Category Archives: Southeast Alaska

Santa Lucia Day

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auk lake I honor Santa Lucia during this icy walk on around Auk Lake. It’s high noon on a day with no hope of sun. No blond haired virgin with a candle wreath in her hair greets us with strong Swedish coffee and a tray of saffron buns. She must not have the ice cleats needed to navigate the trail. I honor the patron saint of light by gazing into a reflection of Mt. McGinnis in a shallow pool of melt water that spreads over the lake ice. “Here,” the reflection promises, “is a taste of the long light of June.”

Aki Sees Blue

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icebergEvery time I walk in view of the Mendenhall Glacier, I must resist the urge to take its picture. The world does not need more images the ice river. This morning, Aki and I walk with it at out backs. I keep wanting to turn around to see its violet blue ice reflected in melt water. On an overcast day like this one, the ancient ice absorbs all but blue light.

Falls

Aki pays no attention to the glacier and ignores the indigo ice bergs that form islands on Mendenhall Lake even when I command, “Aki, look at that berg—the one shaped like a half empty sack of kibble. I know you can see the color blue. Doesn’t it make you little poodle heart go pitter patter? If she could talk, she would probably respond, “Man who fills the bowl, who eats peanuts in my presence and only shares one with your faithful protector, I can also see brown, the color of my fragrant scat, what you call “poop” or “not again,” but it doesn’t make my heart go pitty pat.” The poodle of my imagination is so long winded.
ice cycles

As Sad as A Widow

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mountainLike an impressionist painting, we need some distance from today’s beauty to appreciate it. Aki and I walk on a beach shadowed by Douglas Island’s mountainous spine. In the extended dusk even the party colored plumage of harlequin ducks looks dull. Across Lynn Canal cold smoke fog tatters and ducksreforms over the sun lit Chilkat Mountains. The mountains that rise behind Smugglers Cove stand in full sun when not blocked by the nervous fog. Aki and I are a bit nervous too. I blame the canine keening we heard while still in the forest. Nothing sounds as sad as the call of a dog in pain. I think of turning back but push on in case someone’s pet is caught in a leg hold trap. Aki wags her tail at my decision but is soon whining when someone hunkered down on the beach fires a shotgun. A murder of crows, at the time hidden among rocks in the tidal zone, erupts into flight. Red headed mergansers, mallards, harlequin ducks also take to the air. The little dog looks as sad as a new widow so we turn our backs on the dancing fog for the quiet of the forest.crows

Aki and the Otter

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geeseWe start every walk with the pooping ceremony. Aki circles one way and then the other to prepare the snow and loosen her bowels. If a squirrel doesn’t dash through her peripheral vision or a raven doesn’t chant, she does her job. Before the drop, I usually turn away and prepare the plastic bag for capture of her product. This morning, distracted by hundreds of Canada geese fleeing from something on the wetlands, I miss the ceremony. I will also miss the geese. Even though we will hear their cackling complaints during the entire walk on the Fish Creek delta, we won’t see the big fat birds. After the geese flyby, I search the snow for Aki’s scat and end up bagging several piles of poo with the hope that the little dog produced at least one of them.

fog Fog clogs the air above Gastineau Channel but hasn’t reached delta wetlands. That changes when we reach the creek’s mouth. I spot what looks like a shack walking upstream—a bird hunter packing out his decoys. Did he chase off the geese? Downstream, fog block our view of the glacier. The tide flooding onto the wetlands has driven the gray blanket over Smuggler’s Cove and onto the mountainsides, shrinking our world.

aki and otter When I stop to photograph a lead in the pond ice Aki slips onto the ice, now only 2 inches thick. I spot her nosing a recently disturbed patch of open water in the lead. The little dog scrambles on shore when I call her. Fifty feet away a river otter eye hops and then slides out of the water by extending its long neck over the ice. When half of his elongated body is on the ice the other half pops out of the water. The wild animal makes a chitterling call and Aki returns to the ice. I call her back but when she starts to respond, the otter chits. I call, the otter chits again and again until the little poodle mix finally slinks up to me, perhaps shocked at the language I used to demand her return. The otter, tail in the water, four paws on the ice, watches her playmate/tasty meal walk away.otter

The Sun Can’t Shine Everyday

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5th streetThere is little to like about today. With its 38 degrees F. temperature and persistent rain, it invites depression. Yesterday was better; colder with no rain. We skied along Montana Creek, perhaps for the last time until winter returns. Only lack of food or friends depresses Aki. She enjoys this walk through Downtown Juneau. We pass the hostel, now housing the residents of the Glory Hole because a burst pipe made the homeless shelter uninhabitable. A man in the warm clothes of the street sits on the porch swing, talking on a cell phone.

channel            I drag Aki up 5th Street. She resists this diversion from our normal route until a dog calls out from his yard up the street. The street climbs up to the forest, now partially hidden by fog. I’m thankful for the guy who painted his house such a beautiful blue and the person who parked the bright red Mini Cooper on the street. Even the blue-lidded recycle bin brings some life to the gray scene. Later we walk by gulls that stand motionless on the Steamship dock supports. They ignore the little dog as they shower in the rain.gull

Pre-Bath Treat

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channelAki dislikes baths. Does she know that I chose this walk over the Sheep Creek delta as a pre-bath treat. The flood tide has yet to cover the broad expanses of sand. My little dog charges down the beach after her beloved Frisbee. A handful of gulls hunt areas of died back grass for food. Just offshore, two bald eagles perched on the number 2 navigation marker, watch Aki run down her Frisbee. The promised rain hasn’t arrived and only ghosts of fog obscure the channel-side mountains. Small ponds and potholes capture most of the beauty from the snow-covered mountains. But my favorite view is of the edge of snow pack carved by yesterday’s nineteen-foot high tide.

aki

Soft Snow

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hemlockI wanted to spend this morning re-writing an essay but Aki had other plans. She hopped into my lap and demanded attention. It was either cuddle or head out to the moraine. While petting the little dog is fun, we are both happy with the choice I made to take a walk. Snow falls on the open sections of trail and even manages to invade the troll woods. Flakes dampen the electric green moss that grows on tree trunks and branches. Aki finally has snow soft enough for sliding. Low clouds obscure the mountains and snow already covers reflecting ice so I hunt for beauty where snow clings to bare alders and the tips of hemlock branches. In this faint light, the white snow diminishes rather than brightens the green of hemlock needles. A painter might create the same effect by applying a white/gray color to soften the deep hemlock green.alder

Gastineau Wetlands

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sunriseI was ready for a gray day—low clouds, almost white frost feathers on wheat straw colored grass, dull-green mountainsides—a day when even the wickedly thin frost flowers that cling to sea grass look gray.

feathers

Aki and I have a subtle morning at first. A narrow trail through crust-covered snow crosses small, but deep streams still channeling water to the sea. To keep the little dog’s paws and legs dry in the sub-freezing weather I carefully throw her across the channels. She accepts the indignity and waits at each crossing for the toss.

fogThe snow edge marks last night’s high tide line. Fog clouds form above the channel as this morning’s flood tide creeps over grasslands now covered with paper-thin gray ice. Made from salt water rather than free, the ice sheet bends around tussocks and the individual blades of grass. Even Aki’s tiny paws punch through, making a loud, crunching sound. With each step she shatters a frying pan sized circle of surrounding ice.

LemonThe sun does rise but so does a bank of clouds that partially blocks the light. When sunlight can break free it brightens the snow, flooding water, and surrounding mountains; making it almost painful to look at them. Then I can see how fast the tide covers the wetlands and backfills the channels we must cross to reach high ground. Time to retreat.

Living in a Christmas Card

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christmas card“Aki, what is it like to live in a Christmas card? The little dog, just freed from 10 days at the doggie hotel, ignores my question and rushes down the trail. She zooms up the crusty mountain meadow trail, dives down and rubs the sides of her face on her first snow of the winter. Thinking she misunderstood my question, I restate it: “Aki, what is it like to live in a landscape so like the images on Christmas cards?” Popping up from her snow bath, she shakes away my question with the snow caught in her fine fur. Looking at the frosted bull pines that stand over the snowy meadow and the strips fog that underline the all-white mountain ridge above, I say, “Well, I like it fine enough you little brat.”

First Advent Sunrise

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ravenI watched my first sunrise of advent this morning. Without clouds to inhibit it, the sun popped out of the waters of Gastineau Channel like an angry orange god. It looked ready and capable to melt away the six-inch layer of snow that covers the ridge. Experience tells me that the sun won’t shift the snow without help from the rain, which is scheduled to make an appearance soon.

Jamestown Thick ground fog hampered our plane’s landing last night and made it hard to see the new snow covering Juneau. On the ride home from the airport I pondered how we were going to get through the snow to reach our front door. There was no need to worry. One of our neighbors had already dug a path. Am I naive to find hope for peace in such an act of kindness?

Lin and Was   Aki didn’t see the sunrise and hasn’t pockmarked the snow with her tiny paws. She spent the last 10 days in a dog hotel while her humans visited family and friends in Washington D.C. I’ll spring her when the hotel opens its reception desk at one this afternoon. Then we will go one an adventure to celebrate the return of the winter sun.