It begins as days grow longer than nights transformed by the waltz of rose and emerald auroras. A network of tributaries converges, (beyond Kodiak Island and stretching to the Aleutians), beneath snow-covered volcanic peaks on the Alaska Peninsula a wild river is born. It falls from mountain slopes where brown bears wake from a forgotten winter, and cuts through a transitional landscape of dwarfed spruce and treeless tundra.

Its journey to the sea unimpeded. From start to finish, its varied habitats are pristine.

Lunar forces tug coastal tides that can vary twenty six feet in a day. Great numbers of brown bears come to feast on tender sedges along its tidal sloughs and dig sandy beaches for succulent clams. Cubs play and tumble on its Irish-green banks, while arctic terns fish in the river's familiar waters. Golden plovers rest in soggy bogs suspended by permafrost, and bald eagles return to nest on rocky cliffs. Busy squadrons of puffins dart back out to sea, beyond breaking surf where otters lay in rolling beds of kelp.

Crashing waves are my summer symphony. A cacophony of shorebirds seems a revelry for its estuarian bounty. Salmon complete their cycle, pushing against its current toward a mountain lake.

Days are long. Rosy lights sometimes dance at night. We come to where eagles soar and bears live, and a river still runs wild.