Flying Spider

Alaska is full of large wonders: huge mountains, magnificent glaciers and wilderness as far as you can see. Alaska is also full of small wonders. If you’re not careful, you could miss them. Six Mile Lake recently revealed a few of its small wonders to us as we silently and slowly explored it with our canoe.

We first encountered a Common Loon couple with slightly less than half of the 2.4 average children. The single, fluffy, grey-brown chick stayed close to its mother, as our 17-foot green dragon neared. The male loon dove several times, swam underwater to the opposite ends of the canoe and surfaced, keeping a wary red eye on the intruders. He even feigned a charge at one point, in an attempt to chase us away. We kept our distance as we continued to watch for several minutes, before moving on. Even our German shepherd lay quietly in the center of the boat, entranced by the sight.

Farther up the lake, we came upon several single-parent duck families. Most of the hens kept busy herding their own broods of fluffy grey adolescents. A younger mom was busy with her nine little yellow furballs all swirling around in different directions like a bunch of forgotten I-DID-A-DUCK participants. We didn’t see any drakes at all, but it was Saturday. They were probably on the golf course.

I watched a spider dangle at the end of a single strand of silk, precariously close to my wife’s head. Not wanting to stir up any excitement and possibly end up wet, I just watched and kept my mouth shut. After the spider was well past my wife, I realized that it was not simply hanging there, for there didn’t seem to be anything to hang from, out in the middle of the lake. It was actually traveling in the opposite direction that we were. Then I saw the tiny white fluff of a cottonwood seed, camouflaged against the grey-white sky, floating about ten inches above the spider, like a hot air balloon. I knew that some spiders can jump. There’s at least one that can fly.

On our way back to shore, I spotted a “V” in the water ahead and something was swimming at the point of it. The object was so small I thought it could be a lost runt duckling trying to find its mom. We paddled closer and found a vole dog-paddling its way to shore. It wasn’t carrying anything in its mouth, which would indicate that it may have been to the opposite shore, a hundred yards away, gathering special building materials which couldn’t be found near its home. Or maybe it lived on the other side and was coming to this side to do its shopping. Or maybe it was just swimming a few laps for exercise. I had a lot of questions, but the vole simply swam around our boat and continued into the grassy shore.

After we pulled into shore, a pair of petrels began dive bombing us, as if to say, “It’s time to leave, we’ve shown you enough for one day.” We took the hint, loaded our canoe and left, happy with our new experiences, small though they were.