Category Archives: Juneau

A Calm Pocket

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When Aki and I started up the Gastineau Meadows trail, we had every right to expect a pleasant walk. The sun was making its low arc across a blue sky. Aki could feel it warm her fur. Someone had scraped the accumulated ice off the access road. Then a wind twisted over the Douglas Island Ridge to raise whitecaps on the channel. On its way, it nudged Aki in the rear. Another air stream pushed long plumes of snow off Mr. Roberts.

            Aki ignored the rude breeze. I watched a raven ride a thirty-knot gust up and then barrel roll into a dive. Its silhouette sliced across the face of the sun. 

            Since the wind didn’t discourage the little dog, I refused to turn back to the car. Together we climbed the icy track to the meadow proper. I expected to be hammered by gusts when we lost the protection of the forest. But the meadow air was as calm as a tightrope walker practicing a few feet above the ground.  The lack of expected drama disappointed at first. Then I spotted Aki flying across the still firm meadow snow.

Winter’s Vacation

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On one of January’s last days it’s 37 degrees above zero. Persistent rainfall has eliminated snow from the forest floor except where it has been packed into ice by foot traffic. You see, this week Winter left Alaska to holiday below the 49th parallel. Subzero temperatures made worst by strong winds have people in the Lower 48 are penned down in their homes while we watch our ski trails melt in the rain.

            Aki and I head out to the Fish Creek Delta looking for distractions from the weather. A mature bald eagle, feathers soaked by rain, has positioned itself above to pond. Last week the pond was capped by a solid layer of ice. The fractured flows that remain float up and down with the tides. 

            Aki is soon as soaked as the eagle. She shivers each time I stop to watch the eagle or a small raft of mallards that have moved up the creek with the tide. She doesn’t object when I turn back towards the car. Don’t worry little dog, snow is in the forecast and the temperatures should be in signal digits soon. Winter’s vacation is almost over.

Lucky Ducks

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It was late morning on Sandy Beach. The fog that had dampened noise and limited vision on the beach was breaking up. The eagle that usually hunkers on top of the old mine ventilation shaft was present but quiet. He squinted at the little dog and I as we made our way towards a pair of Beninese mountain dogs. I swear that the eagle stirred with interest as the three dogs met. Aki stretched out before the two hulking dogs, as if offering herself as a midday meal. The tails and ears of the mountain dogs shot up in interest. When they were hooked, Aki slipped out from under their noises and ran circles around them. Apparently disappointed, the eagle turned away. 

            Down channel another bald eagle flapped it way toward the old gold mining town of Lucky Me.  Aki said goodbye to her new buddies and worked the high tide line for scents. I almost forgot about her as I approached two mallard ducks. The hen and drake were fast asleep with their beaks tucked into a nest of feathers on their backs.  They slept through my clumsy approach and the sound of small waves breaking two feet away. 

            Nearby another mallard pair scurried across the surface of the collapsed glory hole, eyeing us nervously as they paddled away. Then a pair of golden eye ducks did the same. The sleeping pair did not awake. The ventilator shaft eagle must have been watching the ducks sleep. It could have easily turned one of them into a meal. Lucky ducks. 

Ignoring Raven

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The empty parking for the False Outer Point Beach promises an empty trail. This doesn’t bother the normally social Aki. It pleases her owner, who enjoys each chance to explore a beautiful place in solitude. Tears are forming in the thick fog that had been preventing us from seeing more than a half-mile of channel water. Through one of them we can see Mt. McGinnis.  Through another a slice of the Chilkat Mountains appears. 

            I’m thankful for the mountain views and the fact that it isn’t raining. It pleases me more that nothing has scared the resident raft of golden eye ducks away from the beach.  Aki stays close to my side as we round the point where an eagle sulks in the bare branches of a spruce snag.  Off shore a man in an open skiff drops a hook baited with a herring into the water. I silently wish him luck in his effort to catch a king salmon, remembering the taste of winter caught kings. 

            The ebbing tide must have left behind some tasteful carrion. A murder of crows, maybe 200 of them, tussles with the local gulls for the goodies. A bald eagle abandons the beach to them and flies over our heads and onto a spruce limb.  From the top of a small boulder, ten feet away, raven lectures the little dog and I.  He follows us down the beach, croaking out his speech. It isn’t welcomed. 

Sheltering From the Wind

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Aki bursts out of the car and charges onto Sandy Beach. She crosses a line of snow made brown by blowing sand, slides to a stop, and retreats behind a grass-covered dune. I can’t argue with her judgment. The 60 miles-an-hour gust that stopped her run made the 24 degree ambient temperature feel like 3. 

            I don’t have any problem convincing the little dog to follow me into the Treadwell woods. The wind rushing through the trees sounds like an express train. It’s calmer in the forest except where fallen trees opened up paths for the wind. 

            We walk on a path parallel to the beach until reaching the little bay created when the Treadwell Mine tunnels collapsed. There, close up against the rocky shore, a mixed raft of mallards and golden eye ducks find shelter from the wind. 

Auk Lake

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Today Aki and I join an old friend for a walk around Auk Lake. The little poodle has quite a crush on the man even though he is not a dog person. It has taken her awhile but she now has him looking forward to walking with her. 

            Five inches of snow fell on the trail last night. But this morning the sun shines full onto the mountains. New snow outlines the noses of creatures on the college’s totem poles. One of the poles, the one that stands in a wind-protected area, still wears a coat of frost. 

            We leave the small campus and walk along the lakeshore. As the sun climbs into the sky, a thin fog rises from the frozen lake. The fog thickens enough to hide the college classroom buildings. If not for the noise of the nearby Glacier Highway, we could be circling a wilderness lake. 

            The trail takes us into thick woods where small streams still run free in spite of several days of cold weather that set ice over the whole lake. I look for animal tracks in the new snow but only find those of people and their dogs. 

Soon We Should Have Snow

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When the wind blows this morning, it feels like it is below zero F. It is blowing as Aki and I explored the Sheep Creek Delta. The sand has frozen to the consistency of a hardwood floor. Crystallized sea foam marks the latest high tide line on the beach.  Salt water that normally retreats back into Gastineau Channel as the tide ebbs has formed a frozen lake on the exposed beach. 

            We hear an eagle scream and watch another flush three mallards from mouth of the creek. The eagle that screamed soars out from a beachside spruce and makes a half-hearted attempt to do the same. I’ve seen eagles snatch herring, small salmons, and even a steelhead trout from the water. But I never watched one fly off with a duck. 

            Once, on the Innoko River of Western Alaska, a raven crashed into a young duck. Before it could finish off his prey, he tried to grab another chick. They both escaped. 

            It was sunny that day on the Innoko like it was when I finished off my morning coffee. The sun was just being swallowed up by a cloudbank when we started this walk. A small patch of sunrise yellow still colors the horizon but soon that will be gone.  In a few hours we will have snow. 

First Light

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Needing to have the afternoon free so I can prepare for writing school, I leave the house early this morning. Aki has had her cheese so she doesn’t mind the pre-sunrise departure. We stop at the whale sculpture to watch the sun crack the darkness over Gastineau Channel. Our presence encourages a raft of mallards to slip into the cold water. They work their way over to a patch of water colored yellow by the sunrise. After relieving herself, Aki is ready to go. But she doesn’t complain when I linger to watch the ducks. 

In a dusk-like gloam we drive out to North Douglas Island where it is calm and 15 degrees F. Last night’s wind knocked the frost from the trees in Downtown Juneau. But frost feathers that still cling to the roadside brush near the trailhead. 

I have to carry the little dog over portions of the trail flooded by the water pouring over the tops of the beaver dams. It’s too cold for wet paws. The sun has reached a dead spruce in the middle of the pond. It draws my eye like a Las Vegas marquee.  Whether suffering from the indignity of being carried, or just uncomfortable with cold, Aki refuses to follow me on the trail to the beach. I press on, knowing that she will soon end her strike. She does, flying by me to take the lead. 

We are too early to see the sun light up the beach. But it does illuminate the mountains above the icefield. It also warms some offshore rocks and the gulls resting on them. Two golden eye ducks, lit by the same streak of sunlight, splash down near the rocks. It is so cold that I expect them to paddle over to the gulls’ rocks. But they are content to bob up and down in the surf. I, hands cold from handling the camera, body chilled in spite of multiple layers of clothing, feel very much the winter outsider.  

Chasing Sunshine

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The forest seems empty. It is certainly quiet. It is also dark. The snow that once brightened the trail has been made dull by an icy crust. No frost feathers circle the limbs of the spruce or decorate trailside alders. I struggle through a thicket of devil’s club to reach the bank of Eagle River. Sun still shines on the river and the tangle of uprooted trees that clutters up a nearby sand bar. But a thick screen of alders offers only a filtered view. 

I want to push on, march through the woods to reach a muskeg meadow dotted with stunted spruce trees. There the afternoon sunshine should be turning frost feathers into prisms. But Aki is a hundred meters behind me with three of her other humans. I slow down until I can hear her yip when someone throws the Frisbee for her to retrieve. 

The sun is about to drop behind a wall of trees when we reach the little meadow. It halos a small collection of spruce before it disappears. We won’t walk in sun again today. But sunlight will be shining full on the mouth of Eagle River, Lynn Canal, and the Chilkat Mountains when we reach the lower river. 

Changes in Attitudes

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Ravens flocked to Chicken Ridge this morning, drawn by a neighbor’s carelessly secured garbage bin. The messy eaters pierced plastic trash bags with their beaks and tossed kitchen waste everywhere in search for things rich in fat or protein. They ignored the vegetables. 

            No ravens greet Aki and I when we arrive at Skater’s Cabin. The song of a winter bird, perhaps a red poll, drifted across the ice of Mendenhall Lake. Otherwise it was quiet. No wind blew to knock frost feathers from the lakeside alders. 

            Even through we had the place to ourselves, Aki found plenty of smells to catalogue. While I photographed the glacier and his mountains, the little dog wandered onto the moss-covered floor of a new forest. She reappeared a few minutes later. This pattern repeated itself as we walked along the lake edge to the Mendenhall River. 

Since there was no chance that Aki could wander into a road or be carried off by eagles, I didn’t worry. But I still wonder at the meaning of her behavior. After 12 years of walks, is she looking to assert more independence? Or has she finally learned to trust my judgment. Until recently, she always acted like a careful nanny watching over a flighty three-year-old.