Jumpy, opinionated, grouchy are all labels you could lay on the belted kingfisher. Visiting the ones that live above Treadwell’s collapsed glory hole is one of the highlights the old mining ruins. They usually bounce through the air above the glory hole, chittering at each other and the little dog and me. This morning there is only one bird and it is stationed just off shore on one of the fractured wharf piling. It huddles there in pouring rain, ignoring us. Has it lost it’s mate or is it just having some quiet time?

Aki and I are walking above Gold Creek on a trail that could take us to the ruins of the Perseverance Mining District. An hour ago, fog filled the Gold Creek valley but it is gone now, burned off by sunlight. The little dog plays touch and sniff with other dogs. Strong, slanting sunlight turns the broad devil’s club leaves translucent and makes even dying foliage beautiful. All summer the plants in the valley have taken energy from the sun and necessary moisture from rain. Soon they will drain their leaves of color until the yellows, oranges and reds of fall have replaced summer green. Then the lovely leaves will hang for a week or two like an offering to the sky that nurtured them and a present to those of us who preserved through a long, wet summer.

When Aki alerts to danger, I take her seriously. She has spotted several bears that I would never have seen without her help. But, today she growls at a small stream coursing along the trail. It the water, moving along a wooden boardwalk trail section does have a bass resonance. It is dark except where it turns translucence after breaking over a damn of sticks and sparkles. After growling, the little poodle-mix drops her trail and sulks to a spot behind me. A hundred feet further up the trail, she retakes point.

On a gray day, one without weather drama, Aki and I climb a gravel road leading to Gastineau Meadows. Aki sniffs along in work-dog fashion. If she saw the two used syringes laying orange and white in trailside grass, she gave no indication. Hopefully, the children who played loudly on the nearby school grounds haven’t found similar  needles. I’ll trash them along with bags of Aki’s scat after we finish the hike.

I won’t notice any birds or animals on the meadow, except for the water skimmer bugs that skitter across the meadow ponds with the tips of their legs jammed just under the water’s surface. The surrounding mountains—Juneau, Sheep, Jumbo, Gastineau—will look tired, like aging actors in late morning light. A light fog will rise off the channel and threaten to give the mountains cover and then dissipate before fulfilling its promise.

Even though they are well past prime, I pluck a handful of cloudberries from the meadow’s surface. Their insipid flavor can only remind me of berries gathered from the tundra of Western Alaska or Swedish Hjortron berries. We are walking this rainy day on a mountain meadow near Juneau, far away from Sweden or the Alaskan tundra. Aki, a rain forest dog, doesn’t share my memories. She doesn’t care about berries or their ability to turn wilderness into food. She wants to hang with other dogs.