Category Archives: Kwethluk

Nature

Girl Scouts and Whales

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It’s 7:30 in the morning. Aki has had barely enough time to wake up. We are taking a short walk through the neighborhood. The little dog needs to relieve herself before her humans leave for a whale watching adventure. She takes her time, stalling over scent left last night by our local black bear. Aki knows what is in store for her and she is not happy. As her humans are walking out the door, the little poodle-mix hears me promise a proper walk later in the day. She shrugs and sulks into her kennel home.

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The whale watch boat leaves Auk Bay with a load of girl scouts aboard. It bounces into Saginaw Channel and over to Barlow Cove where we see our first humpback whale. The young women scream and dash around the top deck, letting their pony tails stream flag-like behind them. They cheer when the boat digs into oncoming waves. They scream and point each time the whale announces that it has surfaced by expelling a plume from its lungs.

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The up and down motion of the boat makes it difficult to photograph any of the whales we will see on this trip. After managing to secure one or two decent tail shots I sling the camera over my shoulder and just enjoy the show: the excited children energized by wind and waves, clownish Stellar sea lions, and diving whales.

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We Could Be in Italy

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It could be the ruins of an Italian villa if not for the wild Alaska plants that encroach on its portico. Devil’s club leaves in fall color fills in for the Mediterranean sun.  Drooping limbs of an elderberry take the slot that grapes would in an Italian garden. But there is no wine manufactured here in these remains of the Treadwell steam plant.

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Aki wants to stay in the woods that have grown up around the ruins. I would rather check out the beach. We compromise and hang about in the woods for a bit longer before slipping through a barrier strip of beach grass and drop onto Sandy Beach.

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One of the resident bald eagles, it’s feathers all ahoo, sulks on top of the old ventilator shaft. Two local ravens snatch up dog treats on the beach. With round nuggets in their beaks, they strut across the sand as if posing for a “Raven Brings Light To The World” sculpture. Once the first raven tricked a shaman into releasing the sun from a bentwood box so it could illuminate the land. These two ravens have much lower expectations. They just intend to enjoy a free meal in the light won by their ancestor.

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The Lucky Ones

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Our unprecedented September sunny spell continues. To take advantage of it Aki and I head out to the Rainforest Trail. It might seem an odd choice given how little of the morning sunshine will reach the forest floor. Only those shafts that manage to slip through a hole in the canopy will illuminate the understory.

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Since the earth’s orbit around the sun changes daily, sunlight hits different plants every day. This means most of the berry bushes along the trail will never bath in direct light even if clouds never block the sun. Since the number of overcast days far exceeds those that enjoy direct sunshine, only a rare few forest plants will have their moment in the sun. Aki doesn’t place bets on this sunshine lottery. Bright light hurts her eyes. Her nose works just fine in the shade.

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We drop down the forest trail to the beach where a gull is harassing a harbor seal near Shaman Island. Their lack of hands with opposable thumbs makes seals sloppy eaters. Bits of the salmon captured by the Shaman Island seal fly off as the seal clamp down on it. Normally a cloud of gulls would be harassing the hunting seal. But this morning, for some reason, only this lucky one gets to enjoy the leftovers.

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Coming on to Fall

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The air seems different today—colder and carrying more dampness than a sunny summer day.  Aki and I are climbing up toward Gastineau Meadows. Dew clings to everything with texture. Tiny drops of it even hold on to the slick surface of ripe berries. Chasing a scent, the little dog waded chest deep into trailside grass. Now her curly fur is dark with dew.

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Large skunk cabbage leaves are on their last legs. Soon they will collapse into brown mush. But this morning they still retain a yellowing beauty. The time of oranges and reds are here. Orange highlights brighten the dying meadow grass. Wine red leaves shelter red high-bush cranberries. In the green top of a pine, a scolding blue jay records our movement toward the Treadwell Ditch Trail.

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Hilda Meadows Spiders

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I’m on our highest ladder knocking the last golden delicious apples from our tree. Otherwise a bear will break the tree trying to climb up to get them. Last night Aki chased away one before it could climb after the apples. Even though it outweighs the little dog by a factor of 15 or 20 I felt sorry for the bear. It can’t enjoy having its sensitive hearing assaulted by poodle yapping. I don’t.

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This morning, while the sun burned night fog from the surface of Gastineau Channel, Aki and I drove into the mountains. After yesterday’s long boat ride to the lighthouse, we both needed to stretch our legs on the climb to Hilda Meadows.  I expected no animal drama. Wolves and bears roam the mountains but in such small numbers there was little chance of an encounter.

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There was drama from surprising sources—spiders. Every September our spiders release their children into the world. They young climb stalks of grass and fly off on glistening strands of spider silk. Many spiders must have landed in the meadows.

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Spiders had already constructed angular webs between grass stalks and over miner’s cabbage red with fall cover. Some even suspended their silk nets between the banks of narrow watercourses.

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Aki, who doesn’t care about spider webs or even fall color, surveyed the meadow for danger while I chased after webs. I wanted to tell the little dog to relax.  This time of year the meadow bears must be down in the Fish Creek drainage getting fat on incoming salmon. Then she led me across a patch of shooting stars flattened recently by a sleeping bear.

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Aki or the Whales

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Aki’s back on the water. This morning she and her humans boarded a small landing craft to visit an island lighthouse. We bounce up Favorite Channel and into the deep-water fjord called “Lynn Canal. Having just having finished reading a book about John Muir’s visit to these waters in the 1800’s, I try to imagine the bearded naturalist helping to paddle a cedar canoe up the canal and into the Chilkat River. His neck must have been sore by the end of each day since he must have spent hours staring up at the steep mountains left behind when the glaciers retreated north.

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Muir made the trip in October, a time of storms and rain. It’s sunny and warm today. When she is not hunting the boat deck for snacks, Aki climbs up into someone’s lap where sunlight coming through a window could warm her curly fur.

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A small pod of killer whales hunt off Point Bridget as we pass. One of their young flings itself out of the water and then knifes back through it, splashing its parent. All the humans on the boat go out on the deck to watch. Aki wanders around our feet, waiting for someone to come to his or her senses and pay attention to her rather than some big wet whale.

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Aki has to wade in chest deep water to reach the beach of the lighthouse island. Everyone but the little dog carries picnic stuff and other supplies up the lighthouse, which sits on top of a low volcanic plug. After lunch the humans split up. Some explore the lighthouse building. Others relaxed in the sun. I went onto the beach to watch a group of quarrelsome oystercatchers and swimming seals. Aki ran back and forth checking up on every one of us.

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Quiet Times

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This is a low-cruise-ship day so Aki and family head out to the glacier. No buses idle in the parking lot when we arrive.  No line snakes out of the bathroom. Without the crowds, the visitors that did make the trip out from town look relaxed and happy. They don’t even seem to mind the rain.

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Aki carries her Frisbee in her mouth. The emergency-services-green disk flops back of forth as she trots along. We try to talk a back path to Nugget Falls but find it flooded.  But that doesn’t matter much today since the crowds are small and happy.

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Two newly calved icebergs have come to rest in the lake. I stop to enjoy them. In a few years the glacier will have retreated away from the lake too far for launching bergs. At this point no amount of wishful thinking or even good environmental practices can stop the retreat.

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Glacial melt and recent rains have swollen Nugget Falls so it is really pounding into the lake. The crashing water forces water spouts and sprites to rise twenty feet into the air, obscuring our view of the glacier. Ignoring the noise and fury, Aki begs her other human to throw the Frisbee. When it is tossed into the direction of falls, she charges after it as if on a sunny beach on a quiet day.

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Breaking The Calm

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It’s peaceful in the rain forest this morning.  No sun threatens the clouds. No wind challenges the calm. It is so different from yesterday’s whale watching tour. Aki would have loved the attention she would have received from the other passengers when they were not photographing orcas. When they were distracted by whales, the little dog would have hunted around lower deck for dropped food. But I think Aki enjoys these mild days with me, alone on a trail, more than a party.

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It takes little to shatter a calm, even one as profound as this one. Like a drop of accumulated rain falling from tree branch onto the beaver pond, a small thing can send out disruptive ripples.

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As we pass the pond on the way to the beach, a tour guide walks up. He speaks in the quiet tone of a person who prefers silence. I am waiting for my crew to arrive. Thinking a crew of soft-spoken people would almost go unnoticed, I wish him well.  The little poodle-mix and I walk on, reaching the beach as the tide starts to cover the Shaman Island causeway. The usual eagle guards the causeway from his usual rock. Two gulls bicker than settle into silence. Even the waves seem careful to hit the beach with a whisper. Then a child cries out like a tattletale gull as the guide leads a group of cruise ship tourists onto the beach.

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Working Whales

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I watch with envy a large pod of killer whales working the reefs protecting North Pass.  Several large males have already entered the pass. The adult females and juveniles tear up the water on the Favorite Passage side of the reefs. With an empty freezer at home, I hope that they leave me some salmon to harvest. When a female slams her tail onto the water one of the other passages in this whale-watching boat giggles and tells her friend the orcas are playing.

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I am not inclined to point out the orca’s bloody purpose, which is to kill and consume every silver salmon in the pass. There is an open bar on the boat and the remains of a good meal litter a large table on the lower deck.

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We have already seen a humpback whale breach three times—leap straight out of the water and crash back like a fallen tree. I envied that whale as well and would like, my fellow passenger, to come up with some warm and fuzzy explanation for whale behavior. But these these whales are all business. Now is their time to build for the salmon-less winter.

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Dying Fog

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This morning fog hides the sun and blocks the view sheds of the Fish Creek Delta. Cruise ship fog horns mix with the panic honks of unseen Canada geese. Aki is nervous. The high-pitched screams of eagles hidden in nearby spruce trees put her on guard.

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The sun breaks through the marine layer and starts to deconstruct fog covering Fritz Cove and the surrounding mountains. That touching forested hills seems to tear itself apart on the old growth trees. Ocean fog moves up and down the bay like a hunting animal.

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While focusing my camera on a patch of fog flowing up and over a clutch of spruce, I spot two male deer on the foreground. One stands guard while the other one lies on meadow grass. The trailside grass prevents Aki from seeing the two deer. She will never know they were so close. Both deer are grazing in the meadow when we leave their view shed.

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