I am knee deep in snow having been drawn off the packed trail by frost glistening on a grove of burned out spruce. Aki watches from the trail. She won’t move unless I do something really stupid like post hole until I am out of her sight. Even then she might just curl up on a sunny spot and wait for me to come to my senses.

We are crossing the glacial moraine. I wanted to sneak off the trail and into the Troll Woods but that path is snowed in. We keep to a narrow trail that resembles a foot deep trench in the snow cover. I think Aki appreciates the way the narrow trail has discouraged other dogs from wandering off to urinate, which simplifies her task of checking the pee mail.

This is beaver country. We pass a hole kept open in creek ice by one of them. In some places groves of spruce and alders, killed when water backed up behind beaver dams flooded around their trunks, lean against each other like drunks after closing time. They will have the place all to themselves after the next strong Pacific storm brings inches of melting rain.