Category Archives: Dan Branch

Sun Dog and Blue Berries

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Someone has Hoovered up the blue berries that ripened along this trail. While Aki snuffles along the trail boards, I manage to find one bush of red huckleberries highlighted by evening sun. In a few minutes, when we reach the beach, all I will be able to think about is the sun dog that circles its sun—a phenomenon made possible by Canadian wildfire smoke. But now I wonder what drives my family and I to brave bugs, bears, and rain to harvest wild fruit. Our stores are well stocked with fruits and berries. We can buy fresh Chilean blues in the middle of winter. This does not deter us from putting up a gallon or two of wild blue berries each year. Not even the maggot-like worms that float to the surface when we washed the berries in salt water diminish our berry picking drive.

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Back to the Pass

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Sorry Aki. There is no room on the boat, even for a little poodle-mix. Aki took it well, didn’t even get up from the bed to say goodbye. Now I’m watching two humpback whales feed while we troll for silver salmon in the north pass. It’s seven A.M., but the sun already warms. It is easy to forget the weeks of rain that we just went through. I’ll return home with two more silvers for next winter and a touch of tan?

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Cursing Crows and Gulls

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Reunited after a week’s absence, Aki and I patrol the Outer Point Trail. The little dog slips back into her role as monitor of the smells. This morning’s strong sunlight makes her squint each time a pee mail message draws out of the shadows. We are well back from the beach when the sound of gulls and crows shatters the forest quiet.

2It’s low tide. Just off the mouth of Peterson Creek pink salmon leap out of the water and then drop back to join a school of their kind killing time until the flood tide arrives to carry them to their spawning grounds. The crows and gulls sound impatient for the fish to die.3

The beach is empty of people and the trombolo to Shaman Island is exposed. I carry the little dog across the temporary land bridge, which has become a nursery for shellfish. Vagrant crows and gulls warn us away from the island but I press ahead, walking first on a path of crushed shells between the sparkly-orange rockweed and then the dull black trombolo. I wonder if Aki or the birds think that the little dog is royalty. When it is clear that I won’t be deterred by their noise, the guardian birds circle around and take up station behind us.4

Aki is calm in my arms but is slow to move onto the island after I put set her onto a grassy path. The bird din has not stopped. They won’t shut up until we return to the forest. To spare the little dog and I further abuse, I carry her back over the land bridge, the target of crow curses the whole way to the woods.

Putting Up Fish

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It wasn’t supposed to be sunny today, but it is. I’m on my friend’s boat heading toward the Auk Bay fuel dock. Aki is home, hopefully stretched out on a sun-warmed section of the floor. Painfully bright light bounces off Favorite Passage and a bank of quick-moving fog. It’s a beautiful monster that could cause the boat to crash onto the rocks if it doesn’t lift. It does. We gas up and head out to the place that has always provided us with salmon for the winter.2

The pass is almost empty of other boats and, as we will soon find out, empty of silver salmon. There are whales—three humpbacks that cruise along the surface feeding on the small fry that usually attract salmon.4

Taking advantage of calm seas, we pull up our gear and motor over to the eastern shore of Admiralty Island where we fall into a line of charter boats trolling for salmon. They are catching lots of pink salmon for their clients. We want to put up the more desirable silvers and drop our trolling lines deep in hopes of getting below the pinks. This works. When we run out of bait we have in the boat four silver-bright silvers that together weigh more than thirty pounds—a good start.3

Badge of Honor

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This is a first, I think as a bald eagle’s scat plops onto the car’s windshield. My hat has been touched in such a way by crows and gulls, but no eagle has before decorated my person or property with its elimination. For some reason, I feel honored rather than victimized by the eagle’s act. The little dog and I are returning from another North Douglas hike. The trail was empty of people and dogs. Almost no blue berries remain to be picked, few birds offered to pose for my camera. There was a robin that trotting along in front of us, employing the old wounded bird trick to lead us away from its young. A red huckleberry bush provided the only excitement. One of its branches was loaded with marble-sized berries that proved to be very sweet. But all of its neighbors were as barren as a salmon stream in winter.

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Glacial Silt Soap?

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Aki and I are on the Juneau waterfront, watching the Seven Seas Mariner pull up to one of the new cruise ship docks. It’s our third cruiser of the morning. Passengers from the earlier arrivals walk up and down the docks, like salmon looking for a place to spawn. But sex doesn’t appear to be on their minds. They are fixed on shopping. Most carry bags from the tea shirt shops. One has a bag full of handmade glacier silt soap.

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The squawking complaints of a seagull gang draws my attention downward. But the white and gray birds are only forming and reforming a raft. I drift to memories of hand washing experiences. I picture the thick gobs of greasy glacial silt that I wipe off my bicycle chain during the bike’s weekly bath. Even dry, the glacier silt is an abrasive powder that forms an irritating cloud when lifted off the streets by passing tour buses. You could polish glass with it. What would it do to a maiden’s face?

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Those Beavers

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On this, another soft day, the little dog and I are back in an old growth forest. The beavers have been busy while we hiked on other trails. They dammed every watercourse that drains the fen. Now water overflows onto the trail, cutting new channels through the gravel. Fen water covers the raised boardwalk that offers nice views of the Douglas Island ridge.4

With wet paws and boots, Aki and I reach the beach. A receding tide will soon allow passage over the strip of gravel connecting Shaman to Douglas Island. I am tempted to walk over to Shaman and stand on it’s beach, knowing that an hour later our passage home would be blocked by backfilling water, that we’ve taken advantage of an opportunity only available during a minus tide. It’s the shadow of the feeling a mountain climber has at the summit when she realizes that few of the people living in the town below her will ever enjoy this view.3

Since Aki’s fear of eagles would prevent her from voluntarily following me onto Shaman Island, I abandon the idea of a crossing and content myself with views of Lynn Canal slowing being revealed by dissipating fog.1

Smart Little Dog

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The recent heavy rain has swollen Gold Creek. It charges under the Christopher Trail Bridge. Aki trots on the bridge behind me, seemly oblivious to the rushing stream. She had refused to cross it every other time we used the trail, even when the stream was silenced by ice. I want to search her soaked face for an explanation but she slips by me when we reach solid ground. She trots on, probably drawn forward by an interesting smell. She is a smart little dog, smart enough to let me lead on the overgrown sections of the trail so my pants, not her fur, soaks up the water that clung to the trailside plants.2

Before the Bears Arrive

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This is the first time that Aki and I have seen Montana Creek since last winter. Then I skied. She dashed around in the snow. Today we both slog along in the rain, stopping every so often for me to pick berries. We here not for the berry picking, which is marginally productive, but for the calming stream. Its rushing sound blocks that of rifles being fired at the nearby gun range. It also seems to carry away the day’s stress.1

I don’t worry about bears, even though we pass smashed plots of grass where one reclined and spots where bears have dug up roots. The berry crop here is not good enough to draw them away from the downstream gravel bars where they can easily snatch a just-arrived dog salmon from the creek. Soon the salmon will be flooding this part of the creek. An immature bald eagle just flew by us on a low altitude reconnaissance mission up river. Then I’ll find another place to pick.2

Picking and Tossing

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Seconds ago, Aki dropped her orange Frisbee at my feet. Now she barks—her way of asking me to send the toy flying so she can chase it. I want to ignore her and continue picking blueberries. It’s past mid-summer and this is the first time I’ve had to put up berries for the winter.2

When I pick up the Frisbee, Aki charges down the trail in the direction I have already thrown the thing five times. I wait until she is well on her way before tossing it another direction. Now I’ll have some time to pick while she searches for her precious.3

Bears have already gone over this patch of bushes—cubs judging from the size of their scat. They high-graded: tromping over the lower lying fruit to tongue fat, sweet berries from the topmost branches. It would be very bad to startle the mother of the hungry cubs that wreaked all the damage. Thanks to Aki’s barking, there is no chance of that.