Monthly Archives: February 2018

Back to the Gray

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Holes formed this morning in the impenetrable gray curtain that had hid Mt. Juneau from sight, revealing flanks of freshly flocked spruce trees. I loaded Aki into the car for the short drive to Sheep Creek. The little dog shoots down the beach, now frozen sand covered with two inches of firm snow.

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For once no eagles sulk in the beachside trees to discomfort her. I follow her down the beach, happy to see portions of the Douglas Island ridge highlighted by sunlight. Otherwise, Paynes gray is the dominate color of the morning.

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While Aki searches for sign, a shaft of light paints the waters of the Gastineau Channel with a pearly strip. The tug towing our weekly supply barge from Seattle moves toward the brightened water. But the sun and its fancy lighting disappear before the tug driver can enjoy a few minutes in the spot light.

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Holding Something in Reserve

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Aki leaps out of the car and starts inventorying nearby scents. I follow as she dashes past the Mendenhall Wetlands sign and onto a path bordered on both sides by alder thickets. This morning’s fine snow has turned to drizzle but that doesn’t dampen her enthusiasm for a walk. I look forward to a lengthy exploration of the grasslands drained by Gastineau Channel because the tide has left the maze of back channels dry.

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My plan is to walk as far as a mid-channel navigation aid. Two bald eagles occupy the aid. Another one flies above them screeching out a challenge. I walk on to the wetlands toward the nav. aid but no little dog follows at my heels. Aki hangs back by the alder thicket, giving me her “are you crazy” stare. I snap a few pictures and follow her back to the car.

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When I stop at another trailhead, one without eagles, she shows little excitement for another walk. Aki follows me slowly down the trail and perks up when, after a few minutes, we return to the car. The poodle-mix is scheduled this afternoon for another cross-country ski on Mendenhall Lake. She rests on the drive home, as if saving energy for this afternoon’s adventure.

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Plenty of Gas

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Aki is only a blue-grey dot back down the trail. She might be standing and staring. More likely, she is sniffing or peeing. But I wonder if she is still recovering from yesterday’s ski. We are back on the lake and like yesterday we have a sun and blue-sky canopy to move under. We also have a gentle wind in our faces but that shouldn’t slow down the little poodle mix.

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Worried that Aki is feeling her age, I suggest to her other human that we ski the shorter, inner loop to give our eleven-year-old pup a break. Maybe she needs a recovery day. We decide to wait. There are several kilometers between us and the junction where the shorter trail breaks towards Skater’s Cabin. Seconds later Aki catches up and passes me.

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The lake is almost empty of dogs and their people. If yesterday the glacial lake seemed like a crowded amusement park, today it feels like an open-air library.

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Yesterday, Aki dashed back and forth between her people. Today, with two kilometers to go, the little dog trots along with me. Then, she spots a skate skier moving down the inside loop and runs full speed for a half a kick until reaching him. When Aki realizes that she has not chased down her other human, she spots the right target and charges off again, this time in the right direction. She still has plenty of gas in the tank.

 

Superbowl Party (for dogs at least)

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Sure it’s Sunday and the lake is offering the best cross-country skiing of the year. Yeah, the ice has thickened enough to give even the most timid sports person courage to ski over frozen water. Yeah, the sky is blue with just enough clouds to give the drama-queen sun something to work with. But it shouldn’t be too crowded on the lake because this is America and the Super Bowl just started.

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Trusting that the skiers with the reddest blood (a trait of sports loving Americans) are at a party cheering over football plays while slamming down cheese poppers and beer, Aki, her other human and I drive out to the glacial lake with a car loaded with ski gear. A line of cars flies away from the trailhead parking lot, probably heading toward Super Bowl parties. But there are many more in the lot and up and down the road. Ay, Caramba.

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Aki ignores the cars and their drivers to concentrate on the cornucopia of dogs waiting patiently outside their vehicles. They all seem to urging their owners to get this party started. We keep the poodle-mix on lead while negotiating the crowd and only release her when her other human and I are snapping into our skis. I slip mine into a machine-set-track and start my kick and slide. Aki charges after her other human who flies ahead on skate skis. The snow-white surface of the lake is dotted with splotches of the intense colors of high-tech gear. But I soon find my space of solitude.

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The robin-egg-blue glacier keeps my attention until the trail starts its return leg to Skater’s Cabin. Then, I am entertained by the sun hanging low on the horizon. Crisscrossing white vapor trails form a double line above the sun, which is softened by a gauze of clouds. A sundog (a kind of winter rainbow) has formed as a wide circle around the sun. This arctic critter rarely appears above our rain forest so I stop often to admire it.

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Aki will be hungry tonight. She spends most of her time running with her skate skier, stopping only to play catch-me-if-you-can with other dogs. But every ten minutes or so she gallops back to me, trots along for a minute and then dashes to catch up with her other human.

Long Memory

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I’m moving down a path covered with more snow than tracks. Aki and I have just left a well-trampled trail, one that she has used often in the past. Flooding by the moraine beavers makes the new trail impassible on all but the coldest days. Today—windless, and 14 degrees—is one those Goldilocks days when we can transit beaver-controlled country in relative comfort. After thinking this I look around and realize that I am using the wrong pronoun.

 

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Aki stands statue straight near the trail junction. Her stare is also statue-like. It could be the product of several emotions: anger, impatience, disbelief, and even disappointment. This is a power grab or maybe even a simple effort to keep me from making a stupid mistake. The latter explanation has some merit.

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Aki once watched me tightrope my way across a fallen cottonwood log that almost spanned a beaver-flooded portion of the tail. I soaked one boot while trying to leap to dry ground. The fact that I splashed her in the process might have riveted her memory in place.

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I turn back down the questionable trail knowing that the invisible rubber band connecting us will eventually pull her in my direction. She follows, but at a distance. Each time I stop she turns back into a statue. After we pass through the scene of my misjudgment, Aki dashes ahead. Two minutes later we reach a junction with another well used dog walker trail. From now until we reach the car she will only stop to check pee mail or to allow me to catch up.

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The North Wind

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“Hope you like the north wind,” a man dressed in high-end ski gear said to me as he walked away from the lake. He carried a pair of skate skis over his shoulder. As he spoke I was trying to open up a bear proof trash bin near Skater’s Cabin. But I caught the skier’s smile just as he turned away.

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I was prepared for the cold, maybe too well prepared and the air was calm. There was no reason not to slide past the cabin and down to the lake. Aki galloped ahead, apparently anxious to dash about on the snow.

Rather than start down the set track, I ski along the lakeshore where four or five inches of snow covers the lake ice. It’s hard work breaking trail because the ice prevents me from getting much purchase with my ski poles. In minutes I am sweating.

 

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Aki hangs with me for a few minutes and then charges away toward the set track where a dog runs along side his skate skiing master. I head toward the track too, but at an oblique angle with draws Aki towards me. When we meet on the track, she looks at me for a minute and starts off at a trot.

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By now my warm hat is in a pocket of my unzipped parka. My gloves are in the other pocket. Then the wind finds us. After another minute of skiing, I zip up my parka and pull on my hat. Aki stops often, looking back with apparently longing. The skiing is too good to turn back so I push into the wind with the loyal little dog.

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Aki Just Knows

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Aki ran into the woods as soon as a guy on the next beach opened up with a small caliber weapon. She entreats me to join her in the forest’s safety as the gun’s “pop, pop, pop, pop, pop” reaches us over the sound of surf. Is that is why the crows settled so near our trail on that rocky point? A murder of the birds were squatting just above the surf line when we broke onto the beach. Others were migrating to Shaman Island after rising from the rocks like Tolkien’s wraighs.

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Ignorant of Hobbits and rings, Aki could ignore the crows but not the shots. I don’t know when she first connected danger with gunshots. She does have a cautious nature. Early in the walk she refused to leave the trail to follow me onto the frozen beaver pond. Did she know that beavers chew away at the under portions of the ice covering their pond so they can always reach their den after the pond ice thickens. A Yup’ik elder told me that years ago in another part of Alaska, but that was long before Aki arrived in my life. Maybe she intuits it.

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I hadn’t planned on walking down beach to the shooter’s position so I muttered the bird hunting season ended a month ago you Yahoo and joined the little dog in the woods.

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