It might be the largest porcupine I’ve ever seen. Just a few meters away, it waddles towards the protection of an alder thicket. I’ve just passed through a similar thicket. Luckily, Aki has stayed back to check out a smell, probably the scent of this huge porkie.
The last time Aki ran into a porcupine, it decorated her face with quills. This time, Aki’s luck holds. After giving the porcupine’s hideout a wide birth, we continue on towards Nugget Falls. Shafts of sunlight slide from the cloud cover to illuminate parts of the glacier or Mt. McGinnis.
When a shaft of light hits the ground where we walk, stop, closes my eyes, and wait for the sun to warm my face. But it’s too late in the summer for that to happen. Now is the time for sunlight to strengthen the colors of fall.
We would have passed the beaver pond without seeing the mallard hen if she hadn’t been flapping her wings. The lady was tucked deep in the reeds, invisible to old eyes like Aki’s and mine if she hadn’t moved. We had already seen a lot of wing flapping this morning.
On the drive to the trailhead we stopped at Three Mile to count eagles. More than a half-a-dozen crowded around a small pool in the creek. Most stood in the steam, flapping their wings in the water like song birds do in a bird bath. Other eagles powered down their wings for lift as they climbed from wetlands crowded by the incoming tide.
As we moved down the beach a juvenile varied thrush flit off the trail to land on top of some driftwood roots. If it was its cousin the American robin, I’d suspect that it was trying to draw us away for its young. But that is not the thrush’s way. Sometimes they are just stupid-brave.
Most folks would never call deer does brave. But the one we passed this morning held its ground as it stared at the little dog and I. It must have been enjoying something tasty when we disturbed its meal. I hope it shows more discretion than valor when doe hunting season starts.
It’s raining. Aki sits shivering in the lap of her other human as we paddle a kayak toward the glacier. The rain will stop soon, but that is not why the little dog shivers. She is excited or maybe nervous about being out on the water. Laying in the lap of her other human is one her favorite things to do. Having the whole family together is her second favorite. And we are heading for an adventure.
Wind blowing down the glacier raises small, white-capped waves as we move onto the main part of the lake. The kayak handles it well. If she could understand, I would tell her that we will soon slide into a side slough and get out to explore on foot. Heavy rainfall has raised the lake levels so we have no trouble crossing the bar that that protects the mouth of the slough.
A great blue heron watches us cross the bar and then lifts itself into the air. Looking more like a flying dinosaur than a bird, it glides a hundred meters down slough and returns to fishing. We land on an exposed sand bar and survey the blue berry crop.
The skies break open as we paddle back to our camp. Streaks of sunshine light up the mountains and highlight sections of the glacier. During a after dinner stroll, we stop to watch a beaver patrolling the parameter of a small pond.
A few days ago, I spoke to a photographer who was waiting for a bear. He stood on a walkway that crossed a sockeye spawning steam. The photographer assured me that he had the patience to wait for hours for a bear, even though it was raining. I doubted if his patience would pay off because no salmon were fighting their way up stream. Without them, there was nothing to draw in a bear. I looked down the stream, which wandered through a meadow to Mendenhall Lake. On an August day during a normal salmon year, they would be birds and bears. Today, nothing.
Before I left him to his vigil, the photographer told me that the dog salmon have finally arrived at Sheep Creek. “Bears never fish there, but there are always eagles.” This morning Aki and I confirmed that he was right.
Decaying salmon bodies littered Sheep Creek Delta. Others, listless after spawning, let the water carry them back towards Gastineau Channel. Freshly arrived dog salmon muscled each other for spawning space in the creek. More than a dozen bald eagles sulked or fed on the creek’s gravel bars. Crows and gulls hung around the feeders, waiting for a chance to finish what the big birds started.
Bothered by the loud gull screams, Aki refused to approach the creek. I retreated and then followed her to a quieter section of the delta. Even here, we weren’t free of drama. After fighting over a scrap of salmon, two adult bald eagles left the stream. One chased the other. The one being chased flew low over the beach grass and right at the little dog and I. It passed within three meters of us before gaining enough altitude to clear the beach side cottonwoods.
There is no question that we have begun the annual slide into autumn. While walking across a Mendenhall wetland, we pass many plants gone to seed. Gray-black seed pods contrast with late flowering paintbrush and stalks of yellow chicken and egg blossoms.
An immature dark-eyed junco pulls seeds from a dead-dry grass stalk and then turns to stare down the little dog. Beyond the junco, a field of magenta-colored fireweed flowers underline the Mendenhall glacier.
The time for the fireweed and the other late blooming flowers will soon end. Grass and broad leafed foliage will fade from rich green to soft reds and yellows. In their dying, they will provide the beauty on the wetlands.
Aki is excited to walk with an old friend this morning. She doesn’t mind that he is wearing a pandemic mask. Not understanding the need for social distancing, the little dog tries to keep us close together as we walk through the rain forest to the sea. Her two charges talk loudly through their masks, catching each other up with happenings since our last walk. When we stop for a moment, the little dog can hear the sound of swollen streams and rain drops bouncing off of devil’s club leaves.
An eagle flies close overhead when we reach the beach. It cruises over to a little bay, circles and then drops with claws extended. After rising skyward with empty talons, it sets down on a rocky point, scattering a dozen gulls that had been lingering there. Eagles in groups of threes fly out to Shaman Island. Others find perches on recently exposed rocks. A raft of ducks fly between us and the island, over the head of two hunting seals. The salmon must be back.
Just after we reach Gastineau Meadow, a snowshoe hare breaks from a shelter in trailside alders. It gallops away from us down the trail and freezes. Aki must not see it. If she does, she doesn’t bother to react. After throwing us a quick glance, the hare leaps off the trail and out of sight.
I wonder again, whether the little dog’s eyes are failing. She will be 14 this November. But she was frisky enough last month to chase a bear down the street. She had no problem climbing with me to the meadow.
Aki refuses to leave the gravel trail when I do. But she has always preferred dry ground to wet muskeg. Some dogs might go on their walkabout when their masters give them this much freedom. Mine stands at attention on the trail at a spot where she can watch me watch water bugs skittering across the surface of a tiny pond. Her eyes tell me that she is ready to chase off any bear or wolf that places me in danger.
After yesterday’s pond walk, I decided to camp the night nearby. After driving home, I assembled the usual pile of camping gear near the front door: tent, sleeping bags and pads, gas stove and kettle for morning coffee, food for Aki and I, and warm clothes. An hour later the tent was up and the little dog and I were taking an evening walk. A beaver swam near us on the reedy pond. Pale, almost imitation sunset colors showed through clouds above the pond. Tomorrow, little dog, we may have sunshine.
Aki started the curled up in her own little sleeping pad inside the tent. When the temperatures dropped to September cold, she crawled into my sleeping bag. We slept well, even though the nearby Mendenhall roared like a jet engine all night.
The sun broke over a mountain ridge in early morning, flooding the campground with light. I made a coffee and carried it to the shore of Mendenhall Lake just in time to see and a beaver swim right at me. I tried to imitate one of the lake-side alders as the beaver continued its approach. I must have twitched when it was right in front of me because it slapped the water with its tail and dived.
The beaver popped up seconds later and continued its patrol along the shore. After it disappeared around a nearby little point, I went back to the campsite to build the morning fire. Fog had been thickening on the lake’s surface while I watched the beaver. After the fire took hold, I returned to see whether the fog had survived the strengthening sunshine. Instead of fog, I saw the beaver doing one last patrol along the lake shore before tucking into its den for the day.
Today’s plan called for the little dog and I to walk along the shore of Mendenhall Lake. But, thanks to glacier flooding, there is no exposed lake shore. Instead we must explore the nearby forest grounds.
Aki is fine with the detour. For some reason, she doesn’t enjoy our lakeside walks. While she sniffs and pees on some trailside brush, I notice that rose-shaped growths have formed on the ends of some of the willow wands. Most are green. One is managing a reddish blush. Somewhere deep inside these willow roses burrows an insect. Like sand in an oyster, the little critter irritates the willow into folding its leaves until they mimic a flower. Aki has no interest in this small wonder so we move onto a trail that circles a small pond.
We can hear a mallard quacking that is hiding in a jungle of reeds. Current from small watercourses entering the pond has formed narrow paths through the reeds. What fun Water Rat, from Wind in the Willows, would have paddling his little boat along these reedy paths. I wish that I could find a human sized path through giant reeds. There is nothing–absolutely nothing–half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.
I knew, before we arrived at the beach, that the tide was out. But the expansiveness of exposed beach surprised me. We can walk all the way to Shaman Island by crossing a land bridge underwater during a normal low tide.
Because of eagles, Aki fears the land bridge. The big birds lurk in the trees on Shaman Island or rip chunks of flesh away from spawned out salmon when we cross during a normal summer. But no salmon carcasses litter the tidelands. No live salmon schooled up at the mouth of Peterson Creek.
A handful of gulls watch the little dog and I reach Shaman Island. They don’t need the salmon, being able to survive on the scraps of food exposed by the ebb. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot three harlequin ducks start off the from beach. Most of their brethren are fishing outside waters this time of year. I hope all is well the trio, who won’t have to worry about hunting eagles on this flat-gray day.
Walking with Aki 