I choose this hike through the Treadwell ruins for convenience. We usually save the trail for days when the large cottonwoods and old mining buildings are needed to protect us from wind-driven rain or snow. This morning, sunshine reaches through the winter-sparse canopy to light up the electric green tree moss and enflame the ends of the little dog’s fine hair to make visible her aura.

The beach is empty when we reach it. Two ravens burst from their roosts across the glory hole and fly over our heads. Must be a slow day for corvids. I look without success for the seal that usually swims off the beach but find only a scoter and one Barrow golden eye. Because the flooded glory hole looks tropical on a sunny day like this, I lead Aki up a trail leading to a cliff edge that will offer us the perfect view of its water. Far down below the cliff edge, the seal surfaces out of the green of the hole and looks at the beach where we were buzzed by the ravens. I am surprised at how long the seal stays on the surface until it turns and looks directly at us and slips back into the hole. Can a seal see a poodle and her human a quarter-mile away? The answer must be “yes.” It’s the only explanation for the seal’s behavior.

Several few days ago, a dog walker died on the trail Aki and I take to the beach. Another hiker found the body but couldn’t approach because the man’s German shepherd protected his body. The news story didn’t report the exact location, just that a woman found the body on the trail near the tree line. I don’t need to know anything else about the death other than it took place on a beach that he probably loved as much as I.

He might have died in the sun but today the beach is wet, windy, and chilling. Gulls watch, without much apparent interest, a raft of mergansers, golden eyes, and mallard floating just offshore. The head of every duck is jammed into the water so I figure they are on top of a big ball of feed. Aki scampers close the tree line and takes the first trail offered that leads away into the old growth. Is she cold or wanting to escape a place where her sensitive nose can still catch the scent of death?

I didn’t expect much from this walk on the Auk Beach except a clean trail surface. During the drive through Juneau on rainy streets under flat gray skies, I mentally rejected other trails because the little dog was sure to muddy up her just-bathed body on them. The clouds break as I park the car at the trailhead. Rain still falls but we are squinting into bright sunlight. It backlights the small raft of harlequin ducks that we see here on every visit.

Down the beach a single Pacific loon hunts bait fish. I expect a rainbow at this “devil beating his wife” moment of rain and sun but none appears. Instead a cloud of eagles forms over bait balls just off shore. The big birds drive off the immature birds and then dive with talons extended toward the water. Aki, who once evaded a diving eagle on this same beach, ignores the big birds. I am not worried. The eagles are too intent on fish to even notice a little poodle-mix nosing something washed up by last night’s tide.