The Empty Wheel Chair

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While Aki keeps the Juneau home safe from dogs, cats, and other intruders, I’m up in Anchorage at writer’s school. It rained hard all night, which didn’t keep the seagull perched outside my dorm window from screaming me awake at 4:30 in the morning. Maybe it wanted me to see the pink and pearl sunrise that promised sunshine in the future.2

Now up, I ride my bicycle toward the Campbell Creek bike trail, past a new-looking wheel chair that sat near a front-yard fire ring. While riding the trail to where it dead ends on Dimond Boulevard, I think about the wheel chair when I should be looking for wandering bears or grazing moose. Had a paraplegic used the chair to sit close to the fire until suffering a heart attack? Was he carried into an ambulance by paramedics? Does the empty chair serve as a memorial of his death? Or is he sleeping in his bed while morning stun makes the wet chair steam?3

Lucky Day

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This has to be a lucky day—-the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventeenth year. We count ourselves lucky to be alone on the Mendenhall Peninsula trail on this dry, if gray morning. Bald eagles complain while we plunge down though old growth forest to the Mendenhall River. More eagles sulk in the riverside spruce trees.4

Diminished by the low tide, the river is empty of waterfowl. Only a seal head breaks the surface. Even though they should be out foraging on the exposed tidal flats, a mob of bald eagles sulk in the riverside spruce, some two to a tree. Even though it hasn’t rained for a couple of days, an immature eagle stretches out its mix-brown wings to dry. He must have crashed into the river trying to pull free a salmon. He was lucky to find one.3

This time of year, the river should be filling up with pink and chum salmon but we see no fins, no impatient leaps of salmon returning to their spawning grounds. I pray that they are just late in arriving. With the king salmon return being so small, bears and eagles are going to need lots of chums and pinks to get through the winter.2

While I start to feel sorry for the birds and bears and myself, three eagles whoosh over my head, so close that the wind sound of their wings startles me. One veers off while the other two fly toward each other with talons in attack position. But they are not serious about doing battle. Were they serious about snatching away Aki? Apparently unaware of any danger, the little dog stood relaxed at my side during the event. I guess seven must be your lucky number poodle-mix.5

Upper Fish Creek

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Sunlight finally broke through the marine layer yesterday. This afternoon Aki and I are seeking shelter in the thick woods drained by a mountain fork of Fish Creek. I had planned on taking the little dog to a nearby meadow and only stopped here so she could drink from the cold-water stream. Aki had other ideas and lead me into the woods. Hers was a good choice.2

The informal trail leads through thickets of devil’s club, occasionally touching the stream. The devil’s leaves glow where struck by the strong afternoon sun. Aki acts like she has forgotten yesterday morning’s fog and the wet, grey days that made up the previous week. Soak it up little dog. The rain returns Saturday3

Fog

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Fog formed early this morning in the Gastineau Chanel. Now Aki and I climb toward the Gastineau Meadows in hopes of reaching clear skies and sunshine. Overhead, an Alaska Airlines jet pulls out of the fog and then turns south, taking Aki’s human sister toward Seattle.3

We never escape the fog, which doesn’t bother the nose-centered poodle mix. Sunshine makes her squint. I’m frustrated until I find the spider webs. We would have walked past them on a sunny day. This foggy morning, with their crisp, geometric lines, the webs provide the only clarity.2

Juneau Fourth of July

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We Americans expect sunshine, warm temperatures, and lots of red, white, and blue bunting on the Fourth of July. In Juneau, we accept that rain often replaces sunshine., dives down the temperature and soaks our patriotic bunting. This morning, while Aki recovered from firework produced stress, I watched the annual birthday parade. People cheered the visiting Northwest Canadian Mounted Police, Shriners (big men in toy cars), rainbow flags, Veterans for Peace, and trucks full of Tlingit veterans wearing clear raingear over their wool blanket regalia. Kids scrambled for candy thrown from fire trucks and floats. Rain splattered on the handcrafted amor of men fighting with swords and maces.1

I enjoyed the parade but was more than happy to take Aki out to North Douglas for a walk through the rain-soaked woods. Empty of other people or dogs but full of bird song, the forest is a peaceful place. Almost ripe blueberries rise above clusters of leaves. I know I should wait for a week before sampling them but pluck a few into my mouth, find them almost summer sweet with a sharp aftertaste. Soon the sun will return to ramp up their sugar content and turn them into soft sacks of juice.3

Drawn to the blue and caramel

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Posters inviting people to an American Fourth of July celebration usually feature sunlight, fireworks, and attractive legs descending from bathing suits. One inviting Juneauites to our Fourth festivities this year should portray rain falling on soaked streets from clouds that seem to tear themselves apart on the mountainside spruce. If the clouds don’t clear or at least lift, they will swallow tonight’s fireworks. We will peer up into the rain as each explosion paints the gray sky with orange, red, or yellow light.1

Aki doesn’t mind the rain and appreciates that it cuts down on the amateur firework explosions that usually rattle her during the Fourth of July weekend. She would have enjoyed yesterday’s whale watching trip where she would have attracted almost as much attention on the boat as the humpback whales that we watched. Once we saw a stellar sea lion dogging a feeding whale. But my favorite view was of the clouds breaking open above the Chilkat Mountains. They parted, not to dump more rain, but to expose sun and patches of blue. The eyes of every Juneauite on the boat turned from a surfacing whale to the lightening sky.5

This morning it is raining hard as Aki as I start walking up the Brotherhood Bridge Trail. In the first meadow we spot two patches of crushed grass where a bear slept last night. Later I photograph a caramel-color slug feasting on a devil’s club stalk. On a normal day I’d turn away from the slug and search for the bear. But today, under low. gray skies, there is little competition for the lovely slug.1

Bridge Builder

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Downtown Juneau in summer often has more visitors than locals. This morning Aki and I meet two couples. One man and woman are from the British Isles, the other couple from Atlanta. As she usually does, Aki acts as an icebreaker. She reminds the woman from Atlanta of the little poodle-mix that waits for the woman to return home. Her voice breaks describing that dog. The Brits are more reserved but melt as we watch two bald eagles resting on an abandoned wharf. It takes so little to bridge social gaps. Sometimes, you need a little dog. Sometimes it just takes a couple of eagles on an aging wharf.2

Aki’s Stubborn

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Aki can be a stubborn little dog. This comes through each time we try to walk the flume trail. She’s fine until we reach the spot where the Christopher Trail drops down towards Gold Creek. Here she acts like death or at least dismemberment will surely come to both of us if we continue down the flume.

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Today Aki’s human sister has a plan. I’m to continue on down the Flume Trail in hopes that Aki will eventually give in and trot after. This actually works at the Christopher Trail junction. But, not the second time she throws on the brakes near a nondescript rock. She looks up at me with a “”It’s okay, I’ll just eat cereal” martyr look. It changes into a “if you really won’t go back to the Christopher Trail, I’ll just make a home here next to this rock even through it won’t protect me from wind, rain, snow, or bears. After an embarrassingly short time, I gather the little brat into my arms and carry her down the trail.1

Wet Bird

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This eagle tells you everything you need to know about today’s weather. He squats in the top of a hemlock tree, rain-soaked wings spread out to dry. He will hold that pose for the ten minutes that Aki and I explore the false outer point beach. I poke at a spray of purple beach pea flowers, snap a photograph of them, pet the dog, and look up at the eagle. He holds the same pose. I talk with Aki’s human sister, watch her skim stones on the calm water, pet Aki, and look up at the eagle. I smile at a brown junco with the nerve to land on a drift wood log a few feet away and stare at us. I squint out toward Shaman Island at the head of a curious seal, apparently wondering why we linger on the beach. The eagle still hasn’t moved. That’s how hard it rained today.P1050913

Yin and Yang

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The dogs looked miserable even though they reclined at the feet of doting owners next to bowls full of food or water. In the sidewalk seating area of an Oregon brewpub, they coped with 100-degree heat by sleeping. Tired from a morning bike ride along the Pacific and full of pub food, I felt like joining the pups. Aki, who even though she likes to sleep next to a heating vent in winter wouldn’t know what to do about the heat.2

The next morning, while getting in one last bike ride before our return to Alaska, I thought about the flexibility of man and dog. In urban Oregon, dogs stay home while their owners ride crowded public transport to inside jobs. Each must look forward to the nightly reunion. They have many walks in the rain and some in snow. But one sniff of the tea roses perfuming the bike paths and you know that they have a gentler climate than Juneau. They have shopping, wineries, fancy beer parlors, and quality cell phone coverage. We have Costco, a hometown brewery, and ready access to the woods and sea. Orcas chase salmon and sea lions in front of Juneau. What predators work the streets of Portland?3

This morning, back in Juneau, I join Aki for a walk on the Rainforest Trail. Soft rain collects on the path-side plants. It soaks my pants when they brush against the cow parsnips leading over the trail. How nice, little dog, to be soaked by rain rather than sweat, to walk through air cool enough for comforting fleece. Aki, who rarely has to pant, would probably agree.4