Category Archives: Dan Branch

Late Arrivals

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The little dog and I are crossing the meadow where we met a bear on our last visit. The season’s first dusting of snow brightens the surrounding peaks. Six geese, each whiter than the new snow, swing off from Lynn Canal and drift onto the grass. Most of their fellow snow geese passed through here last month on their trip south. These birds should already be with them in the Lower 48 States.

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I think about the tiny rufus hummingbird that hovered near our living room window a few days ago, long after the last wild flower went to seed. Elders tell their grandkids that hummingbirds fly south tucked into the feathers of snow geese. I wonder if there is still time for our hummingbird to hitch a ride with these tardy geese.

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We have just finished walking the beach that separates the meadow from Lynn Canal. At least I walked. Aki preferred to run out and back, like she did when she was a puppy. There is something about the sand that energizes her. Perhaps it’s the way her paws sink in or the thrill of sending grains fly with every step. At least one raven  watched the little dog run.

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Time For Cheese

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Fog can bring melancholy when it blocks the sun and mountains for days. It can ground airplanes and make hazardous ship travel. But this morning it seems to have magical powers, turning the sun into the moon, and reducing Mount Jumbo to two dimensions.  Aki squints up at me, as if she can read my thoughts and is not pleased with them. True, she might say if she had the power of speech, the fog obscures all but the outlines of mountains and the sun. But that’s down to science, not magic.

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The little poodle mix may just be upset that we left the house before she had her morning cheese. Or maybe she is disappointed that no other dog walkers have joined us on the Gastineau Meadows. I also wonder if we mistimed this visit. By delaying long enough for Aki to enjoy her cheese course, we might have been able to walk on the meadows in sunlight and watched the fog melt away.

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Aki doesn’t show any impatience after I plant myself on the trail to wait for the sun to burn through the fog. It does manage to punch out a small hole in the gray and shine on the flank of Sheep Mountain. Then the fog thickens and covers the sun and the few patches of blue sky that had formed briefly over Mt. Juneau. Well little dog, time for cheese.

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Storm Break

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This morning sixty knot gusts knocked over trash bins and ran away with our newspaper. On North Douglas Island it shattered at least one hemlock tree. Enjoying a hike during a storm break, Aki and I have to step over the fallen tree in order to finish the Outer Point Trail.

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The storm threw another impediment in our way. Recent rain raised the water level in the beaver pond to the flood stage. Little cascades flow over the beaver’s dams and eat away at the trail. A small portion of the trail is covered with pond water. Aki prances through the flooded parts. I find an alternative route through the woods.

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After working around the downed tree, we hear loon song coming from the beach. It continues after we leave the woods, joined by the work songs of sparrows. Our arrival coincides with a break in the storm. One shaft of light strikes Shaman Island and reaches across Lynn Canal to light up Lena Point. The loon continues its operatic chant even after the gray returns. But the sparrows go silent at the first fall of new rain.

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Day for Impressionists

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Aki and I have reached the edge of Gastineau Channel near the mouth of Sheep Creek. Crows and gulls, scattered over the creek delta like salt and pepper, pay no attention to the little dog and I. Even the normally jumpy mallards ignore us. A small raft of ducks land on the channel waters and paddle our way. What are we little dog, invisible?

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I recognize a male golden eye in the newly arrived raft. But I can’t make out the rest of the gang. My best guess is that they are female common golden eyes. Whatever they are, the birds swim towards us as if I held a bucket of grain for them to devour.

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I lead the little dog away from the golden eyes to the edge of a small tidal lake where mallards, gulls, and crows feed. The lake reflects the faded fall colors on Sheep Mountain. On a sunny day, the images would be crisper than those of the reflected trees. But in today’s flat light, they are as abstract as Monet ‘s water lilies.

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No More Photographs, Please

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Distracted by a U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter flying down Gastineau Channel, I didn’t notice the raven arrive. When Aki finally looks at the big bird atop the root wad of a driftwood log, she shows little interest. I wonder if the raven is hurt or happy about the slight.

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The raven tolerates my efforts to photograph for a minute and then turns it’s beak in my direction. It’s body language communicates a clear message—that’s enough photographs, please. Lacking a paparazzo’s boldness, I turn to look down channel where a Coast Guard rescues boat chases the helicopter toward Admiralty Island.

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The low clouds that had been obscuring our view of Taku Inlet move up channel. We watch the rescue vehicles disappear into a wall of white. Minutes later it returns.  Was the pilot forced to abandon his mission by weather or is the helicopter no longer needed. Hoping it is the later and that the missing folks have been located safe on a beach, I following Aki into the Treadwell forest.

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Out of Concern

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Aki won’t leave the car. For the first time ever at a trailhead, she doesn’t leap out the door the minute I open it. A light rain is falling but in the past even heavy downpours haven’t deterred her. As if trained in etiquette by an Irishman, she waits for me to ask her three timed before dropping onto the ground.

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The little dog stays right on my heals as we cross the Fish Creek Bridge and head toward the pond.  She looks back often, even when squatting to defecate. She has smelled a wild animal that might harm us. I know it is not a bear because, unwisely, she has no fear of them. I remember the wolf that hunted here during the salmon spawn. Maybe it is back. Aki calms down after we round the pond.

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Even through the tide has covered over the wetlands, which would normally force all the eagles to roost in shoreline spruce trees, none of the big birds announces our approach with screams. We won’t see any eagles, ravens, or crows during the visit.  The resident mallards are also gone. A pair of western grebes fish just offshore in Fritz Cove. Behind them a line of harlequin and golden eye ducks fly feet off of the water.  Across the horizon, hundreds of migratory birds head south, too far away for me to identify them.

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Aki perks up when we turn to head back to car, but stops often to make sure that I am not lagging behind. I feel like a child being escorted down a dangerous city street. We drive home through a downpour, which discourages me from exiting the car when we reach the house. Aki waits for me on the front porch even though the door is already open. She will wait there until I gather everything from the car and walk into the safety of our home.

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Winter Guys Are Back

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We are deep in the troll woods, surrounded by moss-covered trees. Aki just froze in place, her twitching nose the only thing on her body that moves. She stares into the woods. But whatever she smells is too far away to see. There is a stream of spawning salmon in direction of her stare. There are probably bears as well.

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I am not worried. We have seen no sign of bears—no scat or tracks. We have seen little of anything except bare trees and gray skies. On each of the small lakes we pass, we did see pairs of bufflehead and golden eye ducks. These are the winter guys are back from the outer coast. Their white feather patterns make them easy to spot on the lakes’ dark waters. No wonder they move to the opposite side of their lake when we near.

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Auk Village

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Aki ignores the murder of crows gathered on the Auk Nu beach. Rather than reacting to us, the crows play a bouncing game. For no apparent reason, one flies ninety degrees up then drops like a rock onto the beach. Next two birds bounce up and down. A third bird tries it.  When an eagle swoops over them the crows fly in a low arc over the water and return to the beach. Are crows and ravens the only birds with spare time to kill?

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The other birds we pass are either hunting, eating, or resting. Scoters and harlequin ducks dive on food in the bay. A sea lion rolls once on the surface and slips under the water to chase a fish. One bald eagle surveys the bay from a spruce roost after temporarily flushing the crows.

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The little dog and I leave the beach for a forest trail that leads to Point Louisa. It takes us between lines of yellowing blueberry bushes to a spit where we can see the old village site. From this spot 100 years ago, we could have seen smoke climbing from the roofs hand-hewn long houses. Big canoes, dug out from single spruce or cedar logs would have littered the beach.  A canoe full of Auk Tlingits chased a boat of British sailors back to Lt. Vancouver’s brig.  A canoe from Wrangell carried John Muir here.

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The canoes and long houses are gone. One totem pole survives to stand over a village site of dogwood, thimbleberry and fireweed gone to seed.

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The Way it is

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I am standing on a bridge over Steep Creek. Aki is in the car. Because a sow and her two cubs are fishing for salmon nearby, this is a dog-free zone. No bears enter my view shed but a red breasted merganser moves in spurts towards me. It swims with the desperation of an in bound salmon. Between each dash, the duck darts it head under the water. It must be targeting baby salmon from last year’s spawn.

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Salmon drive the moraine’s economy. Bears and ducks would be elsewhere if not for the fish. Earlier today Aki and I found a silver salmon flopping alongside the Nugget Falls Trail. At first I worried that it had been carried here in the mouth of a bear that sulked nearby. Then we heard eagle scream. The fish, which must have weighed two kilos, was lifted from the lake by talons. An bird beak had already attacked the salmon’s gills and lower jaw.

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While Aki cautiously sniffed the dying salmon, I wondered at the inherent cruelty of this beautiful moraine. The silver, now in flaming-red spawning colors, might have swam a thousand miles from the Gulf of Alaska to this lake. The whole time it ate every herring it could catch while hunted by fishermen, killer whales, seals, and sea lions. How many nets, hook, and jaws did it avoid only to die less than a kilometer away from its spawning ground? There was only one thing to do for we visitors to do—continue on to the falls so the eagle could harvest the meat.

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Sunlight broken through the heavy overcast as we approached the falls. A rainbow appeared in the spray formed by cascading water slamming into the lake.  If the falls hadn’t been swollen with rain from the storm, if the sun hadn’t appears at that moment, if Aki and I had not been detained by the dying salmon…

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It has to happen

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We are heading into the brown time that falls between fall color and snow. Aki, we have watched most of the leaves in this forest mature from spring buds to limp, drained things. The little dog, acting as if she didn’t hear me, slinks off to sniff a tree trunk. Poodle, I know it is ridiculous to mourn the leaves. She flashes me her “duh’ look.

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Maybe because this has been such a good year for fall color, I am saddened by single leaves, now faded from red to pink, hanging from otherwise empty trees. If the time of snow and hard freezes holds off for a week or two more, we will have more color in the forest. Some of the low growing sorrels are still green while the leaves of their neighbors are mottled red and orange. But the wind has torn the yellow leaves off most of the cottonwoods and the alders are fading to brown.

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Soon we will be reduced to earth tones except for the party colors of the harlequin ducks.

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