The First Dogs on the Trail

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This morning we heard the frantic sound of 10 or 12 dog teams being readied for a race.  It has been many years since we last hitched up dogs to a sled but the sights and sounds then and now are much the same—crazy canine eyes offering no recognition of anyone but their musher, high pitched yelps—some in silo—others in harmony, the springing leap ending in a lunge of frustration.

The first and perhaps strongest team approaches the starting line, here a path between aspens; musher crushing the sled brake into snow while handlers spaced evenly among the team struggle to control the dogs.  While the next team approaches the staging area, a race official releases the dogs with a nod of head.  The second team must watch, constrained by men for two minutes, haunted by memories of the just released disappearing around a bend.  When we ran dogs this was the magic moment— the released dogs powering forward, almost snapping the sled from your hands. So intent are you in controlling the sled you don’t notice for a second silent replacing pandemonium.

Winter Lingers Here

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Winter hangs here on the Yukon River but, if the weatherman can be believed, it will soon be pushed upriver by spring. Perhaps that is why we have this beautiful cross country ski complex to ourselves.  The sun breaks through filmy overcast but brings wind rather than warmth.  It’s a rolling trail and we look forward to hill climbs in hope that heat generated by effort will thaw our faces and fingers. It works but wind chill built up during the following descent removes returns us back to zero.

We return to the car on a sheltered forest trail lined with scrubby spruce and  stately aspen, the beauty of both brought out by dappling sun. An enormous train of dogs, adults and children begins to pass us, lead by two large jowled hounds. A tired father dragging along a trailer sled loaded with twins brings up the rear.

Bracing for the Buckwheat

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Skiing over these Yukon and White Pass Rail tracks is easy since they are covered with several feet of snow. It’s cold here at the interior end of the Chilkoot Trail, plus 5 F, but isn’t uncomfortable until the wind blows up the line.  When the sun breaks through a thin cloud layer the greens, whites and grays of the forest wake up.

A quiet place most of the winter (recent wild things tracks confirm) it must brace itself for tomorrow’s cross country ski race. Even now volunteers construct an aid station, Inuit style, from snow blocks but shaped like a pirate ship—skull shaped prow, beetle killed lodge pine masts and booms, Jolly Roger flags festooning the rigging.  What must the coyote think-the one that left such purposeful tracks in this now sparkling snow?

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Troll Throne

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St. Patrick’s Day means nothing to Aki. She is only interested in the animal moving with stealth through the woods lining this beach. We are far from the bars where most Americans like to celebrate the saint’s holiday, drinking green colored Budweisers and singing songs not heard in Ireland since it was a British colony. You might find someone there with a Bodhran but no one with a copy of Patrick’s breastplate.  Americans have always howled at the moon this time of year—the Irishman’s saint’s day is just an excuse.

My eyes settle on a wooded hill forming a bell curve across Stephen’s Passage. It’s shape might have reminded the Irish crew on Vancouver’s Discovery of Croagh Patrick. A homesick man looks for the familiar in the foreign; perhaps they imagined climbing this mountain without shoes.

P1100435We have had our pilgrimage this morning—me in boots not bare feet like Aki—the little zealot. Together we wandered half lost through a thick forest drained by an awakening creek. Snow still frosted trees, bush, and ground. Without a mountain summit to draw us on we chose the easiest paths until reaching a throne-shaped tree stump illuminated by a tiny shaft of sunlight shining through the overcast. Giving this troll’s royal chair a slight nod, I lead Aki out of the woods and onto this beach to take up station on a rock just washed clean of snow by the tide. Now we wait for sun to warm out faces or a whale to breach in Stephen’s Passage, or a line of Trolls to begin the climb up Croagh Patrick.

 
 
 
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First Light on Fresh Snow

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After allowing us a generous taste of Spring, Winter returned last week on the north wind, driving down temperatures, silencing smaller water courses with ice, covering all in snow. Now he gives us a sunny two hour window to walk through the resulting beauty.

It’s sunrise near the confluence of the Herbert and Eagle Rivers. Aki flies down the trail, bounding over deeper drifts with front and back legs acting as one. This is her favorite snow—fine enough to offer soft landings and disinclined to form snow balls in her fine poodle hair. She leaves me standing, a little in awe of what comes from new morning light striking newly laid snow.

L1200068The temperature climbs above freezing as we walk between old growth spruce and hemlock trees that carry heavy burdens of sparkling white. These, they will soon lose in the heat of the day. We find few animal tracks in the forest but many dot the muskeg meadow we must cross to get the river—small stuff mainly: mice,squirrel, hare. A larger animal left a no nonsense trail on the stream forming the meadow’s boundary. There is also the path made by tiny mice feet that ends in a one inch wide hole in the snow. Other than the flight a sparrow, made memorable by streaming sunlight, these tracks are the only found evidence of wild life this side of the river.

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Dark clouds blanket out the sun as we finish the walk, lowering the volume of beauty; bringing a surprising sense of relief—maybe just calm.  I am thankful that Aki and I aren’t jaded by nature’s generosity, which we abuse with familiarity.

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Morning Breaking

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Sunlight floods over Mt. McGinnis but leaves the rest of our view in the dim glow of early morning. Aki and I traverse up a granite cliff shaved flat by the retreating glacier. She moves freely over the ice and packed snow trail with me following cautiously behind. Already one of my ice grippers is broken.

Even without their leaves the trail side brush screen out most of the view, here of frozen lake and the flat moraine that boarders it, now just being touched by early morning light. I spot a mountain goat on the high ground above Nugget Falls, maybe a mile away and look forward to a chance to view him a close.

L1190971With their white fleece, curved back horns and prominent brow, our Mountain Goats look like descendants of the pagan god Pan. I can almost hear his pipe music play over the awakening moraine below, looking new and fresh in first light under this crisp blue sky.  Recognizing the danger in such a flight of fancy, Aki snaps me out of it with a full speed charge down trail.

Despite her efforts I still feel like the first man to transit this trail to Nugget Falls—the air too clean, colors too rich, light too pure, snow too deep and shapely, the silence too profound for me to accept her well meaning lesson.

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Alders

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Another gray day on the moraine but one spiced up with two inches of pure white snow. A good day to reflect on the humble Sitka Alder and the drab willow. They were the first plants of size to gain a foothold on the moraine, tough witnesses to the the glacier’s retreat. Normally something to cut out of a photograph, with today’s topcoats of fresh snow providing counterpoint to dark bark they make excellent frames for greater beauty.

These pioneers laid the groundwork for Aki’s Troll Woods—building soil for the poplars and spruce even though the big trees would eventually rob them of light and nutrients; force them to carry out a holding action on soggy lake edges and bogs; make them dependent on the bowels of birds to carry their seeds to newly disturbed ground.

P1100408On the edge of beaver flooded land we find an alder displaying signs of spring, summer and fall under a coating of winter snow. On one supple twig cling a well formed leaf from last fall, spent cones, and spring bright pollen pods. Almost hidden by snow are this year’s tightly wrapped leaf buds.

Red Alder, the largest of the clan, provides excellent material for carving. I learned to work with it from master carvers at the Totem Heritage Center in Ketchikan. They helped me make the tools—alder handled adzes with blades fashioned from re-tempered car springs, crooked and not-so-crooked knives ground from cross cut saw blades. They taught me to work with wood from a tree freshly fallen and how the adze could be used to quickly transform a piece of firewood into an abstract figure. They encouraged me to cradle the new form in my lap while using crooked knives to mimic my model.

With the help of another master carver, an Italian American from New York City, I used adze, crooked knives, and not-so-crooked knives to carve a mask of my recently deceased father. The intimacy of the experience helped me grieve. Here is the result.

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Geese Chasing Away Solitude

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We hoped to purchase some solitude and views of Canada Geese by taking this ice covered trail during a rain storm. As expected rain water covers the ice in a glistening clear blanket that would have made the trail unusable but for the  winter’s worth of dropped hemlock needles allowing my boots purchase.

L1190843Getting it at a bargain price Aki and I find solitude here broken only by the snuffling of her searching nose, the sound of rain drops hitting my parka hood, mallard chuckles, eagle complaints, and the near hysterical song of geese being driven off shrinking sand bars by a rising tide.

Reaching an open meadow we find a clump of the calming geese feeding alongside the trail ahead. They are all business at first but then one of their unit stops feeding to watch our approach. Aki, no fool she, is not interested in messing with these big wild birds.  Even though we try skirting them at a distance, the geese eventually take flight and move on to the next tidal meadow. Now we hear geese warning calls coming from across the river, giving advanced warning of the approach of several formations of Canada Geese that fly overhead to join their just departed buddies 300 meters away on the other meadow.

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Moving across the meadow we reach a gently sloping beach of sand bordering the perfectly still waters of Lynn Canal now reflecting a murder of crows flying toward the river.  A smaller gang of the black birds have assumed station at the top of a beach side spruce to wait for the abundance of low tide.

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Such a Chick Magnet

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This is March at its best—day long sun, long days, little wind, comfortable temperatures. Looking across to Douglas Island from our kitchen window I can see where Aki and I will spend part of it.  Just below the ridge line lies a mountain bowl drained by Kowee Creek, now flooded with afternoon light, that we haven’t visited for some time. That must change today.

L1190770In minutes we reach the trailhead and start up a trail packed down by snow machines. I’m carrying snow shoes but soon stash them along side the trail. They are not needed on this well set trail that takes us past dark forests and slanting meadows covered with sensuous mounds of snow crystals that sparkle like rock candy. I grab and hold Aki when two snow machines approach from down trail. They whine as they move towards us driven by riders dressed in sleek jumpsuits, dark goggles, and molded helmets with mouth protectors—-high tech insects passing over old ground.

L1190779Aki gives a light hearted chase to the machines as they move up trail. I feel the same way about them on this perfect day; reminded by the sound and smell of their half consumed hydrocarbons of our old life in Western Alaska when we used snow machines to gather food and firewood. As their sound fades I hear for the first time the open waters of Kowee Creek mix with songs of birds sheltering in the belt of trees that hide it from view. Two college aged woman approach and begin gushing about Aki in her bright red wrap. She is such a chick magnet, one that thankfully came into my life after I could use her as a bridge to loveliness.

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Spotlights of Spring

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Seamus, the digital display on our electronic thermometer, has dressed himself in shorts and sunglasses and promises an outside temperature of 45(f). Seamus sometimes lies but not today. From our kitchen window on Chicken Ridge I can see sunlight bouncing off the waters of Gasteneau Channel, bringing the whitest highlights out of the snow covering Douglas Island.

Aki, who has spent her morning inside contemplating the unfairness of a poodle’s life, throws all sadness aside to bounce around the living room as I collect the paraphernalia of adventure—water bottle. camera, dog leash. In a half and hour we are dropping through the old growth forest on one of her favorite trails— the one leading to a wide curving beach between False and True Outer Point.

L1190745Sun may be driving cold from beach and ridge but beneath the thick forest canopy winter holds on making me wish I had worn a wool rather than cotton hat. Shafts of light do penetrate down, mottling the forest understory like the floor of an old barn. In the beaver manufactured swamp one shaft spotlights a yellow knot of emerging skunk cabbage plants while the surrounding dark water forms a mirror for the surrounding trees.

The beach is empty of dog, man and bird when we emerge onto it. There is sun light to stand in and to bring a rich mixture of lights and darks to the snow covered Chilkat Mountains across Lynn Canal. Aki wants to keep to the beach with its sun and promise of dog encounters  but follows without protect when I return to the cool forest drama.

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