From under the Egan Highway bridge over Lemon Creek, Aki and I watch more than 30 bald eagles occupy an island in the creek. I know they landed there to sulk after having just been chased away from the dump. But because one eagle has situated itself on a piece of driftwood above the others, I image her a preacher and the rest, the congregation.

Bald Eagles should be seen soaring all rugged mountain ridges, not hunkered together between city dump and high-speed highway. But, as the locals know, city dumps and streambeds littered with dead salmon are the best places to see the carrion eaters.

The eagle preacher lowers her beak as the more restless members of her congregation fly to trees on the other side of the creek. Others follow and the church reforms on a meadow dotted with the cement bases of WWII era radio antennas.

Aki and head cross back under the bridge and walk onto the wetlands, now dominated by ravens. In the distance, an immature bald eagle rests on a driftwood root-wad perch, holding its wings out to dry. A mature eagle with white head and tail feathers shares the same root wad. Now I imagine a counseling session that breaks up when the little dog and I approach.

Years ago, when living in Ketchikan, I asked two Tlingit elders the names of some trees that smelled in Spring like church incense. “Balm of Gilead trees,” they answered. The memory seems fresh as new growth as Aki and I walk through the Treadwell ruins, now dominated by balsam poplar incense and the songs of American robins. Any residual sadness a person brought to this forest would surely ebb away before reaching the site of the mine collapse. I wonder if someone in the Ketchikan Tlingit community gave the poplars that descriptive name after hearing the old Balm of Gilead spiritual:

There is a balm in Gilead,

To make the wounded whole;

There is power enough in heaven,

To cure a sin-sick soul.

I forgot how this trail to the mouth of Mendenhall River affects Aki. It seems to rob her of confidence, even on a sunny spring day when no shotgun blasts compete with the complaints of eagles, ravens, and ducks. She stations herself at my heels and gives me her, “It is time to turn back” stare every time I look in her direction.

I start to lose confidence in my ability to photograph wild things when my camera refuses to focus on bald eagles as they dive on fish in the river. I do fine when the big, white-headed birds pose between fishing expeditions. But all but one of the bird-in-action pics look shaky. In the discarded ones I can still make out the way the eagle’s wings twist and bend as it positions itself over it prey.

Across the river, another human is flushing ducks and ravens toward us. He watches some drama at the tip of a disappearing spit. I see a great splash off the spit, but not what caused it. Now as frustrated as the little dog, I head back into the forest, clicking one last picture of the glacier reflected in the river for which it is named.