Aki and I climb a service road to a high mountain meadow that still has snow. It’s an odd morning. No one else shares the road even though its over 50 degrees and blue sky backstops mountains, each a spruce green and white quilt. There is sun but it shines through a thin pewter haze that shows no sign of dissipating. Then there is the wind, not the broad breeze that can sweep across mountain and meadow, lifting the poodle’s earflaps when she faces into it, but a wind confined like a river, to unseen channels. When we cross one of these whippy tributaries, Aki dips her head low and I use the jacket, minutes ago unnecessary in the rising heat, as shield.         Powering through, the little dog and I reach a saddle covered with snow. She is hesitant to follow me onto it, as if it lay over a lightly sleeping dragon. Maybe she smells the wolf that recently left this single track toward a pocket spruce forest. When the distance between us grows to the edge of her tolerance, Aki dashes toward me. Even though I am prepared for the dash, she runs too fast for me to capture her entire body with the camera.

Can the little dog read the signs of winter’s death, even in this high place? Already the rivulets run free, carrying snow melt to the sea. Bullet shaped skunk cabbage shoots power up through thawing ground. We can smell the decay of last fall’s grass and see the green specks of new growth pushing through it. Dash on, little dog, when this is gone, it will be all bog and biting bugs until next fall’s frosts.

I find an old friend on the Outer Point Beach. A belted kingfisher watches from a perch on offshore rock as Aki and I emerge from the old growth. Aki and the bird ignore each other. He might be ignoring me as I walk slowly toward him to get a better photograph. I love this bird with its spear of a bill and mullet topknot. I like his feisty verbal challenges and goofy way he flies: up with a frantic beat of wings like a hummingbird then down in a dipping glide.

Twenty years ago on Prince of Wales Island a cloud of kingfishers circled my kayak and dived on a school of baitfish. The birds tucked in their wings and penetrated to a surprisingly deep depth, their passage marked by a line of bubbles in the water. I felt fear, wonder, and privileged to witness their casual demonstration of skill. I wanted to share it. I wanted to enhance the experiences value through secrecy. I never saw such a thing again.

You might say the devil is beating his wife this morning if your devil, when angry, grows yellow like the sun and his beaten wife can shed enough tears to soak little Aki and wash the trail clean. I prefer the idea that Akria Kurosawa illustrated in his movie, Dreams: that rain and sun share the skies over fox weddings. As my Aki, the little poodle mix, and I trot along the lower Mendenhall River, I root for the sun to muscle aside the rain clouds that have been camped out over Juneau for more than a week.

The tide is on the flood and in minutes it will cut off our retreat from the riverside beach if we don’t turn back. It has already eliminated the last mud bar in the wetlands and forced an armada of ravens to fly over us to roost in tall spruce. Now they mutter curses at the tide, each other, and maybe us. If they cast criticism of the little dog’s fleece wrap, she ignores it.

It’s early morning on a tidal meadow but we could be walking through downtown Los Angeles at sunrise. Canada geese, all locals, huddle like the homeless in protected dips of the meadow. Some make low complaints, as refugees from mental health treatment sometimes mutter to themselves while pushing a shopping cart of castoffs down the street.

If the geese represent the homeless of our cities, Aki and I are seen by them as police officers; my camera a baton to encourage them to move along from the protected doorways where they huddled for the night. Aki tries to ignore the big birds while I photograph them. I also take pictures of still-white peaks of the Chilkat Range reflected on the surface of Eagle River.

Tired of making geese nervous, I lead my little dog into the woods where we are greeted by a red-breasted sapsucker hammering away at a metal trail sign. I saw one of his brothers doing the same to a “No Motor Vehicles on the Trail” sign yesterday. Are the beautiful woodpeckers uniting against the man? As cops Aki and I should investigate further but the sapsucker flies off before I can question him.

Aki ignored the tanner crab shell until I took an interest in it. It was on its back; something with shape, substance, but little weight and no smell. The later explains Aki’s lack of interest.

We find many crab shell husks. The Dungeness ones are best because you can’t find a point of egress for the former occupant. (This tanner escaped by popping the top off his carapace.) But the Tanner husk that Aki noses with distain is unusual because it still has its delicate claws. I admire their slender pincers and walk on. My little dog stays by the shell giving me a look that would convey judgmental surprise on a human face. She only agrees to follow me when I try to photograph her next to her prize. Aki is not in the mood for modeling.

It’s almost low tide. A hundred gulls, made bright white by the low angled light, rest in a thin line on the sand. They mimic the light enhanced Chilkat Range on the horizon. When they rise in a porous cloud I realize that we walked over the place they vacated yesterday morning. Now, the little dog and I walk across the gulls’ horizon. Two bald eagles fly from nearby spruce trees out over Smuggler Cover. I turn away for a moment. When I look back, the placid mallards and scoters we just passed are nervous. A raft flies off, passing one of the eagles on an opposite trajectory. That eagle lands on a sandbar and looks around it like a tourist looking for the bus stop. The other one hunches over something on another sandbar, bobbing his head like the big birds do when the rend flesh. I can’t see what he holds in his talons but know it must be food. In minutes two crows land on the bar and stand at a safe (respectful?) distance from the eagle.

As the crows wait for scraps, I once again wonder at how much violence is committed in this place we humans find so beautiful. I honor the eagle for his skill in plucking a meal from the sea, understand his need to feed, respect the role of hunter and prey, yet find myself rooting for those lower on the food chain. I could almost pray that the molted tanner crab will survive his brief, naked existence on the ocean floor, until again protected by a hard shell.

I struggle not to attribute human attributes to the wild animals Aki and I see on our walks. These eagles are making it tough. They share the top of a spruce that offers a great view of the Mendenhall River and wetlands. When I approach with my old camera ready they stiffen and appear to pose, as if for a military poster. After taking a few bracketing shots, I shift twice to capture them from other angles. More posing.

Just before the little dog and I move down the beach, one eagle gives out a screech and glides over to the river. Through my unfocused lens I see it hit the water, talons extend. The splash sparkles in early morning light. Pulling out from the shallow dive, my model pulls up and arcs closely around us and then flies back to his perch. From there he seems to offer to do it all again I didn’t capture his glory. As a parting gift, he screeches out a warning. As it fades we hear a wing of panicked Canada geese that soon fly over our heads.