Category Archives: Kwethluk

Nature

Having Her Way

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Any dog trainer watching Aki and I this morning would be shaking her head in disgust. Rather than exerting dominance over the little poodle-mix, I let her set the pace. A dog whisperer of kind words rather than commands I even yield to her choice of direction. When I put up a fuss, she lets me drag her across Gastineau Avenue so I can take a picture of today’s collection of cruise ships. Otherwise I follower her zigzagging pee trail.

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Yielding responsibility to the ten-pound dog frees up my mind for wandering. I’m daydreaming about the cats that use to live in the nearby ruins of the old stamp mill when two deer does spring out from behind a screen of salmon berry bushes and hop down Gastineau like kangaroos. They sprong past a low-income apartment complex and up the hillside.

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Aki, so intent on cataloguing scent, never sees the deer. She leads me down to the docks and then up Lower Franklin Street past the Red Dog Saloon, Pilipino Hall, and the homeless shelter. She drags me away from a young man rapping out a poem. We climb up toward Chicken Ridge and into Capital School Park. A bronze chair in the park commemorates the forced internment of the high school valedictorian just before graduation just because his grandparents came to Alaska from Japan. Rain beads up on the bronze chair and a small string of origami cranes formed, out of necessity in the rain forest, with waterproof materials. Aki waits for me photograph them.

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Summer Famine

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There are many reasons why we don’t visit Fish Creek this time of year. All of them are linked to salmon. In a normal year, hundreds of king salmon would be splashing in the creek’s pond. These draw crowds of fishermen trying to snag the big fish with weighted hooks. Chum and pink salmon should be holding in the creek, ready to move upstream to their spawning grounds.  They bring the attention of bears. But today, perhaps because of the disappointing salmon returns, there are no cars or bear scat in the trailhead parking. These absences, plus the fact that the low-gas-warning icon lit up five miles ago cause me to pull into in the empty lot.

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Two ravens guard the footbridge over Fish Creek, hopping slowly down the railing as Aki and I start across the bridge.  I look down at a gravel bar for the expected dog-salmon carcasses and find none.  The ravens must be here to attack a garbage bag that hangs partway out of a waste bin. Above the ravens, an eagle screams.

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A king salmon, already robbed of its silver color by time in fresh water, rises on the pond surface, drawing the attention of an airborne eagle. Nearer to us, two other eagles perch on pond-side spruce trees.  The one with the chestnut and dun feathers of an immature bird appears to take interest in Aki. I think about putting the little poodle-mix on her lead but in a minute we will be back in the trees where she will presumably be safe from eagles.

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A minute later, while we walk down a forested path, the immature eagle flies low over our heads and lands clumsily thirty feet up a nearby spruce. We watch each other for a while and then I follow Aki away from the pond toward the creek’s mouth.  This eagle will follow us to the mouth and back to the pond—with the purposeful casualness of a spy, not the focused intensity of a mugger. After the third eagle flyby I clip Aki’s leash to her collar as the immature eagle settles onto another spruce branch.

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Bubble Netting

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Aki looked concerned, even desperate. It got worse after she watched me carry my fishing gear to the front door. If she could have understood, I would have reminded her how much she hates bouncing up and down the back side of Admiralty Island in a 24 foot Sea Dory.  While walking out the door, I reminded myself that in a short time the little dog will be chasing her Frisbee down a North Douglas Island beach. After I left, her other human took her on an outing after I left for the boat.

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After leaving the harbor the captain and I bounce up Favorite Passage on chop formed by wind blowing in the opposite direction of the ebbing tide. It’s worse when we round the top end of Shelter Island and enter North Pass. I can barely see a pod of humpback whales bubble feeding near Hand Troller’s Cove. Ten whales splash and release bubbles to trap krill and herrings in a net of bubbles. Then they burst up through the resulting ball of bait with open mouths.

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Shattering the Calm

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Because it is beautiful and there are only 5000 cruise ship tourists in town, Aki and I are visiting the glacier this morning. As a sign above the visitor center’s urinal reminded me, over 550,000 people visit the glacial moraine every year. Most arrive on buses. We have to pass a row of the idling transports to reach the trailhead.

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Most of the cruisers keep to a small viewing area near the visitor’s center. But many chatty tourists join us on the trail to Nugget Falls. Even after we leave the trail for a lightly used side path, we are not alone.  There is still enough space for Aki to chase after her orange Frisbee. When her toy picks up too much sand and grit the little dog drops it into Mendenhall Lake for a wash.

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We turn back before reaching the smallish gravel bar at the base of Nugget Falls. A faux Native-American canoe is just landing a group of tourists on the gravel bar to join the hundred or so other people already there.

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The wind rose while we approached the falls, rippling the lake surface and that of all but the most protected bays. I’m admiring one of the remaining quiet places before using a bridge of stepping-stones to cross it. It’s one of the rare times on the walk when I can’t hear other human voices. Then Aki’s other human tosses the Frisbee across the water where it hits the surface and sends out a series of concentric ripples.  Even before the Frisbee strikes the water, Aki is charging across the stepping-stones. She snatches up her toy just as the circle of expanding ripples shatters the remaining calm.

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Hilda Meadows

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Aki slouches along behind as I climb up toward Hilda Meadows. I’m hot and wish I’d brought a water bottle. Each time I stop to check on the little dog she is motionless except for her panting tongue.  It’s a weather change day, cooler than yesterday and with clouds that the sun uses to cast shadows onto the surrounding mountains. But the little dog still needs water. I push on to where a cold stream drains the meadows.

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When we began this hike, the mountain caretaker met us at the trailhead to say that we were the first ones to start up the trail. “No one has gone before you to disturb the wolves and bears.” I wasn’t too worried then, knowing that we would be passing through the kind of open country avoided during the day by wild predators. Now, hot and sweaty from the climb to the mountain’s shoulder, I am less worried about beasties. They all must be resting during the heat of this still warm day.

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When we reach the stream, I stop and point to an easy trail down the water. Aki looks in the other direction. She can sniff in derision without me seeing the gesture. A minute later, she muscles her way through thick grass to reach a pond but gives up before she can quench her thirst.  I carry her to another fork of the stream and drop her onto the beach. She wades into the water and laps some up and then turns back towards the trailhead.

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I lift her to the opposite stream bank and walk into one of the meadows which has dried out during our three day heat wave. taking care not to step on colonies of the carnivorous sundew plants and other low growing flowers. Easier to avoid are the aging collections of shooting stars and freshly flowered orchids called lady tresses. With mountain views all around and a stream providing background music I want to linger. Aki has other ideas and starts back toward the trail to home.

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The little dog is now the one looking back in frustration as she trots ahead. She doesn’t even stop to sniff at a patch of shooting star flowers crushed by the black bear that slept there until this morning’s light broke over Mt. Troy.

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The Feast is About to Begin

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Aki is halfway up Mt. Roberts on an all female expedition. We are in the middle of a heat way. Today the temperature could climb over 80 degrees. I’m trying to sneak in a bike ride before the heat of the day. To get to my goal, Sheep Creek, I have to run a gauntlet of tour buses, vans, and the tourists they haul from their cruise ships. Away from that jam, I can hear the sound of dog salmon leaping out of the waters of Gastineau Channel. They have already run their gauntlet of predators and climate hazards.

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Chum salmon have drawn a crowd of eagles to Sheep Creek.  Female salmon dig shallow ditches with their tails to receive their eggs. Their action draws the attention of males. Two bald eagles eye the action. They can’t harvest the powerfully muscled salmon now. But soon, after the salmons’ eggs are released and fertilized, the dying will begin and so will the feasting.

Master Plan

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They say it can snow here in July, but it is already seventy degrees—warm enough to melt the drifts that are almost swallowing the trailside buttercups. Almost weightless white puffs float like snowflakes through the forest canopy. Some settle into Aki’s grey fur. She might carry them to fertile ground. That would serve the purpose of the balsam poplars that grew the floating seeds.

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Like Madrid

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We are early to the woods this morning. Taking advantage of a solstice sunrise, the little dog and I start down the Outer Point Trail just as the forest awakes. I’m reminded of a trip to Madrid, when thanks to jet lag, Aki’s other human and I were able to walk onto Puerta del Sol just as the sun stirred a small camp of homeless awake. Soon men with brooms began cleaning away the debris of the previous day. No opera singer tested her voice but a man strummed a guitar as the sun warmed his stiff fingers.  This morning, Aki I hear neither the operatic thrush nor the happy robin. Only the harsh songs of working birds and scolding squirrels break the forest’s silence.

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When we reach the beach, an eagle stirs from its spruce roost and flies lazily over Peterson Creek, like a vagrant rousted by a cop. All the drama is provided by low angle sunlight that makes the orange and rust colored rockweed glow on the exposed beach.

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Distraction

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Halfway through this visit to the Gastineau Meadows I stop at a place where leaf shadows dapple the trail. The weatherman promises sun and warm temperatures today. Even though it is still morning, I wish I had worn lighter kit.

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Aki sniffs about in a distracted fashion when I start my Tai Chi routine. Halfway through “waiving hands through clouds” she takes up station beside me. She will stay there until I finish with a salute to Mt. Juneau. If he could read my thoughts, Dr. Lam would gently remind me that I should think only of the present. But I can’t help remembering the immature bald eagle that swooped over the little dog and I as we started hiking toward the meadows. The morning sun warmed the eagle’s chestnut colored feathers and shined off its beak.

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But For

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Our path is lined with chest-high lupines but I can’t appreciate their purple beauty. Someone at a nearby picnic area is attacking metal with a grinder. When a side path through the lupine appears, I lead Aki out onto the tidal meadow and away from the noise. A heavy malamute dog charges through walls of flowering cow parsnip and leaps at my little dog. The incomer shows no malice but it could hurt Aki if it landed square on the poodle-mix. For the first in a long time I’m called upon to protect Aki—uttering the sounds that Yupik friends used to scare off stray northern dogs. Finally, the malamute’s owner manages to leash his dog.

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As we continue across the meadow I realize that, but for the noxious grinder noise, Aki would have never been at risk from the malamute.  Aki and I have experienced many but-for moments during her 11 years of life. But for the puppy Aki’s sudden interest in hot dogs cooking in a covered picnic shelter, a diving eagle would have carried her away. If she had not startled an approaching black bear, it would have dispatched Aki with a quick swipe of its paws. Good reactions of a driver saved her, more than once, from being smashed flat by a car tire.

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There are many positive but-for stories. If we hadn’t been standing on a shore-side boulder, we wouldn’t have been able to watch a dozen Stellar sea lions swim close enough for me to count their whiskers. If I hadn’t chose to walk down the Mendenhall Peninsula Trail, we wouldn’t have been able to watch a cloud of thirty eagles dive on bait herring.

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The sun breaks out from the marine layer, driving away my contemplative mood. We walk up along Eagle River to the place where Aki once chased a black bear into the woods. She sniffs at a recent pile of bear scat and then at a spot where the bear might have spent the night. If this had been an early morning walk…

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The sounds of human laughter and conversations ahead cause me to leash Aki. I slow down and hope that the people will walk out of earshot. But, they are in no hurry so I keep my little dog on her lead. When something rattles the trailside brush Aki tries to break towards the sound. I spot a porcupine moving slowing away. But for our noisy neighbors, who forced me to leash Aki, I might be pulling porcupine quills out of the little dog’s nose.

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