In 1942, every Japanese American person on Bainbridge Island was forced onto buses and shipped to detention centers.  They weren’t criminals, just good farmers or shop workers with Japanese blood. Without evidence of their sins, they were ripped away from the State of Washington and hauled to jail.

            This morning, I walked with a group of people of mix race along the path used in ’42 to deliver Japanese Americans onto boats to haul them away, We stopped to read little stories of the people being shipped to a prison camp. Later some of those prisoners would latter serve in an U.S. Army battalion to drive away the Nazis from Italy and France. Others would spend World War II locked up in a detention camp. Today, the inheritors of those jailed in WWII Japanese detention camps have built memorials, like this one on Bainbridge Island, to remind us to never do it again.

            I am inside the Bozeman airport, waiting for a flight back to Alaska. The government threatened a suffering of hot weather today but it felt more like a spring afternoon when I walked to the terminal.  

Everyone inside the terminal is wearing a face mask. Everywhere else I’ve visited in the state no one has worn one. In Montana’s big tourist draw towns like Missoula, charged up tourists jammed the streets with their rental cars. None wore masks. Most of the wheat farming country I visited was quiet. We’d drive on a highways for a mile or two before seeing a car. None would pass our family wheat ranch for hours at a time. They were as mask-less as the deer and antelope that we passed near the ranch.

            I am missing Aki. But she hates to travel on airplanes. I needed half-a-day of that to get to Montana.

            Aki would have loved hanging out with our family cousins in Missoula but probably would have interfered with my long conversations with them. But then again, little scraps of food did tumble off picnic plates without me noticing. Aki would have been more than happy to nibble it up after it hit the carpet.

            Now my sister and I are visiting our grandfather’s homestead wheat ranch. The locals tell us this year’s crop needs more rain. Dark clouds in the sky could take care of that problem if the wind wasn’t moving them toward the mountains.

            We spotted bison and deer a couple of days ago when passing through Flathead Indian land. Here, in the ranch’s bench top country we spot antelope. A small clutch of six of the tan and white critters is grazing on a fallow wheat field. They move slowly off when I get out of the car for a better view.

Aki and I have split up, at least for a week. She is home in Alaska, enjoying a small stretch of sunny weather. Every morning she is probably curls up on a bright section of front room carpet, feasting on invading sunshine. I’m in Montana, spending time with the relatives. It rained harm this morning, but stopped before dinner time. Now, when we are close to sunset on a spot near the Flathead Indian Reservation, the sun is producing powerful reflections of the surrounding mountains on a small lake. Two swans feasted on the lake waters then took off to look for a quiet place to spend the night.

This dark, wet summer, every sunny, warm day is joyful. It rained yesterday and will rain again tomorrow, but not today. Aki and I make an early start down a trail to Sandy Beach. The strong morning sun pierces through the thick fabric of the trail side skunk cabbage leaves.

            We listen to hidden birds, including several eagles but see none. No ducks or geese hunt the beach for food. As the tide recedes, I look for some drama. Something grabs my attention, It’s a tiny weed, growing near the top of a rotting wharf piling. A shaft of morning sunshine pierces through the weed’s green flesh.         

It rained hard last night. It’s still raining as I attach a waterproof wrap around Aki. The weather man claims that the rain will stop this afternoon and the sun will shine. But given this situation, we leave now so we can have the Outer Point Trail to ourselves.

            The rain starts to lighten up as we park the car and start down the trail. We have the parking lot and the trail to ourselves. After slogging down twenty feet of flooded trail, we reach a beaver dam. I can’t spot any beavers but the pond’s water lilies make the walk worth it. Most are yellow. For some reason, one is the red color of an Irish rose.

            The tide is once again out when we reach the coast. Two eagles watch us from beach spruce trees. My attention is drawn toward Shaman Island, where an eagle is chasing an osprey away from what might be the eagle’s nest.

This summer, I’ve heard woodpeckers pound against the tops of spruce trees but never saw one until this morning. It happened as Aki and I were returning from the shore of Fish Creek. The dense collection of scents was keeping Aki happy. But I was disappointed in the absence of birds, deer, or fish.

No eagles sulked in the tops of the forest trees lining the north shore of the creek. Later, I’d spot one along the edge of a bay. No salmon splashed or knocked about in the creek. I couldn’t sense anything in the water until I heard a merganser splashing and squawking on the creek. Somewhere upriver, it’s mate was carrying their chicks on its back as it moved into a wall of tall grass.

            The little dog and I turned our backs on the poorly performed play and headed downstream. Suddenly, a woodpecker flew low over my head and landed a few feet away on the lower trunk of an alder. Finally, a beautiful thing to photograph on this flat, gray day. Aki spotted the bird just as I did and charged it. The woodpecker flew off.

            The rest of the morning was spent looking at the reflections of glacier and mountains in Fritz Cove or telling myself that I was lucky to take the walk when purple, yellow, or yellow wildflowers lined both sides of the trail. Sometimes I would stop and close my eyes, trying to count the number of eagles, just born, that were screeching about the day.

The sunshine is back, at least for a couple of days. We pass many people hiking or biking on the town trails. But only one van is parked near the Crystal Lake trail head when we arrive. It should be a great day to wander across the glacial wastes.

            Aki stops often as we head toward the lake. I don’t mind. It’s warm enough to make a standing in the sun a gentle and welcome gift. I know the wind is about to rise. But it is flat clam when we reach the lake. The reflection of the oddly shaped Thunder Mountain covers the lake’s surface. We would be able to enjoy a perfect double image of the mountain if not for one merganser duck that quacks and splashed back and forth across the lake.