Category Archives: Dan Branch

Winter’s Vacation

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On one of January’s last days it’s 37 degrees above zero. Persistent rainfall has eliminated snow from the forest floor except where it has been packed into ice by foot traffic. You see, this week Winter left Alaska to holiday below the 49th parallel. Subzero temperatures made worst by strong winds have people in the Lower 48 are penned down in their homes while we watch our ski trails melt in the rain.

            Aki and I head out to the Fish Creek Delta looking for distractions from the weather. A mature bald eagle, feathers soaked by rain, has positioned itself above to pond. Last week the pond was capped by a solid layer of ice. The fractured flows that remain float up and down with the tides. 

            Aki is soon as soaked as the eagle. She shivers each time I stop to watch the eagle or a small raft of mallards that have moved up the creek with the tide. She doesn’t object when I turn back towards the car. Don’t worry little dog, snow is in the forecast and the temperatures should be in signal digits soon. Winter’s vacation is almost over.

Lucky Ducks

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It was late morning on Sandy Beach. The fog that had dampened noise and limited vision on the beach was breaking up. The eagle that usually hunkers on top of the old mine ventilation shaft was present but quiet. He squinted at the little dog and I as we made our way towards a pair of Beninese mountain dogs. I swear that the eagle stirred with interest as the three dogs met. Aki stretched out before the two hulking dogs, as if offering herself as a midday meal. The tails and ears of the mountain dogs shot up in interest. When they were hooked, Aki slipped out from under their noises and ran circles around them. Apparently disappointed, the eagle turned away. 

            Down channel another bald eagle flapped it way toward the old gold mining town of Lucky Me.  Aki said goodbye to her new buddies and worked the high tide line for scents. I almost forgot about her as I approached two mallard ducks. The hen and drake were fast asleep with their beaks tucked into a nest of feathers on their backs.  They slept through my clumsy approach and the sound of small waves breaking two feet away. 

            Nearby another mallard pair scurried across the surface of the collapsed glory hole, eyeing us nervously as they paddled away. Then a pair of golden eye ducks did the same. The sleeping pair did not awake. The ventilator shaft eagle must have been watching the ducks sleep. It could have easily turned one of them into a meal. Lucky ducks. 

Ignoring Raven

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The empty parking for the False Outer Point Beach promises an empty trail. This doesn’t bother the normally social Aki. It pleases her owner, who enjoys each chance to explore a beautiful place in solitude. Tears are forming in the thick fog that had been preventing us from seeing more than a half-mile of channel water. Through one of them we can see Mt. McGinnis.  Through another a slice of the Chilkat Mountains appears. 

            I’m thankful for the mountain views and the fact that it isn’t raining. It pleases me more that nothing has scared the resident raft of golden eye ducks away from the beach.  Aki stays close to my side as we round the point where an eagle sulks in the bare branches of a spruce snag.  Off shore a man in an open skiff drops a hook baited with a herring into the water. I silently wish him luck in his effort to catch a king salmon, remembering the taste of winter caught kings. 

            The ebbing tide must have left behind some tasteful carrion. A murder of crows, maybe 200 of them, tussles with the local gulls for the goodies. A bald eagle abandons the beach to them and flies over our heads and onto a spruce limb.  From the top of a small boulder, ten feet away, raven lectures the little dog and I.  He follows us down the beach, croaking out his speech. It isn’t welcomed. 

Found Food

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I wonder what Aki would have made of these jellyfish. Hundreds if not thousands of them washed up on the Seaside Beach with the tide. I’ve seen the little dog nose the gelatinousness mass of an Alaskan jelly spread over the gravel of a North Douglas beach. But she never lingered to taste one like she would have a fallen French fry on Franklin Street. 

            Unlike their Alaskan relatives, almost all these Oregon jellyfish are a monochromatic grey-brown. From a distance they look like flat stones on a flat beach.  There are gulls and crows patrolling the beach but none of them shows any interest in the jellyfish corpses. 

            It’s has stopped raining for a moment so I start my Tai Chi exercises, careful to watch the surf line for sneaker waves. Out of the corner of my eye I spot a gull watching me. Other gulls join it. I have the impression that they are looking for something to distract them on this dull, gray day. They are really waiting for me to move so they can sweep down on a ruined fish just beached by the retreating tide. When I do, a cloud of gulls descends on the beach to fight for the scraps. 

Tilamook Head

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This morning, after first coffee, I climbed to the hotel roof to watch the sunrise over the clear-cut forests that line the eastern horizon.  As he has been each other time that I’ve visited the rooftop, the resident gull, a kittiwake I think, was already perched on the top of the hotel’s copula. He tolerated me for a minute and then flew toward the Tillamook Head.  He left before I ask him about the condition of the Tillamook Head Trail. 

            The head is a huge headland that protrudes into the Pacific Ocean. It dominates the view looking south from Seaside Beach. From the hotel rooftop I traced a line of houses on Sunset Blvd that ends at the trailhead. 

            In the afternoon I will get a ride to the trailhead and then hike through a forest dominated by large spruce trees and hemlocks. It will look very much like an Alaska Rain Forest on a day in early spring.  I will feel at home. I will look out at the ocean through a forest gap and see lines of waves lined up like an army intent on slamming into the head. 

Opportunist Crows

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I am still in Seaside, an honorary member of a community of writers that gathers here every January. It’s a group generous with their time, attention and knowledge. But the level of energy that ran through us at the state of this residency is dropping. 

            To recharge, I take walks on the beach. But it lacks the magic of the North Douglas trails back home in Juneau. At first I assigned fault to the multistory structures that crowd the beach. But this is off-season, so they are empty shells reduced to silent silhouettes. Then I have to blame the other beach walkers, who migrated to the strip of sand just soaked by the retreating tide. Even when none of the walkers are close, their footprints and those left by previous beach users turn the beach into a much-used highway. It might be different if I could find an eagle or one could find me. Some of the writers have seen a bald eagle but I have had to make due with gulls and a gang of opportunistic crows. 

UOP Writer’s School

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Aki is home in snowy Juneau. I’m in Seaside Oregon attending writing school. Here the mallards float lazily on the Necanicum River. Back home, they hide from storm gusts in rocky lees. Aki would love to run full out on the broad Seaside Beach, maybe even dig in the sand for treasures. But she’d hate being cooped up in a dark motel room while I attended workshops and classes. 

            This morning I walked past the Seaside Aquarium. It still looks like it did when my parents bought my sister and I admission tickets decades ago. The place was closed but I could smell the sea creatures it housed.  

            The sea here is never quiet. Even on calm days it roars with wave noise. So different from our protected Juneau water, usually as quiet as a lake. 

Sheltering From the Wind

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Aki bursts out of the car and charges onto Sandy Beach. She crosses a line of snow made brown by blowing sand, slides to a stop, and retreats behind a grass-covered dune. I can’t argue with her judgment. The 60 miles-an-hour gust that stopped her run made the 24 degree ambient temperature feel like 3. 

            I don’t have any problem convincing the little dog to follow me into the Treadwell woods. The wind rushing through the trees sounds like an express train. It’s calmer in the forest except where fallen trees opened up paths for the wind. 

            We walk on a path parallel to the beach until reaching the little bay created when the Treadwell Mine tunnels collapsed. There, close up against the rocky shore, a mixed raft of mallards and golden eye ducks find shelter from the wind. 

Auk Lake

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Today Aki and I join an old friend for a walk around Auk Lake. The little poodle has quite a crush on the man even though he is not a dog person. It has taken her awhile but she now has him looking forward to walking with her. 

            Five inches of snow fell on the trail last night. But this morning the sun shines full onto the mountains. New snow outlines the noses of creatures on the college’s totem poles. One of the poles, the one that stands in a wind-protected area, still wears a coat of frost. 

            We leave the small campus and walk along the lakeshore. As the sun climbs into the sky, a thin fog rises from the frozen lake. The fog thickens enough to hide the college classroom buildings. If not for the noise of the nearby Glacier Highway, we could be circling a wilderness lake. 

            The trail takes us into thick woods where small streams still run free in spite of several days of cold weather that set ice over the whole lake. I look for animal tracks in the new snow but only find those of people and their dogs. 

Soon We Should Have Snow

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When the wind blows this morning, it feels like it is below zero F. It is blowing as Aki and I explored the Sheep Creek Delta. The sand has frozen to the consistency of a hardwood floor. Crystallized sea foam marks the latest high tide line on the beach.  Salt water that normally retreats back into Gastineau Channel as the tide ebbs has formed a frozen lake on the exposed beach. 

            We hear an eagle scream and watch another flush three mallards from mouth of the creek. The eagle that screamed soars out from a beachside spruce and makes a half-hearted attempt to do the same. I’ve seen eagles snatch herring, small salmons, and even a steelhead trout from the water. But I never watched one fly off with a duck. 

            Once, on the Innoko River of Western Alaska, a raven crashed into a young duck. Before it could finish off his prey, he tried to grab another chick. They both escaped. 

            It was sunny that day on the Innoko like it was when I finished off my morning coffee. The sun was just being swallowed up by a cloudbank when we started this walk. A small patch of sunrise yellow still colors the horizon but soon that will be gone.  In a few hours we will have snow.