The real snow has returned in clouds from the Gulf of Alaska. This is the snow of promise not like the stuff that snaked just above the surface of 7th Street this morning. That could have been ripped from Mr. Juneau by the yesterday’s Taku winds.

The new snow hide patches of ice on the Rain Forest Trail so I watch Aki’s footsteps for places where even she lost traction. This works until she breaks into the woods after a red squirrel. We have time and soon she is back on point. I stop often anyway to look into the old growth forest that lines the trail. The new whiteness on spruce and hemlock needles emphasizes each tree as an individual.  Now I can see the lines they have formed like soldiers going into battle, perhaps against the pounding surf a narrow beach width away.

Snow covers all on the beach except that recently uncovered by the ebbing tide. In minutes even that whitens. Beautifully formed waves hit exposed glacier erratics, sending up spectacular spray. It is a rare sight on the shores of this fjord where we expect only the gentle rise and fall of tide.

An eagle cry drives us back into the forest. This is their time of famine and already neighborhood cats are disappearing into eagle nests. Aki could be next.

We’ve reached the Breadlines Bluffs after passing through some old growth and a muskeg meadow. It’s 5 degrees. A fierce north wind works against the flooding tide. The resulting waves break beneath the bluffs. The sea’s pounding music comforts one who won’t need a kayak to return home.

Gulls hover over the breakers, dipping down to snatch food that was been ripped up by the undertow. I want to take a picture but my right index finger is numb from shooting photos of questionable value in this cold weather. “Michio Hoshino would make something from the ultramarine and grey colors mixing in the surf,” I think.  That now deceased Japanese photographer inspired the play, “Blue Bear,” which premiered last night at Perseverance Theater. I watched the play and today scenes from it float along with Aki and I on this wind blown trail.

Blue Bear is about an Alaskan and a Japanese man who become friends by sharing our animals, sea, and land.  Both have things the other needs; a good basis for any friendship. Lynn Schooler, the Alaskan, had a boat, curiosity, and local knowledge. Michio offered patience, charm, and an artist’s eye.  Together they hoped to find a rare blue colored black bear.

Lynn could tell me why frost feathers have formed at the portal of these hobbit holes. One’s in this stump and another peaks out from that tangle of spruce roots along the trail. Could I be looking at the frozen breath of an animal in torpor? If he were here today, Michio would save the warmth in his fingers until a gull lifted something from the sea or the sun broke free to send rich shafts of light to this violent sea. He might have the patience to watch, camera on tripod, for something to emerge from this hobbit hole.

The ice that formed everywhere after last week’s thaw reduces me to baby steps on trails and streets.  When this morning broke clear and sunny we had no choice for our walk but the Sheep Creek delta. It’s low tide so we have miles of frosted mud and sand to explore.  The first winter light hits high on the beach and on the channel marker a kilometer away. We stretch out toward it without concern of slipping on ice or glaciated snow.

Aki has a hunter’s eye for moving prey but can’t see the eagle resting on the channel marker.  It watches without movement as if to measure its chance of carrying my 9 pound dog off for a meal. This would not be the first eagle to dive on Aki. A grown bald eagle, like the one, can carry away eight pounds of fish or rabbit. Nine pounds of a poodle mix in an aqua coat must be too much for this eagle who turns away to scan Gastineau channel for an easier meal.