Spring will come late to this working class stream but it will take away much beauty when it does arrive. Winding through a tight little valley and less and a mile from the Juneau Ice Field, Montana Creek will run around snow covered rocks for at least a couple of more weeks. The departing winter’s snow, ice, and hoar frost makes the beauty here. Without snow, this wonderful ski trail becomes a tired gravel road to nowhere; the creek a claustrophobic spawning ground for several species of salmon. They will draw the bears and eagles and ravens and herons who will hide from my view in thick riverine forest. Winter and summer, rifle and shotgun blasts spice up almost every visit to the creek.

The gun range was almost packed when we climbed into our skis. Since is such an an odd way to honor the pascal sacrifice, I wonder if those sighting down the barrels of their expensive rifles are celebrants in a church of gun powder and shot. Aki tries to ignore the near constant barrage but I can tell she is bothered by the bangs and booms.

Aki, will we pay for this long stretch of warmth in January? The temperature has held above 40 degrees F. for days at a time.  To our winter-hardened bodies, it feels like spring. Yesterday it rained hard but today we will have sun if the fog burns off. Aki doesn’t sacrifice today’s chance for joy to appease the gods of winter. Trying to follow my little dog’s lead, I enjoy, without much guilt, the warmth. While she stands guard over Seventh Street from her outpost on the couch, I’m upstairs watching channel fog glowing with sunlight.  Earlier we skied over a trail reduced by warmth and rain, stopping to watch the glacier appear from behind a soft white wall. I remembered prior winter warm spells and how I feared we would somehow be punished by Taku conditions in February if I enjoyed the warmth. Winds named for the glacier they cross to make our lives miserable, the Takus blow when the sun shines and the temperatures are low. They rattle down on Chicken Ridge as our heater struggles to keep the house livable. Realizing that cold winds may blow in February, whether I enjoy the comfortable beauty on offer today, I put them out of mind.  Carpe diem should be my motto, as long as there are enough fish in the freezer, and fuel oil in the tank. 

It’s amazing the different 20 miles of driving can make. Yesterday tromp through the moraine involved rain and heavy, wet snow. Today, out the road pointed north, we skied on good smooth track. Off trail, 18 inches of snow covered the ground, forming the sides of a deep, but skiable ditch. I gripped my poles halfway down the shafts to avoid skiing with my hands high in the air. Aki dashed up and down the ditch, ears flying up and down to the rhythm of her bouncing gate. At trails end she rolled in a stain of deer’s blood on snow as she has in beaver scent, bear scat, and even dead salmon; her face a mask of ecstasy until someone shouted, “Aki EEUUU.” The little dog looked shocked, a gourmet of smells wrongly condemned by her pedestrian people.  

While Aki seeks scent, I read the stories written on this meadow in snow by wind, paws, and the diminutive hooves of a fawn.  When the little dog alerted near some very fresh hare tracks. I assumed that she was provoked more by rabbity smells than the sight of the tracks. Earlier I skied over river otter tracks near their newly frozen slough. Now I find myself drawn to a trail, the width of thin belt, pounded in by tiny paws. I imagine a mice platoon, walking upright, carrying the smallest rifles, marching single file between spruce root forts. Aki, who lacks the necessary imagination to build a fantasy mice army, shows amazing patience while I stand musing. Looking over my shoulder I see our tracks, poodle and skier, and wonder at the mess we made of snow unblemished by dog or man.