Category Archives: Dan Branch

First Light Breaking

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First light is breaking after the storm as Aki and I enter an old growth forest. We won’t see another man or dog on the walk to the beach. The light reaches deep into the forest and makes translucent the green skunk cabbage leaves as they muscle up through the waters of the beaver pond.

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Reaching the beach we discover that the minus three-foot ebb has exposed the causeway to Shaman Island. Eagles feed on land normally covered with ten to twenty feet of water. I usually have to coax Aki onto the causeway. But today she follows at my heals.

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It’s a tough morning for ravens and eagles. The crows that roost on the island harass them. As we leave the causeway, a raven flies over us, crows pulling at its tail feathers. Other crows do the same to a deserting eagle. To the north storm clouds lift to reveal the glacier and Mendenhall Towers.

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Late in Coming

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Aki and I have come too soon to the troll woods. It looks and feels like winter has just left. Many of the lakeside alders and cottonwoods stand with naked limbs against a dull-grey sky. But there is hope for spring in for the form of pussy willows and bursting alder buds. Even though little or no snow remains on Thunder Mountain, it is cold enough for me to hood up.

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By straining I am able to spot one mallard on Crystal Lake. The shrill whistles of the vared thrush and once, a hawk’s complaint supply the only other evidence of animated life. Pushing deeper into the moraine, despite a government sign warning of recent bear activity, I lead the little dog to the edge of a beaver-flooded trail.

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Aki, apparently knowing I will have to soon reverse course, the poodle-mix watches me doing a clumsy tightrope-walking maneuver along the trail’s edge. When I reach a patch of dry ground, my eye is pulled down to the flooded trail by the panicked movements of water bugs. They are heading toward islands of grass where the waves generated by raindrops can’t break the tension that keeps them afloat.

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Confluences

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We are enjoying the confluence of raindrops and sunshine that can form between storms. The twenty-four hours of rain just ended glistened the new understory growth and hung fat drops on the tips of blueberry leafs. Even though this is a weekend morning, no one else is using the Rain Forest trail. Aki doesn’t sulk. There are enough left over smells to keep her occupied as we drop through the old growth forest to the beach.

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Other than the pale pink blueberry blooms, only the butter-yellow skunk cabbage flowers challenge the forest’s green monopoly. Shafts of sunlight spot light both kinds of flowers and shine through leaves and lattices of old man beard lichen. The air is full of the songs of working birds but the vared thrush’s shrill whistles and the jack-hammer sound of woodpeckers make it hard to hear the sweeter tunes.

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Sun shafts bring out streaks of intense color on the beach after we leave the forest. A great blue heron grooms itself on an exposed rock at the water’s edge. When it stops to face Lynn Canal, it looks like a messy-haired preacher about to deliver a Sunday sermon to the congregation of gulls and ducks that has formed in the nearby waters.

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Prettier at Opening Time

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Sometime during the past century a country and western singer made a lot of money by singing “The girls get prettier at closing time.”  Lack of experience prevents me from evaluating the truth of this statement. But I find myself singing the song to Aki as we walk through the Treadwell Ruins.

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A fast moving storm slammed into Juneau last night, blowing away the patch of high pressure that had provided us with four warm and sunny days. So we are taking advantage of the shelter from wind and rain offered by the cottonwood forest that has grown up over the ruined town. The Treadweel cottonwoods, alders and willows leafed out during the warm spell. They preshow the beautiful colors the trees will display next fall. Each leaf is unmarred by insect, disease; undarkened by exposure to the elements. For the only time in the year, the cottonwoods fill the air with the smell of balsam.

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Ground plants and shrubs won’t ever look as pretty as they do now as they unfurl their tiny leaves. Fiddlehead ferns uncurl their tightly wrapped stems. Even the shaggy cow parsnips look pretty this time of year.

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The Morning After

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I could hear them bickering when we reached the Fish Creek Pond. At least two bald eagles were having words. Aki ignored the noise to concentrate on all the good scents left along side the trail. Neither of us paid much attention to the incense-smell of the balsam poplar leaves opening to the morning sun.

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We eased up onto the dike that forms one edge of the pond and walked toward the creek. A mature bald eagle and an immature one perched close to each other on a bleached-out driftwood log. Another eagle stood waist deep in the creek, as it he decided it was great day for a bath.

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The wet eagle must have been pulled under by a steelhead trout. Using its wings for lift, it managed to escape the creek waters and skip over to the shallows where it could stand. Raising its wings again, the big bird waddled onto a gravel bar. The scene had the feel of Sunday morning coming down. The two dry eagles watched with passivity of the hung over while the other one looked like it had no idea how it ended up in mid-stream.

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Now the little dog and I move down to the creek mouth where two Canada geese alert the world of our presence. A flood tide has covered the wetlands and backed up the creek. As I focus my camera on the glacier, the geese explode off the water and fly a low flight path over Fritz Cove.

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Taking it for Granted

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A matched mallard pair speeds across Moose Lake. Spooked by another dog walker, their flight is driven by a need to escape, not to reach a destination. When they near the opposite edge of the lake the ducks throw up their wings, hover for a second and then splash onto the lake’s surface.

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The mallards move back toward the center of the lake and disappear into a reflection of Mt. McGinnis and the glacier. Being able to witness action like this by ducks that are common as pigeons in a park is something we take for granted. I am going to try not to do that in the future.

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Thanks to our local beavers, the parameter of Moose Lake is shrinking. Someday it will be a meadow and ducks will have to find other water where they can fish and feed. That’s how nature works. Sometime in the too near future the glacier that now launches icebergs into Mendenhall Lake will retreat from the lake and become a hanging glacier. That’s on us who contribute to climate change.

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After the glacier’s retreat arctic terns will no longer be able to rest on icebergs that come to ground near their nesting site. Cruise ship tourists will ride boats across the lake so they can scramble close enough to the glacier for a selfee. Locals will remember the time…

Eagles Along the River

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Aki and I usually keep moving on our walks. The little dogs starts whining if I take took long examining something. But today on a trail that leads to where the Mendenhall River empties into Fritz Cove, she is quite content to lay relaxed in the sun.

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She normally spends the entire visit to this trail on alert. The eagles that often perch just above us in beachside spruce make her nervous. Since she is just light enough for them to carry her away, I share her concern. But today she rests at the feet of another human friend, an older man that she watches over when he joins us on our walks.

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There is good reason to be happy. We sit on sun-warmed rocks out of the wind. Over Fritz Cove a cloud of shorebirds flashes dark and light as they suddenly change directions. Ducks and scoters stream up and down the river, made nervous by the eagles that scream from their spruce perches. Nearby a murder of ravens cackles and clucks. Other eagles fly toward us from the exposed wetlands on the other side of the river. One, still covered in the brown feathers of an immature eagle,carries a fish in its talons. Just after it lands two mature birds land next to it. In seconds, the immature bird flies out and over the river without its fish.

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Not a Cheese Day

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I am not sure Aki wants to be here. I had a hard time convincing her to leave the house before her other human had breakfasted. Small slices of cheese have been known to slip into her mouth at breakfast. I coxed her into the car with assurances that it is a oatmeal, not a cheese for breakfast day. The way she dawdles on the Gastineau Meadow Trail suggests that she never bought the oatmeal argument.

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The bird songs of early spring pierce the air: Stellar’s jay screeching and the shrill whistle of the Varied Thrush. American robins hop ahead of us like cripples, hoping to entice us away from their nests.  But the little dog ignores them.

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I am wearing sunglasses for the first time in weeks. They allow me to watch the battle of the sun with clouds above Sheep Mountain. The sun will win a few battles today but won’t overcome the clouds’ dominance of the sky.

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Graduation Day

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A group of gowned men and women stand two by two in a line. I’m at the end. Outside our waiting room comes the sound of deer hide drums and chanting in Tlingit.  Members of the Auk Kwan Tribe are drumming us into the auditorium with their welcoming song. In an hour or two I will be a graduate of the UAA writer’s school.

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Aki isn’t here but she had a good walk earlier up the Perseverance Trail. It was dry but overcast for our walk. White mountain goats gorged themselves on new growth on the flanks of Mt. Juneau. Alders and cottonwood trees along Gold Creek were yellow-green with new growth. For the first time this year, it felt like spring.

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Chief Kowee of the Auk Kwan once lead Joe Juneau and Richard Harris up the creek in a search that would lead to the discovery of a rich vein of gold. Someone named our town after Mr. Juneau. But most public events in our town still begin with a thank you to the Auk Kwan people, usually in Tlingit, to recognize them as the traditional owners and caretakers of the land upon which we live.

We process into the auditorium and take our seats. As the last drum beat fades, the college chancellor opens the proceedings by introducing himself in Tlingit and then formally thanking the Auk Kwan for their permission to proceed. I should do that now. Gunalchéesh Gunalchéesh hó hó Auk Kwan people and my writing school mentors.

Late Spring

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The forest should be greening up. Normally by early May green shoots of bracken, with tips curled like the head of a violin, would be forcing their way through last year’s dead growth. But today only the ever-present tree moss shows green.

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The tidal meadow, when the little dog and I reach it, looks as dead as November. But the presence of nattering Canada geese confirm the onset of Spring. Those not chuckling graze on new shoots of meadow grass. In less accessible meadows black bears are filling their winter-empty stomachs with shoots of similar grass.

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While Aki sniffs at a seemingly random spot on the trail, I lean down to inspect wolf scat that is chock full of tan colored fur. I’ve seen similar colored fur on our Sitka black tail deer. Winter’s winners and losers, little dog, now fueling this spring’s new growth.