Category Archives: Dan Branch

A Dangerous Coat

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Aki and I head out to the moraines, trying to squeeze in a visit before a promised Pacific storm slams us with high wind and heavy rain. Already the leaves of our cottonwoods weaken from green to yellow to brown. This afternoon’s storm could strip some of the moraine’s trees bare.

On the drive out I think briefly about bears. A sow and cubs have been feeding on salmon spawning near the glacier. We should be ok, a half-a-mile away on the moraine trail. Even if we come near bears, they shouldn’t be interested in a little dog and her scruffy master. But, I haven’t factored in my fishy coat.

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Without thinking about anything other than convenience as we left the house, I pulled on the coat I used on yesterday’s fishing trip. A person with a sensitive nose might detect the faint odor of herring rising off its sleeves. But to a bear in autumn, the jacket must smell like an unguarded fish market.

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Ten minutes into the hike, Aki growls and makes a faint into the woods. The branch of a trailside alder quivers above her head. Suspecting she is flushing a bird, I call her back. We walk on, enjoying reflections of yellowing leaves of willows and cottonwoods in the moraine’s pocket lakes. Far from the quivering branch, Aki growls again and breaks into the woods. Another branch quivers. After I call her back, a bear lets out three huffs and climbs ten feet up a spruce tree.

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We divert into the troll woods and swing a wide arc around the bear visitation spots. At home, I drop the herring coat into the washer.

Almost Fogged Out

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The phone rings. It’s the captain. “I’ll pick you up in a half hour.” That gives me plenty of time to ready for what might the last salmon hunt of the year. As I pack, I think of the guy at Tee Harbor who said, “Tomorrow should be sunny and flat calm, lots of fish.” Today’s marine forecast gives further cause for optimism. It calls for calm winds and sun after the fog burns off at 10 a.m. I buy three trays of herring, instead of the usual two at Foodland when the captain stops there for supplies.

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Fog obscures most of Tee Harbor as the captain and I load the boat. We mount the downriggers, ready the fishing poles, and set the herring to soaking, sure that the fog is about to lift. As I bend down to unclip the bow line a couple walks by. One of them says that they are heading home with plans to fish on a day without fog. An hour later, a red Lund skiff emerges from the fog driven by a standing man with the look of an escapee from tragedy. The captain still reverses his old Sea Dory from the mooring and motors us slowing into the thin white wall.

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We find clear skies and sunshine at the mouth of Tee Harbor but fog still obscures most of Favorite Passage. It even covers half of the nearby Aaron Island, where we once caught a brace of silvers just after Dall Porpoise swan under and around the Sea Dory. We find neither fish nor porpoise during the hours we troll around Aaron. But the fog’s slow reveal of sun on nearby islands, mountains and glaciers entertains us during the wait. So did a large raft of scoters and a pair of oystercatchers that flew laps around our boat.

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Finally, the fog lifts enough for us to cross the channel without getting crushed by a whale watching boat. But it still clogs the upper opening of the North Pass, where there should be salmon. We wait for more clearing. When it comes, and we can finally fish the pass, we have little luck. One whale breaks water near our boat, then makes its tail a black silhouette on the painfully-bright sea. A sea lion follows us, snatching each herring that we removed from our hooks when we change bait. Eventually, as a wall of storm clouds builds over the Chilkat Range, the captain catches a male silver salmon. But the wind, that had helped to blow away the fog, is already raising waves in the pass. Its time to start the bumpy ride back to the harbor.

The Other Senses

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We are only a half-mile up the Gastineau Meadows’ trail when my camera battery dies. Aki, who seems to resent the camera delays, doesn’t mind. I don’t either. Today’s lighting would only confuse the camera sensors. So I sling the camera and employ my non-visual senses to experience the place.

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Finding a patch of late-ripening blueberries, I roll one between thumb and forefinger and feel it yield to pressure before popping it in my mouth. Its taste—more sour than sweet—makes me think of the smell of muskeg meadows soaked with rain. I search the tops of nearby spruce when a rough tail hawk belts out its “queeeee” call but I can’t spot the bird. Its next call is fainter, made further into the meadow.

Back to the Woods

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Heavy rain again drives us into the Treadwell woods where there is evidence of last night’s storm. Broken cottonwood branches litter soggy trails. We see one dog and its owner when we arrive. We won’t see any other. Another effect of the storm.

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Gulls huddle on the shoreline or cruise just off shore. Three American widgeons drift among them. For a few minutes a shaft of sunlight breaks through cloud cover, enhancing the little fall color that has survived the wind. But it doesn’t stop the rain.

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Eagle River

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Today, before a Pacific storm can hammer Juneau with high wind and up to eight inches of rain, I take the little poodle mix out to one of our favorite trails. It runs through the cottonwoods and spruce that border Eagle River and then swings north toward an open meadow. The untended-outhouse smell of dead salmon dominates the woods. Through a screen of alders I see gulls and ravens feeding on salmon flesh. They don’t worry me but a crashing sound that silences the bickering gulls—that cause concern. It could only be a bear. I start singing the Aki song to keep the little dog focused on me and to warn any bears of our presence. If we don’t startle one or come between it and it’s young, we should be ok.

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We reach the meadow without seeing any bears and cross it to reach the Glacier Highway. From there it is a short walk to a riverside meadow that is fertilized each year with salmon flesh. The big fish swim up small tidal streams during a flood tide and die after being stranded by the ebb. Here too, is the smell of death.

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On an Eagle River gravel bar, an immature bald eagle feeds on a salmon carcass. After ripping off a portable piece the bird flies across the river to finish its meal on a driftwood stump. This is the first of many eagles we see feeding or roosting along the river. After passing one just before reaching the parking lot I think of the Haines, Alaska bald eagle confab that happens at the beginning of winter. Thousands of bald eagles gather there to feast on the participants in a late salmon run. Hundreds of people shiver in the cold to watch eagles bicker with each other over dying salmon flesh. As the first drops of promised rain fall, I think how much better we have it today. We only have to put up with a little rain and the constant smell of death.

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Fog and Fall Color

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As a heavy rain hammers Chicken Ridge, the little dog and I head out to the glacier in search of some dry. But, we find rain here too at and lake waters encroaching on the trail we usually take from Skater’s Cabin to the campground. Lake fog and low clouds hide the glacier and dampen the willows and cottonwoods’ fall color.

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The little dog leads the way onto a work-around trail and into the almost empty campground. Only three RV’s use the huge facility today. This suits me but Aki looks like she could use some dog company. Other than a few song birds, thanks to the mist just little brown jobs, the place seems empty of life.

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The rain stops just before we complete a loop through the campground. No wind rises but the clouds rise enough to reveal a strip of glacial ice. At the same time the fog shifts, revealing the reflections of a lakeside strip of yellowing cottonwoods mixed with dark-green spruce. It shifts back before I can focus my camera for a shot so all I can photograph is a line of tourist-red rafts heading toward the Mendenhall River.

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I wipe off Aki and leave her in the car before returning to the lake in time to see the fog part again—this time long enough for me to capture some of the beauty.

 

Haines Highway

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Fog covered the Alsek River this morning at Haines Junction. But even before sunrise we could see the St. Elias Mountains. They stood like an eroded wall between the Yukon Territory and the Pacific. Their lower flanks were exposed yesterday evening when thick shafts of sunlight powered through to illuminate the thinning cloud cover. I almost expected saints to descend from Heaven.

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By the time we started the drive to Haines, Alaska the sun had already reduced the fog to wisps on the water.

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I don’t want this post to be a weather report about sunshine and the cloud cover we drove under before the approach to Three Guardsmen Pass. But just out of Haines Junction we did enjoy sunlight sparking on masses of yellow poplar leaves and later on a swan pair that seemed to enjoy its warmth while resting on the waters of a pocket lake. We could see the beauty under clouds but the sun enhanced it.

Frisbee—Aki’s Mobile Device

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Aki may not suffer distractions from a mobile device like many of the humans we pass on trails. By plugging their ears with buds, they take hearing out of their toolbox for experiencing nature. They might even miss the shadow of a bald eagle flying over the smart phone they clutch in a hand. Today I learned that her Frisbee has a similar impact on Aki.

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We are walking along the edge of Mendenhall River where it enters Fritz Cove. The incoming tide has flooded much of the beach. As usual, a half-a-dozen bald eagles are roosting in riverside spruce. Each watches us pass, perhaps eying Aki as a possible meal. Normally, the little dog hugs the forest edge when eagles take up stations in the tall spruce. Today, as if advertizing poodle meat, while chasing down her Frisbee, she dashes out to the water’s edge and springs like Tigger in the windblown grass.

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Winners and Losers

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Carless for the past few days, Aki and I have been limited to trails that begin and end at our front door. Our walks on them reminded me that even in our benign little town, there are winners and losers. The winners whistled or even smiled at my little dog as we walk past them in the rain. One young African-American man called out a hello followed by, “Stay white.” While pondering this possible mixed message, I passed the rubble of a homeless camp and the avaricious jewel merchants of Lower Franklin Street.

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Today, again having wheels, we head out to the North Douglas Island trail that leads to a beach view of Shaman Island. At the end of a warm, wet summer, the fungus are winners here. So are the tall displays of devil’s club that thrive in forest opened by wind-felled spruce and hemlock trees.

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I not sure whether the two kingfishers we spot consider themselves winners or losers. The hunker on rocks just offshore apparently waiting for a fingering to expose itself. A clump of gulls huddle along the mouth of Peterson Creek. Otherwise the little bay is empty. No eagles or ravens complain. No rafts of scoters or ducks bob in the mild surface.

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Fog and Fall

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Fog. It covers Mts. Juneau and Roberts. The temperature difference between Gold Creek and the air above it produces more fog that rises in ragged strips like souls floating to Nirvana. The fog allows me to focus on the cottonwoods that are already dropping their yellowing leaves. Leaves of maples and thimbleberries join the cottonwood rubble on the flume trail. Aki doesn’t recognize the significance of the leaves that she sniffs for dog sign. But I know they always start to drop before the fall monsoons.

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