled Ivy League look with loose-fitting clothes, crumpled button-down Oxford shirts and ties askew. He hates brushing his hair. But he loves stirring the pot, asking casual questions that drop like bombshells.

Peter without a telephone is like a fish out of water. Once this was a hardship on long wilder-ness trips. But now he has a marine radio so he can dial his friends from wherever he ends up-whether he's at the top of Mount Jumbo across from the city of Juneau or bobbing around in his boat out in the Gulf of Alaska.

He loves being in the information flow and at home gets a kind of perverse delight at subjecting himself and any guests to a nonsensical media blitz. He'll turn on the television and radio and read the newspaper while at the same time talking on the telephone and trying to cook some gourmet Thai oddity like a garlic and pineapple hors d'oeuvre called "flaming galloping horses."