by Rick Sinnott
Every morning in early September a cheechako I know exclaimed over the increasing number of yellow leaves fluttering on the aspen trees. Some things are better left unsaid. Calling attention to each newly yellowed leaf is like teasing a teenager about a new zit every morning. I finally had to growl at her that Alaskans don’t dwell on that annual rite of fall.
Of course, we all comment on the first spray of yellow leaves in late July or August. But we share this news with family and friends in the same hushed tone with which we point out a dead dog on the highway.
Alaska’s summer weather is often indistinguishable from autumn, or even winter, weather in other states. But our autumn – the brief interlude between the first yellow leaves and puddle ice thick enough to support your weight – is obvious enough to anyone who’s survived an entire year in the North Country. In Alaska, autumn is the season to cram in a last fishing trip, a last hike in the mountains, some berry picking, or a fall hunt.
In autumn, our wetland sedges and grasses have turned a tawny yellow. The unadulterated rays of a rising or setting sun can ignite a marsh this time of year. And here’s an experience common to duck hunters, but unappreciated by most adults: the slurping sounds of boots pulling out of black mud. I’m not talking about clamming-tide mud or dip-netting mud or Ship Creek Slammin’ Salmon Derby mud. I mean organic, marsh mud. The roiled muck exhales a sulfurous smell from rotting, submerged vegetable matter and who knows what else. Marsh perfume. I’d roll in the marsh like a dog if I could shake the chilly water out of my coat.
The woods this time of year have a different perfume, the smell of musty gym socks. Highbush cranberries. The first whiff of ripening cranberries in late August or early September is a more reliable sign of fall than a yellow leaf or two. I don’t recommend stuffing a sweaty sock in your mouth, but somehow that funky aroma complements the drupes’ tartness. There is no jelly more Alaskan. We stock up every September so that later, in the darkest days of winter or even next spring, we can reprise the nearly forgotten spell of autumn with a few twists of a lid.
When most people think of autumn in Alaska, they don’t think stink, they picture the colorful landscapes of the deciduous forest or tundra. Like most people, I do admire the colorful, dying leaves of plants. But Alaska is not known for its fall colors like New England, and there’s a good reason. Alaska’s autumnal salon hanging is much more ephemeral. Some years there doesn’t seem to be an ideal day for admiring the fall foliage; it’s raining every day or the clouds are low. Almost inevitably a cold snap or a big blow, like an art school bully, knocks nature’s palette to the ground and wipes the canvas clean.
During fall, we begin to forget that green is a color too. Dark green spruces and lighter green alders punctuate and accentuate the spreading yellow and red tints. Fall is when I finally learned to admire alders. If you hike much in the mountains, you spend more time cursing alders than singing their praises, because their springy stems spread like upside-down umbrella ribs, often interlocking with neighboring alders to form a near-impenetrable hedge. Alders are woody workhorses, pumping nitrogen into the soil and preventing mass wasting of steep slopes. But you aren’t thinking about soil while climbing a steep slope blanketed with alders. You just want to crawl out of the leafy hell.
Here’s what I like about alders. In fall, Alaska’s alders don’t sport the blood-red carmines of highbush cranberries, the gay yellows of aspens, the dusky vermilions of fireweed. Alders don’t celebrate autumn. No, like most Alaskans, alders pretend autumn is a slightly cooler version of summer, clinging to their green leaves until a hard freeze, high wind, or wet snowfall sheds all such pretensions overnight. Like a cold-water drowning victim, summer’s not dead until it’s cold and dead.
The migratory birds don’t wait for the potholes in my driveway to freeze, they’ve started flying south. Shorebirds and terns leave first, in July or August, about the time the first gold leaves appear. They have a long way to go, and their foods – mud-dwelling invertebrates and small fish – are locked beneath an icy armor all winter. Most of the insect-eating birds, like many of the songbirds, have also left the state. Insects are notoriously hard to find in winter, unless you know where to look for their eggs and pupae. Sandhill cranes are flying over my house, trailing a final primeval yodel in their wake. Many ducks and geese delay departure until they can benefit from a stiff tailwind, but they’ll be gone soon, except for the urban mallards that hunker down in artificially warmed watercourses and are fed cracked corn all winter. Anchorage’s Canada geese, with a smorgasbord of lawns and athletic fields to feed from, will wait until the first snowfall before seriously contemplating the long flight to the Pacific Northwest. They won’t have to wait long.
Soon the only birds left in Alaska will be the permanent residents, the avian sourdoughs like ravens, magpies, goshawks, jays, owls, woodpeckers, redpolls, chickadees, grouse, and ptarmigan. These birds all have a trick or two that helps them survive the long winter. They’re scavengers, or they roost in tree cavities or under the snow to conserve energy, or they stuff their crops full of seeds before the sun sets so they can absorb energy after dark, or they can locate prey under the snow by hearing alone, or they carry a pry bar for peaking under bark for insects, or they have feathery snowshoes, or their feathers turn white, or they lower their body temperature at night to conserve energy. Anything it takes. Not all of us can afford to fly to Hawaii or Baja California for the winter.
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photo: Pamshubby
