Monthly Archives: November 2016

Treadwell

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Treadwell in the rain is a peaceful place. Thanks to the hardwood forest already established among the mining ruins, storm winds can’t reach Aki and I. She tends to spook on days like this and I wonder, again whether dogs can see ghosts. There should be plenty of them here where just over 100 years ago tunnels running under Gastineau Channel collapsed and flooded out the mine. Before that, it would have been a place for me to avoid—crowded and dominated by the pounding noise of machines crushing the gold out of ore.

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I would have mourned the clear cutting of the original old growth forest and felt sorry for the Chinese immigrants who struggled to dig the ten mile long ditch needed to deliver mountain water to the mining town. I would also have admired the iron workers who cast the large gears needed to process ore. Today, the gears lay sprawled at the base of spruce and cottonwoods, mining cars waits for the forest to close in, and the only noise is made by a bossy Stellar Jay.

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No No No November

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After twenty-fives years in the rain forest, I should be used to grey, wet fall days like the one that challenges Aki and I today. But we just enjoyed the driest October in history, which makes it hard to accept the return of normal fall time weather. November is shaping up to be the usual festival of cold, wet rain and wind.

The little dog and I have Eagle Beach to ourselves. A high tide floods over the river sandbars and pushes river water over the meadow. We have little to look at—no birds, no glaciers, no mountains—just November gloom.

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Old Friends

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Today, Aki and I walk with an old friend on a beach trail we have taken many times. The little dog likes it that the friend always walks by my side. We are the perfect charges for a herder like Aki because we heard ourselves.

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A strong autumn sun lights up the dog wood leaves and the party colors of an ever-present raft of harlequin ducks. My friend and I talk about people we know and those we knew who have passed. Mostly, it’s a conversation as bright as the sunlit dogwood leaves but when we stop to watch a hermit thrush watch us, the mood darkens. Words, not the bird’s appearance bring the change: those that acknowledge loss. But they are followed by shared, happy memories of the man who would have loved seeing the thrush. 3

Comfort Zones

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As we round False Outer Point I spot an immature bald eagle perched on a nearby rock. Expecting it to fly off, I take a few pictures of the bird even though it is backlit. The big bird slowly turns it head right, then left but doesn’t move. The topography forces us to come within fifty feet of the eagle, well within our eagles’ usual privacy zone. Bur this one is still on its rock when we pass through the choke point and reach the next headland. “What’s the deal with this eagle, little dog?” She ignores me like she did the eagle.

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We keep moving to make it around a series of headlands before the tide floods the trail home. Around the last one, another eagle squats on an offshore rock. This one flies off before I can find the right setting on the camera. But ten feet away, a tiny sparrow preens on a surf-rounded rock.

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