Tide and current often expose bones on the Sandy Beach. This morning Aki and I step over deer bones tumbled smooth in Gastineau Channel. They will soon breakdown into white specks to become lost in the pulverized gold ore that gives the beach its name. 

The little dog and I also step over bones made of iron, or ceramic—train rails, machine shop pulleys, slabs of ore cars, and pottery shards. These 100 year old relics of a collapsed mining community won’t be disappearing soon. 

Nature is working hard to reduce our human detritus to its base components. Mussels and barnacles have colonized the iron train rails and wooden wharf pilings. Wind, rain and sun work then over after the tide ebbs. Currents rub the rails together, scarping and scratching away tiny bits. But the relics will be rusting or wearing away long after Aki and I are gone.