Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
It is May 5, and here in Denali snowflakes swirl outside my window. Robert Frost’s words from “A Prayer in Springtime,” do nothing for my morale. Instead, his words make me wish for the crocuses, forsythia and daffodils of my Connecticut childhood.
I sit at my desk, and consider lighting a fire in the woodstove. I thought we were done with the woodstove, when we hung up the dogsleds two weeks ago. The mushing season ended late this year. I heard the first song of an American Robin when I was preparing the dogs for a run on a frosty –20 degree April morning.
Returning birds are usually the first signal of spring in this country. The Sandhill Cranes fly high overhead long before the flowers bloom. Now in the midst of a snow flurry, a Yellow-Rumped Warbler lands on the windowsill inches from my face. He hops, then flies off, but not without giving me a message. If he can wing his way from another hemisphere to visit me during a May snowstorm, it is time for me to embrace the new season.
I grab my binoculars, camera, and a bird book and drive into the park. The road has recently been plowed, and invites me to visit a wildlife corridor that has been off limits since late September. I recall the first time I traveled the park road. It was in June of 1985, and my father had recently died. My mother found herself lost without her wilderness companion, so my husband and I were determined to take her on a new adventure. We planned a five-day trip to Camp Denali. None of us had been there before, and we hoped our visit would relieve Mom from some of her grief.
Our drive on this road to Camp Denali was a journey into springtime. After winding through the initial miles of taiga forest, we entered a wide tundra valley where we admired an enormous cow moose with twin calves teetering at her side, and a puffed-up Willow Ptarmigan who scuttled alongside the bus, her downy chicks in tow. As the miles continued we listened as Wally described the landscape’s history, and we contemplated the span of geological ages. When the road took us alongside the rock outcroppings of Polychrome Pass, pink clusters of moss campion enchanted my horticulturist mother. She delighted in “meeting” a new flower. Grizzly cubs playfully tumbled down snowfields on Highway Pass, and caribou trotted along eskers that reached toward Wonder Lake. By the time we walked inside our cozy log cabin at Camp Denali, our dark winter had faded from view.
Today the park road is closed at mile 13, so I park the car and walk a mile further. The Savage River valley is blanketed in snow, but the river runs open in places, cascading beneath shelves of ice. Winter doesn’t yield easily here, yet the signs of a new season are all around me. Pussy willows wave in the cold north wind, and a thrush lands on the branches. A Mew Gull sits on a snowbound bench that’s designed for summer tourists. I imagine he is already looking for their breadcrumbs. A ptarmigan cackles in the brush. His feathers are no longer winter-white; they’ve already turned to summertime brown.
I take heart in these confirmations of spring, but I know it is a vital yet fleeting presence. Long before the final flower blooms on the slopes of Primrose Ridge, snow will bury its chance. Soon after moose calves find their strength, a skim of ice will form on the kettle ponds, making their lives difficult. The snowshoe hare will shed its summer coat of brown, and turn white. Now I’m distracted by the cheep cheep cheep of a ground squirrel. He scampers to a rock and I watch him forage in the snow. He is skinny after months of hibernation. He is already busy preparing for next winter.
I return to my car in high spirits. The same way my mother found renewal at Camp Denali, I have found hope today. I no longer wish for the crocuses and daffodils of my childhood, but am grounded in the elusive certainty that spring is present. Somewhere nearby a pasque flower is pushing through the snow. That flower, the earliest to bloom each season, will certainly be followed by blossoms of monkshood and arctic poppies, arnica and moss campion. Denali Park is defined by her glorious uncommon season of springtime. I wouldn’t trade it for any other.
