Aki bursts out of the car and charges onto Sandy Beach. She crosses a line of snow made brown by blowing sand, slides to a stop, and retreats behind a grass-covered dune. I can’t argue with her judgment. The 60 miles-an-hour gust that stopped her run made the 24 degree ambient temperature feel like 3. 

            I don’t have any problem convincing the little dog to follow me into the Treadwell woods. The wind rushing through the trees sounds like an express train. It’s calmer in the forest except where fallen trees opened up paths for the wind. 

            We walk on a path parallel to the beach until reaching the little bay created when the Treadwell Mine tunnels collapsed. There, close up against the rocky shore, a mixed raft of mallards and golden eye ducks find shelter from the wind.