If Aki knew the word’s meaning, she might have considered my targeting of this mountain meadow counterintuitive. For the first time in days, sunshine reached Chicken Ridge where we sleep and store Aki’s kibble. From the house, I could see sun hammering a meadow we often visit. Instead I drove us here, where clouds still grayed the light.

Like any dog, Aki likes to laze in the sun, but since clouds don’t dampen scent she happily patrols the trail, snout to the ground, tail raised. She ignores the water bugs that use surface tension to skate over little ponds, making bursting runs between lily pads and stalks of British tobacco. Because another dog did it before her, she pees on the splayed out skunk cabbage plants, doesn’t think twice about the rich yellows and browns that have replace the richer greens of spring as the plant’s roots suck back summer nutrients. The dog pays no attention to the cloud fragments pulled by an invisible form off the meadow and up the sides of forested hills as if they were children reluctant to leave a playground.

         You see little dog, the rising clouds are the clue. They promise fractures of blue in the gray sky and maybe shafts of light to startle the water bugs and enrich the growing patches of fall color that surround pond and watercourses.

Aki and I are back on the glacial moraine. So is the rain. The experts promise us five inches of precipitation before Friday. The heavy rain works it usual magic, flushing the trails clean of other people. Raindrops beat out a steady, but not too pushy tattoo on my rain gear and make the trailside willow leaves dance. They force my attention down, where most of today’s beauty and drama can be found. I want to stop and study the fallen cottonwood leaves, each a flame shaped abstract of yellows, greens and browns. But Aki lacks the patience. She pushes on down the trail to Crystal Lake where the Labradors swim after owner tossed toys. I hang back to photograph some leaves and a huge mushroom that muscles its way out of the ground moss.

         The little dog’s annoyance increases when I break trail to check out the little forest burn. After two or three years of desolation, a carpet of green lupine, some supporting stalks of deep blue flowers, now covers the blackened ground. Nothing can be done for the young spruce and cottonwood trees that were left dead but standing by the fire. Someday, new trees will grow in ashes enriched by fallen lupine and willows leaves. They just need patience, sunshine, and a reliable supply of rain.

Poor Aki. This is the second adventure taken without the little dog. Yesterday she stayed home while my daughter and I paddled the double kayak around Sphun Island. The morning fog burned off by the time we launched from Fritz Cove Road and paddled up a channel reduced by the ebbing tide. Aki would have whined when we rounded a point and met a long line of swells that rocked the boat like a mother rocks her cradle.

Bright sun simplified the colors of sea and land and sky. A child could have captured them with crayons. You’d need a few more crayons to reproduce the view this morning from the side of Mt. Roberts. We can see part of the route we kayaked yesterday, reduced by distances to a tiny part of our view shed. My daughter, Aki’s other human and I pick low bush blue berries, stopping to watch a mountain goat move along the side of Bear Valley or the ravens’ acrobatic show high above Gastineau Channel. We also watched cruise ship tourists struggling up the steep trail in their ship wear. They seem shocked to be surrounded by berries—the kind they eat in their cereal at home. Some sample them, like they might a piece of smoked salmon at Taku Smokeries. One guy in Boston Red Sox regalia tells his wife, “Well they are blueberries, not Massachusetts berries mind you, but they are berries.” At least he tried them.

This could be a story about what Aki does not do. She does not bother the people roasting marshmallows over a fire they built down beach from us. She doesn’t swim after a pink salmon that jumps just off shore. The little dog doesn’t even rub her back against one of the rotting dog salmon caucuses that dot this shore of Smuggler’s Cove.

While I impale a fancy version of a tofu pup on a metal rod, she whines next to her orange Frisbee. She nudges my leg with her nose until I pick up her toy and fling it for her to chase. Her other humans and I manage to cook and eat a healthy hot dog meal while she takes turns asking each of us to throw the Frisbee.

After dinner we talk, and throw Aki’s toy, and watch lambs wool clouds descend on the Chilkat Range. Holes form in the clouds that reveal blue sky, summer sun, and sometimes release shafts of light that light the sea and sky with a focused beam.

I had to swerve my bike around a dog salmon carcass today. It lay on the Glacier Highway bike path, not far from Walmart, where a bear had dropped it. The bear took a bite out of its head and belly before leaving it for me to run over. An opportunistic feeder, the black bear did not stop to wonder at the fish’s presence in a stream that meanders through a trailer park. He didn’t know about the great circle route the salmon had to swim before offering himself as a quick snack.

Two years ago, tens of thousands dog salmon smolt wandered down Gastineau Channel, though the Alexander Archipelago to the Pacific Ocean. Serving first as prey and then the predators, those most fit or lucky grew into eight or ten pound fish. When their biological alarm clocks made it impossible to remain at sea, they returned to Southeast Alaska. Driven by the need to procreate, the deceased fish I jigged around today avoided nets, killer whales, sea lions, seals, and hooks to reach his home waters at the trailer park, only to end up as bear food and finally, a road impediment.

This evening, after the bike ride, my family and I watched hundreds of gulls on the Sheep Creek delta, all bright white in low angled light, wait for thousands of dog salmon to die. No bear arrived to interrupt the fish’s efforts to mate. The gulls were content to let them finish before starting their picnic.

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While Aki walks with the rest of her family to Nugget Falls, happy for a chance to hang with one of her favorite canine buddies, a friend and I kayak Mendenhall Lake. The sun breaks out, showing itself to Juneau for the first time in at least a week. It burns cloud remnants away from the Mendenhall towers until it can shine directly on the glacier. We beach the boat and search for low bush blueberries. There are plenty of berry plants but few have fruit. Maybe their berries were eaten by the black bear that left its tracks on the beach a short time ago.

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