August’s warm and sunny weather led to some late summer reverie but the season’s long shadows didn’t lie. The crimson blaze of fireweed turned to gray, seedy fluff. Soon enough clouds shrouded Ripinsky. Soon enough they’ll lift to show us snow.
Like squirrels we’ll scurry into our burrows.
Until then we will gather up the blueberries and raspberries that grew plump with July’s rain, bring in the remaining fish and firewood, bed down our garden with straw and seaweed and maybe start thinking about which of our cars will survive winter.
September in Southeast Alaska and there’s no time to dally. Weeks-long rains approach, then cold.
It’s no wonder that children returning to school are required to write long essays on what they did last summer. The exercise forces them to ruminate on the great adventures they led or imagined while stretched out on a beach or a lawn, and to relive them. Summer is ripe with the fruit of wonder for those with an appetite.
My own discoveries included:
- The all-you-can-eat brunch at the Holland America hotel (formerly the Westmark) in Skagway. All manner of eggs and meats and cheeses, biscuits and gravy, piles of fruit and pastries. Unlimited coffee. Just $23. Although traveling by bicycle, I abandoned hope for meaningful exercise, cracked a book and seized a table close to the buffet.
- The walk-in tenting area at the town-operated campground on Dyea flats. Secluded by a ring of bushy, 40-foot spruce trees. Water and an outhouse provided, $10 per night suggested fee and one of the Panhandle’s great open beaches to play on. A nice buffer from the RV crowd and everything else that clutters up Alaska.
- That landmark peak at the west end of Main Street – the impressive one with the flat top way off in the distance – is called Chunekukliek Mountain. It’s on Takhin Ridge just south of Chilkat Lake and it tops out at about 4,800 feet, according to the topo map. This came up in a conversation about nothing. I’ve lived here not knowing the name of the pyramidal giant looking down at me for the last 38 years. How is that?
- Salmon make it up Million Dollar Falls. Years ago an acquaintance told me he witnessed fish jumping there but I didn’t believe him. Way too much water. Way too high to jump. But this summer my office mate said she saw the same. Then I watched a Facebook video showing a fish swimming “uphill” in a downward stream of water jetting out of a culvert. It’s a fish. The falls is water. What is uphill to a salmon other than the way home from the lowland sea?
God knows what discoveries await during next year’s season of wonder. Maybe take the bike to Gustavus. Maybe learn the meaning of the word Chunekukliek.