Again I say goodbye to a sad Aki and head to the harbor for another try for King Salmon. Just one fish will feed us for awhile. Like our last attempt on Saturday there is rain and a bay full of herring. These beautiful silver fish draw a gang of sea lions and one very forward humpback whale. The sea lions alone almost eliminate any chance we have of caching a king. If we did hook one, a sea lion would probably bite it in half before we could boat it. I still enjoy watching them find so much fun in chasing their lunch. The gulls hang about them when they surface with a herring in mouth. One cheeky bird tried to pull a fish from the sea lion’s mouth. 

We trolled for seven hours without receiving a single bite. From the rolling boat deck I grew even more frustrated trying to photograph the whales and birds and sea lions. By the time the camera focused, they would be gone. Sometimes the sea lions would surface right next to the boat, then swim away underwater. The whale pulled the opposite trick. A young whale, it headed right at our boat, giving me a start when it appeared in my view finder.  (It is not as close as it seems as I using a zoom lens). 

Leaving Aki with a promise of an afternoon adventure, I’m out the door with everything needed to catch a king salmon except luck.  A low marine layer of clouds block out the mountain tops but there is no rain. It waits for us at the harbor.

For a few weeks in early spring large king salmon, some over 30 pounds, fatten themselves on herring where we fish. They don’t care about the rain or the cold air temperature. We try to ignore these things as well.

Distracted by the eagle ballet I stop caring about the rain and cold.  While I watch the birds, the captain calls out in alarm.  A humpback whale has just surfaced near the boat. Attracted by the concentration of bait fish, the whale spends the next hour hoovering up herring along the cove’s inner shore.  We don’t get in its way but other boats have to take evasive action to keep out of the whale’s path. 

This time of year it takes 144 hours of fishing to catch a king salmon. We put in our first four and call it quits. Driving home in the heavy rain we pass a large black bear grazing on road side vegetation.  A driving rain can give any fur bearing a pathetic bearing, this bear included. It doesn’t keep him from the task at hand.

For Aki this canoe ride is as boring as one in the car. She doesn’t mind the weather — light rain falling from gum metal clouds.  It’s the lack of smells. On this large salt water lake our bee line course keeps us far away from shore with its promise of adventure. She moves nervously from side to side of the canoe straining to hear some promising sound, trying to catch an enticing scent.

If she looked down she would see grey bodied sole flattened into the sandy bottom. One bursts away when my paddle comes too close. We could easily catch a dinners worth.

Eventually Aki settles into the arms of the forward paddler, staying there until we reach the great sand bar that protects the lake, really a cove, from ocean swells. Normally a dog landing here could hope for a throwing stick to chase or some interesting flotsam to smell.  But a recent large tide sterilized the bar by sweeping it clean of objects useful to a dog.

After tea and sandwiches I walk to end of the bar. Aki stays with the other adult in her life until I cross a flooded section of the bar. Then she races, ears flapping, down the sand, across the wet break and to my feet. Satisfied that I am fine, she retraces her course to the canoe. 

As I return to the canoe a small barge, loaded down by a yellow school bus passes by, its outboard engines straining against the out going tide. Such things are common in this island region and I only question why a school bus is on the move on Sunday, when students have a day off.

Perhaps frustrated by the ride Aki misbehaves after we return to our starting point and charges after a raven, making it drop a crab shell it was carrying in its talons. She has never done such a thing before, the little brat. I hope the ravens forgive her and us.

After Oahu, with its nature painted with a garish palette, this simple forest trail seems too green and grey. In this time before the salmon and berries, we can only find peace and the promise of summer. Even though the devil’s club leaf buds are barely swelling the fern shoots now reach a foot above the ground. Their tips are still rolled into the fiddle head shape that gives them their name. A tasty treat when harvested early and then sauteed in butter, the tips will soon relax and allow the fern leaves to flatten out and capture the sun.

We find a few magenta salmon berry blossoms near the trailhead but for a trail mile its all green and brown. Only the nest building song of the forest birds provides any counterpoint to the forest’s earth tones. That changes where we reach the first meadow, which hosts a myriad of yellow skunk cabbage blooms. Small yellow violets and marsh flowers grow near the forest edges.  Southeast Alaska summer always starts with a show of yellow flowers but on this trip we also find  some blue lupine flower stalks and even a small island of magenta shooting stars. We also find four Canada geese feeding on the river flats. They stir at our approach but stroll, rather than fly away.  Maybe they know that Aki is geese shy for they hold their ground while another group of geese across the river break to flight at the appearance of a black labrador. 

We walk for the most part under grey skies and flat light that fools the sensors on my camera. I want to capture all the shades of grey in the clouds, the whites on the mountains, and the strong yellow of the new cottonwood leaves that have yet to turn their summer green.  No setting works until  maverick shaft of light strikes a mixed spruce and cottonwood forest beneath the mountains.  

The lush jungle of the Manoa valley lies within a 45 minute drive of the semi-dessert region where we stay on Oahu. Giant red blossoms, shaped like matching cruets, lay on the trailside after being chopped down like weeds. Perhaps they are but it pains to see them so destroyed.

Moving up the trail we meet hikers returning to their cars, each smiling, each wishing us a good day in the accent of non-native English speakers. They look as if they have seen the face of God and lived. We are standing near massive banyan trees and white barked giants covered with climbing vines.

Later the trail enters a bamboo forest and becomes greasy with mud. I begin to resent the sound of talking in English and other languages about everything except the exotic beauty slapping them in the face. In hope to hear only bird song and the hollow clunks and squeaks of wind in a thick bamboo forest I stop to let everyone pass.  The Chinese laughing thrush awards me a tune that blends with the song of rubbing bamboo.

It’s been sunny all day but it begins to rain when we reach the car. In the American south they would look up and ask whether the devil was beating his wife — rain falling through the sunshine. A rainbow forms an arch above the verdant valley, reminding me of  the time my 3 year old daughter and I watched a rainbow form above the temperate rain forest of Alaska. She asked me what made those crayon colors in the sky. I told her about Noah’s flood and how God had sent the rainbow to seal his promise never again to flood all the earth. She didn’t seem convinced so I took a page from the great Thlingt story tellers of Ketchikan and said, :It is true –look there’s the rainbow.”

We have a taste of Fall today with 40 degree temperatures and heavy rain. In the kitchen I try to ignore Aki’s plaintive stare and fantasize about spending the morning drinking coffee and watching Italian soccer on the TV. Then I spot the hummingbird, a Rufus, taking sustenance at our neighbor’s feeder. He manages to suck the red sugar water from the feeder even as it sways in the wind. The bird shames me into action.

These tiny hummingbirds migrate great distances to feed on our columbine flowers. A Ketchikan legend has them riding north while burrowed into the feathers of strong geese. It is easier to see the tiny birds (3.22 grams) hitchhiking north on snow geese than actually flying the thousands miles on their own.

Wrapping myself in rain gear and Aki in a red cape we drop off the ridge to explore Gold Creek. Juneau’s European founders followed a path of gold in the creek to Perseverance Basin which contained enough of the shinning mineral to make Juneau one of the most productive mining districts in the world. We start in Cope Park, skirting the ball field and tennis courts and enter the old growth spruce forest allowed to grow along the creek. This is the best sort of urban planning — ignoring   what can not be improved upon.

From the park a seldom used trail crosses Gold Creek and then meanders through alders up to the flume trail. At first Aki doesn’t follow me up the trial. Turning around I see her, now completely soaked in rain. She wears her “you have got to be kidding look.” I know there is a snow field ahead, which she will love, and chances for dog encounters so I push on. Loyal thing that she is, she follows.

Today’s heavy rain accelerates the snow melt and the creek runs full with it. The sound blocks out bird song until we reach the flume trail. From then until we return to Chicken Ridge we hear the robin and the thrust and the wren singing melody to spruce grouse’s percussion. (a drum played the first time by a carpenter — the rhythm of hammer driving nail.).

With grey skies and clouds obscuring mountain tops I am thankful for the new balsam poplar growth that brings a rich fall like color to the forest. A few of the trees stand like brilliant yellow-green candles above avalanche snow covering the trail.  Aki gets a bit wild here, dashing up and down the trail, rolling her face in the snow. 

After crossing the snow field with its trees shattered by avalanches we drop down to the creek and walk a trail now lined with dark green horse tail reeds. In a flooded area of the forest islands of blooming skunk cabbage rise out of the water.  Their rich yellow and green colors stand out against the still dormant grass of last fall. Like the hummingbird, they are creatures of spring and summer. 

Without a working car this weekend we again start and end our walk from Chicken Ridge.  It means keeping Aki on a leash for the drop down Goldbelt Street with it’s gold baron mansions and then through streets lined with Craftsman houses that lead to the Douglas Bridge. We cross over Gold Creek, here contained by a concrete trench and past the giant willow on 10th Street, now orange-yellow with rising sap.

Aki manages three bowel movements between the house and the bridge. forcing me to pick up the product of each with large leaves and carry it to the nearest trash can. Since the cans are few and far between I carry her waste for blocks, passing friends and a legislator and his wife. They all smile and act as if I am not carrying  a smelly leaf wrapped bundle in my right hand. 

The sky clouds up as we begin the climb up the Douglas Bridge. I photograph the mottled sky reflected in a spot of calm channel water while Aki cringes at each passing car. We move quickly on to Douglas Island and start climbing through the Cordova Hill neighbor to the Dan Moller trail head.  This is crow country and one of the black birds shadows our ascent. “Is this Cubby,” I mutter to myself for he acts like he knows me.

Cubby was the runt of a brood of crows that hatched in our spruce tree. That was before the crows abandoned Chicken Ridge to the ravens.  He only survived through the kindness of a sibling who would bring him food after they fledged. A weak flyer, Cubby could just manage to reach a suspended telephone cable that ran in front of our house.  Once there he would call for help until one of his nest mates landed to transfer food from her beak to his.

The following summer Cubby returned, now sleek and strong to raise his own brood in our tree. On sunny mornings he would take up station on our porch railing and peer in the window while I practiced guitar. The crows left that year and never returned. Perhaps they moved to this wide suburban street with its large new houses and mowed lawns. The crow that could be Cubby escorts us to the trail head and is there where we return to his street for the trip back to Chicken Ridge. 

The Dan Moller Trail starts at a small parking lot that separates two fancy modern houses. It makes a modest angled climb up a wooded slope and then cuts across a series of muskeg meadows.  After that it forms a series of switch backs that carry you to the Treadwell Ditch.  Today we hit deep soft snow before the first meadow. I am breaking through with every step, sometimes up to my crotch. Even Aki makes deep impressions with her diminutive paws. 

Fighting on we reach the first meadow and hear the chimes of a carillon in Downtown Juneau announcing the tenth hour of the day.