I bring Aki to the Eagle River woods hoping to see mountains, birds, and in the river maybe even seals. Today thanks to weather and the season, we see none of those things. Clouds occlude mountain views. Only a pair of bored ravens break the silence. The river meadows could be famine fields. Even the river mouth sandbars, exposed by a low tide, are empty. Normally I’d treasure the solitude and silence but today, I feel like the guy no one invited to the party.

Ducks and wind. That’s all Aki finds on the Sheep Creek Delta. She ignores the ducks, which is good and tries to ignore the wind. That 20-knot breeze blowing up channel numbs me and seems to pen down the ducks. A thin line of Barrow golden eyes hug the beach, forming an arrow that points at a confused raft of surf scoters, who work to keep their orange and black beaks pointed into the wind. In the creek shallows mallards walk and feed with their beaks in the water. A brace of the big ducks break into flight, the hen exposing iridescent-purple tertial feathers when she spreads her wings.

It feels like spring. Not the spring of Wordsworth’s daffodils. No robin sings, no tulip flowers open to the warming sun. Before entering the old growth, our only seasonal clues are warmish air and the lack of snow or ice. It’s too early in the calendar year to rule out a return of winter cold. But in the forest, we learn that its perennials don’t rely on a calendar to schedule the release of sap. The blueberry bushes have exploded into blossom. I find my first yellow skunk cabbage flower exposed on the forest floor. When we lived on the Kuskokwim River, we followed the old timers’ advice and waited to plant our garden until the birch leaves were as big as a squirrel’s ear. The elders trusted the trees to know when the danger of frost had past. But that was before the signs of climate change became incontrovertible. Can those elders still trust a birch to predict the weather?

The mallards are mellow today. We spot a small raft of them on a small beaver pond. The move away from the little dog and I, but slowly, like they don’t Aki to think that she discomforts them. Even the Harlequin ducks ignore us, hugging the beach that we walk along after exiting the woods. Only a seal seems to notice the little dog and I. It keeps its all-too-sad eyes on Aki like an urchin starring through a sweet shop window. We walk in the gray but across Lynn Canal strong sunlight patterns the Chilkat Mountains with darks and lights shapes.