Aki and I are racing through the Troll Woods, pursued by mosquitos. Six or eight of the pests buzz around the little dog’s face each time she stops to sniff or pee. She shows no sign of being bit. I wish I could say the same. I have a rosary of bites across my forehead. It’s not surprising, then, that we have the woods almost to ourselves.

            The place is full of birds. Robins dare Aki to chase her. She is no mood for the game today.  Song birds belt out their nesting tunes in the canopy. Most are hidden in the leaves. But a winter wren settles on an exposed branch and belts out its signature song. 

            We leave the gravel paths and follow trails in the mossy floor that were pioneered by beavers. They are night workers so none appear outside their log-covered dens. But evidence of their presence is everywhere. Sticks stripped of their bark float in the lakes. Similarly denuded cottonwood tree trucks lie on the forest floor. We even find a wood pile of foot-long logs that were cut up by the beaver’s sharp front teeth, not a saw. I wonder if the beavers are preparing wood for a mid-summer bon fire. 

This is our third attempt in a month to reach Norton Lake. Water backing up from a beaver dam flooding the trail forced me to give up on the first two attempts. It has dropped enough to allow me to reach the lake with damp, but not soaked boots. Aki and I splash along the edge of the water until reaching an old beaver dam. I walk across the top of the dam until reaching a deer trail that leads to the lake. 

Aki didn’t walk onto the dam until I was most of the way across it. When I look back, she gives me her, “Are you sure this is how you want to end your life?” look. I search the pond waters for crocodiles and the nearby woods for bears. Seeing none, I push on. Aki dashes across the dam to join me on the other side. Then, she gives me her “I hope this is worth it” glare. 

              Few dogs have passed this way so at first Aki has little use for her nose. Then she finds beaver scent and appears to go into a trance as she rolls in it. That must have made the dam crossing worth it for the little poodle-mix. I expected a chance to view more northbound waterfowl or even a young beaver looking for a mate. But we only see a bufflehead drake and a small gang of tense looking mallards. 

            It’s a clam day so lake provides a nice mirror for the glacier and Mt. McGinnis. Little birds sing and make quick sorties onto the ground for seeds or gravel but don’t stay long enough for me to make an identification. Then, an alder flycatcher bops unto the limb of a dead snag lets itself be photographed. I manage to take two photos—one when it is frozen on the snag, and the other with its wings flashed out in a turn. 

Aki is nose down, snuffling her way along a moraine trail. Her paws punch inch-deep holes in the snow as we make our way over ground still rebounding from the time, not so long ago, that it supported the weight of a retreating glacier. 

            In s normal winter the little dog and I would be in danger of slipping on icy or crusted-over snow. But the stuff covering the moraine trail is soft and yielding. We pass the edge of a beaver pond covered with a paper-thin layer of ice. Water still pours over the beaver’s dam where some guy tried to dismantle it. 

            We drop down onto the lakeshore to get our first unfiltered view of the glacier. There is an informal trail packed down by the boots of paws of others. I leave the easy path and punch my way to the ice edge and find only the track of one large canine that moved with purpose toward the Mendenhall River. The animal moved in a steady trot, the kind used by sled dogs and wolves to cover ground. 

The romantic in me wants to attribute the tracks to a wolf. Years ago, Aki and I listened to wolf howling when we skied along the edge of this lake. Later that winter, a black wolf nicknamed “Romeo” followed the little dog and I as we crossed the moraine. But Romeo is now long dead. These might be wolf tracks. No trail of boot prints runs parallel to them.