Now, a few days shy of winter solstice, little sun reaches the depths of Gold Creek Canyon. It can’t touch the creek itself, stubbornly liquid on this 14 degree day.  I watch slices of light move across the snow covered ridges above the old A.J. Mine. Other slices light short segments of the flume carrying water to the hydro plant near the Indian Village. As if spooked by the bright light, Aki resists crossing these portions of the flume.  I carry her until finding a section of mountain side where squiggles of ice formed from rock seepage sparkle. In seconds dusk replaces day, leaving us in the comforting grey. 

Unwelcome rain washes our city streets. It started last night when the temperature climbed above freezing. The rain fell and the temperature rose in the night; working to soften the snow pack along Eagle River. We skied there anyway, me and Aki’s other human packing a trail for the little dog. Things went her way until I left our little pack to ski down a lesser used trail. When wallowing in deep snow to frame this photograph, I fell. Aki, watching on the other side of a wide stretch of bottomless snow started toward me. Struggling from the start, she stopped often to rest between stints of dog paddling her way to me. Above, a bald eagle circled over the tired poodle-mix. Fortunately for everyone but the hunting bird, Aki turned back, using her packed trail to climb to safety offered by the other skier.  

Somebody’s luck is bad, I think as the melancholy sound of a siren arrives on the wind. No other town noise reaches here; nothing to complete with a raven’s harsh chants. With snowshoes, I pack a trail over deep snow for Aki. The little poodle mix processes with calm dignity behind, letting the fox that recently tracked the snow know who reigns over Chicken Ridge. I’m working for the fox too, and maybe some nervous snowshoe hares. Even a wolf could exploit me, using the packed trail to run down prey. 

While it rained on Chicken Ridge last night, it snowed hard a few miles away on North Douglas Island. I had to clear a foot of fresh white from the trailhead trash can before depositing Aki’s bag of scat. My boots sunk through deep snow with every step until we reached the shelter of old growth spruce. The limbs of the big trees bent almost straight down under a load of new snow. Such sacrifices provide comfortable passage for our Sitka black tail deer. Today they made it possible for Aki to dash around the forest floor, tail up, ears rising and falling with each leap. Her fun ended when one tree released its load, sending a white shower across the trail. It sounded like an express train passing through a subway station. After, I almost expected a sigh, like I would emit after being freed from a heavy burden. 

Walking through a forest of trees accumulating then releasing their snow burdens we made it to the sea where the high tide pushed a thick strip of cream colored water onto the beach. I considered and rejected many fanciful explanations for this snow white water—surplus milk dumping, silly practical joke, environmental disaster. The answer was simply a matter of timing. Last night’s storm struck at low tide, allowing a great amount of snow to accumulated over exposed tide pools, gravel and sand. The morning’s flood lifted off the snow, then churned it with wave and swell until the near-beach water turned an opaque white. 

I’ve seen water off Southeast beaches yellowed with cedar pollen or herring spawn and darkened by the red tide. Until this morning, it never mimicked  something from a cow. 

It’s 1530 on Chicken Ridge. Now past sunset, the sky darkens from sweet crayon blue to black with the ascendancy of a slivered moon. Gray clouds turn pink, then orange, then red. Listening to Chieftains (Album 1) isn’t required to write about this sky, but I need the music to describe the walk Aki and I just finished on the Sheep Creek Delta. The rich mix of joy and sadness the boys convey with fiddle, whistle and bodhran makes a fitting soundtrack for this afternoon’s flood tide. 

Arriving a few hours before the cresting of a 17 foot high tide, the little dog and I headed directly for the delta’s edge. We passed tide pools completely covered by  paper thin sheets of flexible sea ice. I could make out shapes and pebbles through the translucent covering.  In a momentarily dry channel, the tips of barnacle colonies poked through other thin ice sheets as if wrapped in frozen barbers’ capes. Layers of long frost feathers decorate their capes. I was tempted to linger, knowing that this icy beauty would be lost to the flooding tide, but prudently followed Aki toward the sea edge, checking to make sure we would not be cut off by rising water.    The larger puddles and ponds, still unfrozen, captured more light and color in their reflections of mountain and sky than could be found in the things reflected. We watched the tide smash one of these liquid mirrors, bringing movement that fragmented the reflection, leaving us with a shattered image of Sheep Mountain.

Aki started whining while I tried to focus the camera on a reflective scene. Looking behind us, I saw tide water quickly filling a channel we would have to cross to get back to the car. We made a run for it, leaving deep prints in the channel mud that filled with tidal water seconds after made. Reaching a dry high spot on the beach I looked back and watched translucent ice sheets melting on contact with the flooding sea. Any sense of loss was soon replaced by hope and the expectation that when it retreated, this new tide would leave behind more icy wonder.