Category Archives: Autumn

Art Deco Bird

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It’s almost October, when sunny skies normally bring crisp nights that leave the Dredge Lakes skimmed with ice. When Aki and I headed out to the lakes this morning, I dressed for a sunny but cool day. Now I’m sweating. Aki could have gone without the wrap she wears. I almost envy a yellow lab that runs past us and crashes into Mendenhall River.

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No ice skim covers the lakes. There is nothing to prevent migratory waterfowl from landing on the water except the sound of shotguns that comes from Norton Lake. It is only spot on the glacial moraine far enough away from a road to allow legal hunting. Was it last fall or the one before when a flock of tundra swans rested on Moose Lake for several days? Today the only waterfowl we will see were a mile from Downtown, crowded on one of the Twin Lakes where they were safe from hunters.

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Aki and I push through an alder thicket to gain a better view of one of the lakes.  Thick mist softens the reflection of mountains, yellowing trees, and the glacier on the lake’ surface. As the sunshine grows in intensity, the mist rises above the tops of shoreline trees and melts. None of this interests the little dog or a magpie that lands nearby on a grassy island. The little corvus, with it’s crisp art deco design, flits off the minute it spots us.

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Aki As Kingfisher

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Should dogs have spirit animals? If Aki had one, it would be the belted kingfisher. We spot the feisty little birds on many of our rain forest walks. This morning, one burst out of a spruce tree chattering abuse, flew over a moraine lake that I was photographing, did a barrel roll and disappeared into a balsam popular tree in fall color. If you had wings little dog, that would be you.

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Aki, who had once chased a black bear up a tree close to the kingfisher’s roost with only her bark and attitude, gave me her “Don’t be Stupid” look.

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It had been raining where we started this walk through the glacier moraine but now it has stopped. No drops strike the lake to ruin the reflection of the poplars in high color. I’d expect ducks or even transiting swans to be resting on the lake. But only the kingfisher makes an appearance.

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The Brightest Color

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This morning, Aki’s red coat might be the most colorful thing in the rain forest. Without the sun to charge their colors, the yellowing devil’s club leaves look as dull as the dying blueberry leaves that surround them.  There is not much more to stimulate our retinas on the beach.

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The tide is out, exposing the Shaman Island causeway. But soon that distraction will be covered by the soft gray sea. The skeleton stalks of last summer’s cow parsnip flowers have a permanent stoop, as if they are supplicants that prayed all their lives to the island. It’s one of those testing days that help newcomers decide if they can winter over in Alaska.

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Aki is enjoying herself sniffing and peeing. When the rain load in her fur gets too heavy, she just shakes it all away.

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Lingon Berries

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On the cusp of summer and autumn, around the equinox, we always search the mountain muskegs for lingon berries. Aki generally finds these expeditions to be boring. Today’s search for the wine-red berries is no exception.

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It is not raining but last night’s downpour has loaded down the muskeg plants with water. Soon the little dog is soaked. Because her other human I are moving slowing, she has to do a lot of standing around. Soon, she is shivering. But she doesn’t whine.

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Watching me plop lingon berries in my picking bucket, Aki nuzzles my hand, like she does when she wants a treat. I pick a half-a-dozen more berries and offer them to the little dog. She eats them out of the palm of my hand and asks for more.

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Eat time I fill my palm with berries she eats them, like a horse eats oats from a wrangler’s hand. Since Lingon berries are as tart as blueberries are sweet, I am surprised that Aki likes them.

 

 

Not Spoiled Yet

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Aki, you’d think I’ve been too spoiled by natural beauty to be wowed by a borrow pit.The little dog gives me one of her “don’t stop gushing again” looks.

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The poodle-mix and I are walking on top of a dike pushed up by men miring for gravel. The “U” shaped dike has captured a small pond by connecting to a length of gently sloping meadow.  A beaver family has already colonized the pond. The big rodents’ earthworks killed a small copse of spruce trees on the opposite shore of the pond. It’s the reflection of these skeletons on the pond’s surface that’s gob smacked me.

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Alder trees, gilded by backlighting morning light add to the show as does the dissipating globs of mist that hover just above the pond’s surface. When I walk without taking my eyes off the scene, I slip and fall where river otters have installed one of their “U” shaped slides. It’s pretty clear that nature and its wild children have claimed ownership of the old barrow pit. Tough skinned spruce roots snake over the top of the dike. Cow parsnip, fireweed, and the other aggressive forest plants color the dike with whites, yellows and reds.

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Little dog, let’s hope that nature never loses the power to repair our messes.

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Peaking into Winter

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We will soon be facing seven months of winter so why and I taking Aki into the mountains. We could have taken a sea level hike, maybe even taken a nap in the late summer sun. But ice and cold bring beauty. That is certainly true of this mountain meadow.

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Frost had whitened the entire meadow before the sun climbed above the Douglas Island ridge. But it has softened to dew everywhere the sun touched. In their fall colors of red, yellow and order, most of the meadow plants still sparkle with moisture. But their dramatic display will end when they dry out in the sun.

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Last night’s temperatures froze over the meadow ponds. The new ice grips the long legs of a water strider that was trapped by the sudden freeze.  I wonder if it will be alive when the ice melts.

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Hoping to locate some ripe lingonberries, I leave the gravel trail and walk on to the meadow. The muskeg is crunchy with ice and seems to break underfoot. I can’t find any lingonberries. Just one low-bush blueberry. After eating it, I look for Aki and find her planted near the gravel trail. She makes me feel guilty for damaging the fragile muskeg with my boot prints. I try to ignore her distain but, as is often the case, she will win the battle.

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Who Will Send The Rain?

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We are going to pay for this sometime. That’s what I’d tell Aki if she wasn’t charging after her Frisbee.  Normally the Rain Forest monsoon season starts in September and continues until the first winter high-pressure system settles over the ice field. But we have only had a few drops of rain since August. Aki doesn’t complain. She lives in the moment and right now the moment is providing her with sunshine.

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The little dog, her other human and I are walking along the southwest shore of Mendenhall Lake. The lake is flat calm, its surface broken only by incoming silver salmon. The sun enhances the yellow of cottonwood leaves and lightens the British racing green color of the surrounding spruce trees.

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For the first time since last spring, Aki slips on ice. Shaded puddles are cover with a thick skim of it. When the sun first touches the beach pebbles, they sparkle with new-formed ice. But in minutes they dull to normal.

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They Are Back

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The birds are back little dog. Looking up from a scent spot that has occupied her attention for the last minute, Aki gives me a “Dah” look.  She might think I am referring to the adult bald eagle that had been feeding a few feet away when we reached the Shaman Island beach. The big bird flew off to a glacier erratic on the other side of Peterson Creek and landed. From that vantage point and safe from poodles, it waits for us to leave so it can return to its feast.

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No Aki, I am not referring to that eagle or the other one roosting nearby. Look there. I point toward the island where a small raft of harlequin ducks are performing the synchronized swimming routine their kind performs when feeding. All summer the harlequins have been hanging out on the outer coast with red-breasted mergansers and the other fish ducks. The little bay has been lonely in their absence.  It’s good to have them back. Closer to the beach, a smaller raft of widgeons have their heads in the water feeding.  These guys must be heading south.

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We passed other signs of fall along the forest trail that we used to get to this beach.  The leaves of wild crabapple trees and blueberry bushes were in high autumn colors. Some of the devil’s club and skunk cabbage were yellowing. And the downy woodpeckers that seem to only appear at the change of seasons, were hammering away at old growth spruce and hemlock trees.

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Dry Crunch

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Looks like our recent drought is going to deny us a colorful fall, at least along the banks of Gold Creek. The heart-shaped cottonwood trees have gone directly from green to dead brown. Many are covering this little used spur trail. In a normal September, any leaf that falls to the ground turns to soft mush. Today our feet crunch through the recently fallen.

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I try not to worry about our rainless rain forest and just enjoy the noise. Why should the kids in New England have all the fun. Shafts of sunlight enrich the red of a few of the forest’s dogwood leaves. When one of the thirty-mile-an-hour gusts stirs the forest, the dogwood leaves flash their pink undersides.

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Party On

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Looks like the party is over little dog. Aki and I just crossed Fish Creek , which now appears to be empty of salmon. No eagles roost in creek side trees. We can’t even spot the pair of squabbling ravens that usually patrol the creek’s gravel bars.

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The kingfisher that guards the pond is still here. When it spots us, the little bird flies off to give the alarm. It is time, I think, for the land to go to rest for winter. Then two silver salmon, sides spawning-red, leap about the surface of the pond.  An eagle screams. The party is still on.

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The eagle doesn’t bother Aki. She stares at the water as if willing the salmon to jump again. When they don’t she trots around the pond to where the trail climbs onto a low dike. There, a great blue heron surprises both of us by flying out of a nearby tree and settling onto the limb of a spruce just twenty feet away.

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Aki seems glued to the spot on the trail where she first spotted the heron. When I call her she looks in the big bird’s direction as if to say, are you crazy, that thing is ten times my size. I could tell her that the heron hunts small fish, not small dogs. But from past experience I know that she won’t move. I’ll have to carry her to the perceived safety of the woods.

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