Author Archives: Dan Branch

Hilda Meadows

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Aki slouches along behind as I climb up toward Hilda Meadows. I’m hot and wish I’d brought a water bottle. Each time I stop to check on the little dog she is motionless except for her panting tongue.  It’s a weather change day, cooler than yesterday and with clouds that the sun uses to cast shadows onto the surrounding mountains. But the little dog still needs water. I push on to where a cold stream drains the meadows.

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When we began this hike, the mountain caretaker met us at the trailhead to say that we were the first ones to start up the trail. “No one has gone before you to disturb the wolves and bears.” I wasn’t too worried then, knowing that we would be passing through the kind of open country avoided during the day by wild predators. Now, hot and sweaty from the climb to the mountain’s shoulder, I am less worried about beasties. They all must be resting during the heat of this still warm day.

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When we reach the stream, I stop and point to an easy trail down the water. Aki looks in the other direction. She can sniff in derision without me seeing the gesture. A minute later, she muscles her way through thick grass to reach a pond but gives up before she can quench her thirst.  I carry her to another fork of the stream and drop her onto the beach. She wades into the water and laps some up and then turns back towards the trailhead.

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I lift her to the opposite stream bank and walk into one of the meadows which has dried out during our three day heat wave. taking care not to step on colonies of the carnivorous sundew plants and other low growing flowers. Easier to avoid are the aging collections of shooting stars and freshly flowered orchids called lady tresses. With mountain views all around and a stream providing background music I want to linger. Aki has other ideas and starts back toward the trail to home.

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The little dog is now the one looking back in frustration as she trots ahead. She doesn’t even stop to sniff at a patch of shooting star flowers crushed by the black bear that slept there until this morning’s light broke over Mt. Troy.

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The Feast is About to Begin

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Aki is halfway up Mt. Roberts on an all female expedition. We are in the middle of a heat way. Today the temperature could climb over 80 degrees. I’m trying to sneak in a bike ride before the heat of the day. To get to my goal, Sheep Creek, I have to run a gauntlet of tour buses, vans, and the tourists they haul from their cruise ships. Away from that jam, I can hear the sound of dog salmon leaping out of the waters of Gastineau Channel. They have already run their gauntlet of predators and climate hazards.

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Chum salmon have drawn a crowd of eagles to Sheep Creek.  Female salmon dig shallow ditches with their tails to receive their eggs. Their action draws the attention of males. Two bald eagles eye the action. They can’t harvest the powerfully muscled salmon now. But soon, after the salmons’ eggs are released and fertilized, the dying will begin and so will the feasting.

Master Plan

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They say it can snow here in July, but it is already seventy degrees—warm enough to melt the drifts that are almost swallowing the trailside buttercups. Almost weightless white puffs float like snowflakes through the forest canopy. Some settle into Aki’s grey fur. She might carry them to fertile ground. That would serve the purpose of the balsam poplars that grew the floating seeds.

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Like Madrid

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We are early to the woods this morning. Taking advantage of a solstice sunrise, the little dog and I start down the Outer Point Trail just as the forest awakes. I’m reminded of a trip to Madrid, when thanks to jet lag, Aki’s other human and I were able to walk onto Puerta del Sol just as the sun stirred a small camp of homeless awake. Soon men with brooms began cleaning away the debris of the previous day. No opera singer tested her voice but a man strummed a guitar as the sun warmed his stiff fingers.  This morning, Aki I hear neither the operatic thrush nor the happy robin. Only the harsh songs of working birds and scolding squirrels break the forest’s silence.

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When we reach the beach, an eagle stirs from its spruce roost and flies lazily over Peterson Creek, like a vagrant rousted by a cop. All the drama is provided by low angle sunlight that makes the orange and rust colored rockweed glow on the exposed beach.

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Distraction

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Halfway through this visit to the Gastineau Meadows I stop at a place where leaf shadows dapple the trail. The weatherman promises sun and warm temperatures today. Even though it is still morning, I wish I had worn lighter kit.

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Aki sniffs about in a distracted fashion when I start my Tai Chi routine. Halfway through “waiving hands through clouds” she takes up station beside me. She will stay there until I finish with a salute to Mt. Juneau. If he could read my thoughts, Dr. Lam would gently remind me that I should think only of the present. But I can’t help remembering the immature bald eagle that swooped over the little dog and I as we started hiking toward the meadows. The morning sun warmed the eagle’s chestnut colored feathers and shined off its beak.

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But For

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Our path is lined with chest-high lupines but I can’t appreciate their purple beauty. Someone at a nearby picnic area is attacking metal with a grinder. When a side path through the lupine appears, I lead Aki out onto the tidal meadow and away from the noise. A heavy malamute dog charges through walls of flowering cow parsnip and leaps at my little dog. The incomer shows no malice but it could hurt Aki if it landed square on the poodle-mix. For the first in a long time I’m called upon to protect Aki—uttering the sounds that Yupik friends used to scare off stray northern dogs. Finally, the malamute’s owner manages to leash his dog.

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As we continue across the meadow I realize that, but for the noxious grinder noise, Aki would have never been at risk from the malamute.  Aki and I have experienced many but-for moments during her 11 years of life. But for the puppy Aki’s sudden interest in hot dogs cooking in a covered picnic shelter, a diving eagle would have carried her away. If she had not startled an approaching black bear, it would have dispatched Aki with a quick swipe of its paws. Good reactions of a driver saved her, more than once, from being smashed flat by a car tire.

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There are many positive but-for stories. If we hadn’t been standing on a shore-side boulder, we wouldn’t have been able to watch a dozen Stellar sea lions swim close enough for me to count their whiskers. If I hadn’t chose to walk down the Mendenhall Peninsula Trail, we wouldn’t have been able to watch a cloud of thirty eagles dive on bait herring.

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The sun breaks out from the marine layer, driving away my contemplative mood. We walk up along Eagle River to the place where Aki once chased a black bear into the woods. She sniffs at a recent pile of bear scat and then at a spot where the bear might have spent the night. If this had been an early morning walk…

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The sounds of human laughter and conversations ahead cause me to leash Aki. I slow down and hope that the people will walk out of earshot. But, they are in no hurry so I keep my little dog on her lead. When something rattles the trailside brush Aki tries to break towards the sound. I spot a porcupine moving slowing away. But for our noisy neighbors, who forced me to leash Aki, I might be pulling porcupine quills out of the little dog’s nose.

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Shy Maidens

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Deep in the old growth forest the little dog and I find shy maidens stooping over the forest moss. To whom they direct their submissions? I’d ask Aki but she is already down the trail investigating the pee spot of a dog or wolf. So I sit alone with the maiden flowers even though they have turned their backs to me.

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The sound of a boat wake slapping the beach reaches us in the trees. The maidens ignore it, like they must ignore the explosive exhales of humpback whales and the other happenings on Stephens’ Passage that they will never see.

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Shortly after they flung out their waxy blossoms, the maidens must have memorized the moss patterns at their feet. They will never feel their pedals drying in the morning sun like the wild iris. They can’t produce sweet berries to feed the bear. What keeps them here in this gray place where they can never dance with the wind?

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Survey Trip

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Aki doesn’t know it but we are on a scouting trip. As usual, she thinks the outing is about her and her orange Frisbee. But her other human and I are here to measure this year’s blueberry crop. We only have one small plastic bag of blues left in the freezer.

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While the little dog roars after her beloved flying disk I gauge the river’s level to determine if it has left us enough trail to negotiate. By detouring into the riverside willows we can make it. Across the river the Mendenhall Glacier appears to snake out of the clouds to devour the spruce forest at its foot.

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Only a few small berries show through the leaves of the trailside bushes. Last year large berries weighed down the branches of the blue berry plants. It might be a bad berry year for us and a worst one for the bears, who also must deal with a low salmon return. The high bush cranberry bushes are setting large numbers of berries. Maybe the bears can substitute sour cranberries for the sweeter blues. But Aki’s family prefers blueberries in their Saturday morning pancakes. We’ll look higher in the mountains for our winter’s allotment of fruit.

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Canaries

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Walking where yesterday we saw a whale, Aki and I watch charter boats trolling for king salmon near the mouth of Gastineau Channel. Most will catch nothing. Aki doesn’t really notice the boats. She is too busy sniffing and peeing.  When I share out loud my thoughts about the fate of king salmon she ignores my words. But I fool myself into believing that she is listening when I ask if king salmon might be serving the same role for the rain forest as a canary does in a coalmine.

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More susceptible than men to methane gas, the canaries inform miners of the gas’ presence by dying. The king salmon, who postpones its return to their spawning waters longer than any other Pacific salmon, is the most susceptible to negative changes in the ocean. When, as happened this year, they return in low numbers to their home streams, like the nearby Taku River, we should be alarmed into action.

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It’s Good to Be Home

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Aki squealed and squeaked at the back door as I pulled on my boots. She just managed to stay still as I fastened on her harness. I had returned home this morning on the Alaska Marine Highway ferry Malispina after a canoe trip to Prince of Wales Island. She spent the time of my absence at a good dog boarder. But I could tell by her actions that she needed a long walk in the woods.

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Aki had calmed down a bit by the time we reached the False Outer Point trailhead. At that point the little dog’s attitude was most compelling thing about the day. Gray clouds blocked the sun and dulled the colors of Fritz Cove. Neither of us cared.

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Racing the incoming tide, we managed to round the point and three more headlands on moist rocks. On one columbines attracted hummingbirds with their bright-red flowers. Overhead an eagle flew a patrol. Even it’s cries failed to dampen Aki’s spirits. The sun came out by the time we left the beach for woods and circled back to the car.

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In Fritz Cover a single humpback whale fed close to the road. Aki and I watched it’s back crash above the surface and heard the whoosh of spent air being forced through the whale’s blowhole. It made three shallow dives and then threw up its flukes in a dive. The small amount of barnacles on its tail identified it as a young whale.

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