Today, winter solstice should be the northern new year’s eve. We all look forward to the lengthening of days that starts tomorrow. In Aki’s human home holiday lights keep the darkness at bay. Floors and clothes have been cleaned in preparation for the New Year. Here, on the Fish Creek delta, an 18.8 foot high tide washes the marshes clean and floods over the trail. In Gastineau Channel, a salmon gill-netter takes advantage of the high water to motor across the bar to downtown Juneau.
On our last visit an otter coxed Aki out onto the ice and I felt fortunate to get the little dog back in one piece. Today, only small chunks of ice float on the flooded pond so I relax and let Aki wander. While she sniffs a nearby alder, I spot the bright purple interior of a recently harvested sea urchin—the leavings of an otter’s new year’s meal. Like a whale’s plume or even a steaming pile of bear scat, the broken purple shells remind me who will share the rain forest with us during the next year. I am humble by the thought, humbled by these scattered shells, but also happy to have such interesting neighbors.