Colors of the Kenai

First and foremost green-- a lighter shade for the young ones, the cottonwoods and devil's club, the moss and marsh grasses and alders; all the plants that make life after the glaciers possible. Darker for the spruce, the old trees that only come later, choking out the chaotic undergrowth. Brown for the earth, above in the mountains where the snow has left, as well as underfoot; the mud churned up by the snowmelt that sticks to your shoes and tells you that people, and dogs, and moose and bear have all been here before you. White for the snow on the ground, the clouds that blanket the horizon, six thousand feet of ice burying mountains whole. These three colors dominate the Kenai Peninsula, but there are others. Blue Bell's of Scotland and Lupine, the fish lakes and glaciers; grey in the beautiful silty rivers, red and pink salmon when they return to the place of their birth, doggedly struggling upstream as many as 2,000 miles without food, just to breed and die.