Because she sings the saddest blues while on the car deck of an Alaskan Marine Highway ferry, Aki isn’t with us in Haines Junction, Yukon Territory. We miss her and the sunshine that usually warms us during our visits to the Yukon. Instead we have had a steady dose of rain. Rather than dampen the fall color, the wet weather seems to bring an intensity to the yellow and orange poplar leaves.

We saw our first sunshine here in Haines Junction—five minute bursts that make it almost impossible to look at the glistening leaves. Instead I turn the camera on my mobile device on a stream with yellowing grass borders that drains a marsh.