We put up with a lot living in Alaska: insane politics, high prices, the Glenn Highway in winter (for that matter the Glenn Highway in Summer), but we're really not crazy, at least not all the way through. We have our reasons. For instance we can, with no justification other than a passing whim, be in the valley of the South Fork Eagle River within any given hour. It is the kind of place Aldo Leopold would like; it's peaceful, not particularly dramatic, at least by Alaska standards, and rewarding of the kind of quiet, long attention that Leopold urged. June in Alaska can't be far in spirit from Leopold's Wisconsin in May. I imagine he would find that here too "it is time to listen for the final proof of spring. Sit down on a tussock [and] cock your ears at the sky…" The sheep are high on the slopes, the greens are just beginning to break free of the brown, and the lakes at the upper end of the valley are almost free of ice.

Here are a few snapshots. No assignment or agenda, no waiting for the light or any of the other trappings that come from landscape photography's need to impress, just a walk with a camera on a gray, early spring day in Alaska.