I wish Gussie Fink-Nottle was here in this rainy swamp. We need a newt expert. Somewhere in this flooded grass land the rough-skinned newt lurks, skin charged with toxin (watch out Aki).  None lay exposed to the rain that rapidly soaks my coat and cap. I haven’t a clue how to flush one out.

My brief fixation with newts started yesterday at the barber shop where I killed waiting time reading a book on our local plants and animals. There, seeded in rich soil was an article on the rough-skinned newts that thrive here at the Northern end of their range. Now I am cursing the author and P.G. Wodehouse, who planted the idea of newts in his Jeeves and Worster stories. If Fink-Nottle could find newts, so can I.

Half an hour later I leave the swamp with no pictures of newts but a greater respect for Gussie Fink-Nottle. Traveling along Eagle River toward its mouth we reach a large meadow dominated by tall grass now gone yellow dry.  No farmer would have left this hay uncut. Next spring a great collection of geese will hunt the field for seeds and fertilize what they miss with their scat. Today it provides a tan counterpoint to gray sky and the dead green of spruce islands that appear to float on this wealth of unharvested grass.

My choice of direction at the start of today’s hike confuses Aki. She knows this trail well and probably has favorite pee sites identified. When I turn right rather than left on it she gives me her, “are you crazy” look and watches me disappear around the first corner. In seconds she’s by my side, having made the necessary adjustments to her expectations.Together we follow Eagle River on its last mile to the sea.

The trail takes us through a forest dominated by moss encrusted cottonwood trees with furrowed trunk that run over a 30 meters to the canopy. Their yellowing tear drop shaped leaves decorate this gravel trail, the berry brush and wide devil’s club leaves that make up the bulk of the understory garden.  Everything in this forest that can is heading toward the false death of autumn— a death that releases a red and yellow beauty.

We are minutes away from an informal trail to a wide gravel bar exposed now at low tide. Aki breaks ahead, bearing to the left of a water filled ditch while I stay to the right of it. A large immature eagle with a couple of missing wing feathers flies toward me from the gravel bar followed by four large dogs that head for Aki. Showing no aggression they surround her, sniffing with curiosity.  She breaks for the ditch separating us and, for the first time in her 6 years of life, swims across a water course.

After the big dogs trot away Aki and I walk to the gravel bar and check out a long finger of water leading in from the river. Salmon rest in this slough before continuing up river to their spawning grounds. They bring the birds and sometimes the bears.

Figuring not to find any predators along the slough after it had been visited by all those big dogs, I lead Aki toward it across a field of yellowing grass. The smell of salmon death hangs heavy. We take care not to step on rotting carcasses scattered everywhere by the incoming tides. Far down the meadow an unfamiliar eagle like call sounds as a large brown and white bird rises into the air on a course that takes it right over our heads.  It’s a Northern Harrier flying close enough for me to see its owl like face.

This is my first sighting of a harrier and memories of its close pass over head keeps me occupied until we reach the road and cross over it to where the hiking trail will continue in a few hundred meters. We enter the forest, rather than stay on the road with a plan to wander around in it until we find the trail back to the car. Here, just meters from the road we find a rich pocket of old growth forest formed by large spruce trees. Many kinds of mushrooms, some bright red dot the ground spaces between trees, high bush cranberry brush and red huckleberry bushes. A path formed by wild animals leads us back to the man made path to home.

The smell of death dominates this forest walk. That’s how it is along this river at the end of the salmon spawn. Just there, through that patch of river side spruce trees lie the rotting bodies of dog salmon as well as the gulls, ravens and eagles that feast on them.  Aki goes on alert when we hear a splash following by a new chorus of gull complaints—- all signs of a bear working the river shallows for late arriving salmon. We stay to the forest today not wanting a repeat of last year where Aki chased a fishing black bear up a tree and then into the forest.

This morning the grey rain of late August gave way to sun, which now backlights tree moss and understory foliage. While green dominates the forest my eye is drawn to the rare patches of reds and yellows produced by dying leaves. Leaving the usual trail we turn to an area of the forest where the Nagoonberry grows. A legend in the berry picker’s world, the segments of this dark red fruit are said to exceed all other berries in flavor.  I’ve tried in past summers to taste one but someone always manages to hoover them all up before I can find a ripe one. Today I pick two and find them too tart and without must after taste. Even this Highbush Cranberry, yet to be brought to peak flavor by a heavy frost, tastes better.

While the forest opens up to reveal a mountain of true beauty I puzzle on the worth of the common blueberry and the rare Nagoon.  The Nagoonberry, like gold and diamonds, is made valuable by its relative scarcity and the willing belief of the consumer.  The blueberry just tastes good.