Category Archives: Kwethluk

Nature

Eagles and Corvids

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Corvids and eagles, mallards and gulls, that’s what dominate the skies above the Fish Creek Delta. For corvids, Aki and I spot the grumpy ones—those without the raven or crow’s sense of humor: Stellar jays and magpies.

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Near the pond, four jays rip up chunks of the wet ground and flip them in the air. They make it seem like work, not fun although I can’t imagine what the blue and black birds get out of it. A mature bald eagle perches on a creekside driftwood log, its eyes unfocused. The wind ruffles it rain-damp feathers. Weeks ago salmon thrashed the waters in front of the eagle. Today only rain runoff animates the stream.

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Another eagle turns away from us as we approach the spruce tree in which it rests. Two long tailed magpies, black and white, land on the trail ahead of it. Seeing Aki, they fly onto alder branches six feet above the trail. One is shy, but the other magpie lets me approach close enough to recognize the cruelty of its beak.

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A Kind of Seasonal Death

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On gray, flat-light days like this my eye is draw to contrasts. Sometimes I am stopped in my tracks by soft moss crowding over a rough stump. But today, it is the push and pull of color that holds my attention.

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The little dog and I are on one of the Gastineau Meadows. She refuses to leave the dry trail to join me out on the spongy meadow where clumps of golden grass grow on fields of their yellow-brown cousins. She isn’t unhappy. There is pee mail to check. But her eyebrows rise with concern if I venture too fare off the trail. So, even when a clump of now-scarlet sorrel would only require a few more steps for a good viewing, I turn my back on it.

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It’s hard not to witness the meadow’s fall color without thinking about seasonal death. While people and dogs continue life through the winter, these colorful plants will die back to their parent plant’s roots. It’s a practical way to extend life for the plants but it is hard not to see the end of fall color as a kind of death. I certainly feel its absence during the brown time that comes between colorful autumn and white winter.

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Fading Fall

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On his rainless day that started with full sunshine that faded to gray when a cloud bank moved in off the Pacific, Aki and I have the moraine to ourselves. I suppose that is not quite true. There are squirrels chitterling challenges at the little dog. The silence we would otherwise enjoy is broken by fast fired rifles booming out from the nearby rifle range.

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Aki rolls in some fresh beaver scat as we walk through one of their clear-cut areas. Water backing up from one of their larger damns floods the spot that offers the best view of their lake. But we don’t see the big rodents. Two Barrow golden eye ducks, spooked by our presence, burst off of the lake but some return to the surface. In a few moments they calm down and swim slowly in front of where we stand. They clearly intend to claim possession of this lake, at least until the first hard freeze.

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The lakeside cottonwood trees and willows still possess most of their leaves but that will change during the next windstorm. Already their leaves are closer to brown than autumn yellow.

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Trying to Climb out of the Fog

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This morning dense fog hides the Douglas Mountain ridge and Gastineau Channel from those of us on Chicken Ridge. I think of last night’s cloudless sky that offered the first views of stars for weeks. Aki, if a person and his little dog climb up that steep service road at the ski area, they might walk in sunshine above these clouds. Aki sighs, as if she knows that we will never reach sunshine on that road. But she trots to the front door when called.

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At the ski area the motionless chairs of the lifts hang empty from their cable. Most of the chairs hide in the fog. No man or dog breaks out of the gloom to join us. The tear and rattle sound of a landslide reaches us from the flank of Mt. Troy. I feel like the first victim in a horror movie filmed in an abandoned amusement park.

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It seems that Aki is always lagging behind me on the climb. But she is just reading the pee mail. I am heartened by the appearance of the sun’s glowing globe trying to break through the cloud that we walk through. I imagine Troy and Ben Stewart suddenly poking out of the ground fog as the marine layer yields to the blue sky. I think, for a moment, that I was foolish to leave my sunglasses at home. But I will never need them.

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The fog has settled into gaps between the mountain spruce and pines. We will have to settle for what beauty it can provide as it.

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New Art

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It’s a cruiseship-free day, the first we have had for awhile. Since May the big panamax ships, each a floating hotel/casino, have blocked views of the Douglas Island ridge for those walking the docks. Now, the boats are gone until next May. Gulls, and a knot of homeless telling each other jokes, are the only ones relaxing in the new emptiness.

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Near the parking garage, a city worker tears away the wrapping from a sculpture fabricated from stainless steel mesh. When mounted on the dock, it will resemble a DNA helix topped with a whale fluke. The city will install identical sculptures in a line along the length of the cruise ship dock, giving next year’s tourists a handy background for selfies.

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Ravens watch the installation from their perch on top of the library building. Even the gulls seem fixated by the action. Maybe they can’t wait to start enhancing the new artwork with their scat.

Full Sun

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For the first time in a week, Aki and I have to squint. We are moving up a sun-drenched Perseverance Trail. My little dog would be fine except for the barking of a dog ahead of us on the trail. It seems to be inviting Aki to join it. Aki barks back, probably telling the other dog that she would love to play but her poop-bag of a human won’t let her off her lead.

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Aki will stay on her lead until we leave this busy section of trail. Normally a dog happy to be leashed to her human, she jerks from time to time, usually when I push the shutter release on my camera.

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Things calm down when we take a narrow trail along the hillside above the wooden flume carrying water to a downtown hydro plant. Now off lead, the little dog trots ahead. She shows impatience if I stop too long to photograph the fall color. But I am like a man coming off a vegetable-only diet—starved for rich, visual food. This morning’s sun is turning the fading yellow-brown leaves into jewels

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Pachelbel Canon with Rain Assist

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Aki and I were just blown off a little headland that sticks into Favorite Channel. The squall caught us as Aki sniffed for pee mail and I scanned the water for migratory waterfowl. Neither of us were having any luck before the wind rose, quickly followed by slanting rain.

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Torturing myself with memories of the ducks, whales, seals, sea lions, bears, and eagles we had watched in the past from the headland, I barely notice the subtle beauty of turning leaves along the trail home. I do sample the fire-engine-red huckleberries hanging from yellowing foliage. But, like most of the wild fruit we harvested during this wet summer, the berries are more sour than sweet.

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The rain followed is into the forest making the devil’s club broad leaves perform a percussion symphony with assists by the smaller alder and high-bush cranberry leaves. Breaking one of cardinal hiking rules. I dig out my cell phone and have it play the Pachelbel Canon. The rain’s percussive enriches his repetitive tune. I can no longer hear blue jay, thrust, or squirrel complaints or even a hawk’s unsettling cry, but figure, for today, it is a fair trade.

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Staid Eagle

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It’s Aki’s bath day. She doesn’t know this yet, which may be why she dashes around the wetlands without a care. Because of its muddy track, this is one of the little dog’s bath day trails. The smart little dog may tumble to this pattern some day. But today is not that day.

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The morning fog has already lifted from the surface of the Mendenhall River and will soon burn away to open up some nice glacier views. Sunlight, finding holes in the dissipating marine layer spotlights parts of the wetlands but leaves others in shadow. The effect of on the flat plane of grass cut by the sparkling river is strong and beautiful. I’m reminded of a June sunrise over the wheat country of Montana.

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Two eagles fly off as we move down river, but one holds its ground. It keeps to its roost on the highest section of a driftwood root wad. It will stay there, barely showing any interest in us as we walk past it. Aki returns the compliment. The eagle is still there when we make the return trip.

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The staid bird triggers a memory of another eagle on the same root wad that behaved in same way. It too turned its head to the glacier, rather than watch us pass. Then, as now, I couldn’t decide if I should be honored by the apparent show of trust or diminished by the big bird’s distain.

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Bears and Birds

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The salmon are returning to the Eagle River. I have to take care not to step on their desiccating bodies as we cross a riverside meadow. There are no bears or their scat just see a cranky pair of ravens, so I decide to continue our walk along the river. Just in case, I place the little dog on her leash.

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The dead salmon smell blends with the others of fall—the sweet and sour smell of ripe cranberries, leaf mold, and the sharp tang of grass. I wonder if the strong bouquet threatens to overwhelm Aki’s sensitive nose. But the poodle-mix shows her usual keen interest in, for me, unremarkable spots along the trail.

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We pass a family with small children picnicking along the river. One of their members operates a drone, which gives off an annoying hum. I’m thinking about letting Aki loose when she gives out a little growl. Two people just up the trail point to a bear munching away on a salmon it had carried up from a nearby stream.

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I’m holding Aki now. We watch the bear saunter over to an alder tree and bury her nose in tree moss. Then it moves into the forest. I carry Aki a little further and then let her walk. She stays on the lead. We pass gravel bars covered with gulls, crows, and ravens and, just seconds before I can focus the camera on it, a fishing bear.

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On the drive home, near a different salmon stream, I have to stop the car to let a black bear waddle across the road. Just after Aki gives another low growl, the bear turns, for the first time, to look in our direction. Who knew that bears had such sensitive hearing?

Low Energy Fall

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It feels like a rain forest fall, just warm enough not to need gloves. The smell of dead salmon reaches on a wind that shivers changing leaves along the Outer Point trail. But what fall color we have is dull, more brown than red. I blame the wet summer that just ended. Last year we were enjoying the last of an exceptionally warm, dry season. As if squandering their windfall wealth, the leaves of willows, cottonwoods, and high bush cranberry plants painted the forests with rich reds and yellows. After this year’s wet summer, the forest trees and bushes have barely enough energy to fade to a yellow-brown.

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