Lacking commercial value, this large pine and its ancient brothers eked out a living on poorly drained soil?  They grew while human immigrants clearcut the nearby spruce forest for timber to build towns and a delivery system for water to the Treadwell mines.  A recent drop in temperature firmed up the meadow snow enough to allow my visit to the old guy. He rises out of a bowl shaped depression in the snow formed by heat that radiated from his trunk and that of a court of brush and smaller trees attracted to his eminence.

Aki doesn’t pay homage. She is too charged by access to the snow covered meadow. Most of the time she can control her enthusiasm but once she burst across the meadows’ firm surface, releasing a happy growl. 

A profound silence must have settled over Treadwell after they shut down the last stamp mill.  Aki the poodle-mix, my daughter, and I have silence on today’s walk among the ruins of the old mining complex. Low clouds and fog have grounded all planes and no boats bounce down Gasteneau Channel. It’s a time for remembering.  Aki sniffs the signs left by yesterday’s dog visitors. I look over the channel for the spouts of the pod of killer whales that passed here yesterday; find a nervous harlequin duck flying through the old mine dock pilings. Inside the hard wood forest devouring Treadwell’s ruins, a strip of snow winds around roofless buildings and huge cast iron wheels that once kept the mills running. It’s a comfortable place for ghosts.

On the ninth anniversary of her death, I think of M., a child now forever 14.  My daughter skips flat stones from the beach where they both swam on warm summer afternoons.  M. would have run through the Treadwell trees and explored the ruins. I can almost see her near the fog line, running down the beach in the rain. We who miss M. must look for peace in clouds that mask mountains, comfort in the rain, and escape from sorrow in happy memories of a giggling girl. 

Discouraged by the rain, few skiers use the Montana Creek Trail. Tucked into its steep sided canyon, the trail is holding up while others melt away. We pass two skiers on their way back to the cars and then have the stream side trail to ourselves. I enjoy the black and white peace of a late winter ski and hardly notice the shots booming up stream from the gun range. It’s a sound more fitting for the black and white news reels of war that show guns fired to free the oppressed, not for glory. 

This weekend, Spring began it’s offensive to destroy winter. It’s weapons, above freezing temperatures and heavy rain, have already broken winter’s grip on the beach side forest.  Aki still manages to find a twenty foot wide strip of deep snow between forest and high tide line. To celebrate she does a face plant, then rolls in the wet white stuff.

Even though they were safely huddled far away from the little dog, a murder of crows leaves their rich feeding spot on the tidal flats and flies over our heads, throwing out what must be nasty insults in their native tongue. They land down beach and then spread out in a picket line along the water. Are they expecting the seaward arrival of some tasty treats or just want to deny us access to the seashore?

Rather than attack the crows’ position, I lead Aki along the high tide line where we find great patches of ambulance yellow stains in the snow. When the little dog, a connoisseur of urine, ignores them, I look closer and realize that the yellow flows from severed sea weed. My initial disgust turns to wonder that we happened to be present for this bleeding into the snow.