Never Cry Wolf

by Farley Mowat

  I went back to my observing routine, while Ootek crawled into the tent for a sleep. I noted in my log that George and Uncle Albert arrived back at the den together, obviously exhausted, at 12:17 P.M. About 2:00 P.M. Ootek woke up and made amends for his dereliction of duty by brewing me a pot of tea.

  The next time we encountered Mike I recalled him to his promise and he began to interrogate Ootek.

  “Yesterday,” he told me, “Ootek says that wolf you call George, he send a message to his wife. Ootek hear it good. He tell his wife the hunting is pretty bad and he going to stay out longer. Maybe not get home until the middle of the day.”

  I remembered that Ootek could not have known at what time the male wolves returned home, for he was then fast asleep inside the tent. And 12:17 is close enough to the middle of the day for any practical purpose.

  Nevertheless, for two more days my skepticism ruled—until the afternoon when once again George appeared on the crest and cocked his ears toward the north. Whatever he heard, if he heard anything, did not seem to interest him much this time, for he did not howl, but went off to the den to sniff noses with Angeline.

  Ootek, on the other hand, was definitely interested. Excitement filled his face. He fairly gabbled at me, but I caught only a few words. Innuit (eskimos) and kiyai (come) were repeated several times, as he tried passionately to make me understand. When I still looked dense he gave me an exasperated glance and, without so much as a by-your-leave, headed off across the tundra in a direction which would have taken him to the northwest of Mike’s cabin.

  I was a little annoyed by his cavalier departure, but I soon forgot about it, for it was now late afternoon and all the wolves were becoming restless as the time approached for the males to set off on the evening hunt.

  There was a definite ritual about these preparations. George usually began them by making a visit to the den. If Angeline and the pups were inside, his visit brought them out. If they were already outside, Angeline’s behavior changed from that of domestic boredom to one of excitement. She would begin to romp; leaping in front of George, charging him with her shoulder, and embracing him with her forelegs. George seemed at his most amiable during these playful moments, and would sometimes respond by engaging in a mock battle with his mate. From where I sat these battles looked rather ferocious, but the steadily wagging tails of both wolves showed it was all well meant.

  No doubt alerted by the sounds of play, Uncle Albert would appear on the scene and join the group. He often chose to sleep away the daylight hours some distance from the den site, perhaps in order to reduce the possibility of being dragooned into the role of babysitter at too frequent intervals.

  With his arrival, all three adult wolves would stand in a circle, sniff noses, wag their tails hard, and make noises. “Make noises” is not very descriptive, but it is the best I can do. I was too far off to hear more than the louder sounds, and these appeared to be more like grunts than anything else. Their meaning was obscure to me, but they were certainly connected with a general feeling of good will, anticipation and high spirits.

  After anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour of conviviality (in which the pups took part, getting under everyone’s feet and nipping promiscuously at any adult tail they might encounter) the three adults would adjourn to the crest of the den, usually led by Angeline. Once more they would form a circle and then, lifting their heads high, would “sing” for a few minutes.

  This was one of the high points of their day, and it was certainly the high point of mine. The first few times the three wolves sang, the old ingrained fear set my back hairs tingling, and I cannot claim to having really enjoyed the chorus. However, with the passage of sufficient time I not only came to enjoy it, but to anticipate it with acute pleasure. And yet I find it almost impossible to describe, for the only terms at my disposal are those relating to human music and these are inadequate if not actually misleading. The best I can do is to say that this full-throated and great-hearted chorus moved me as I have very occasionally been moved by the bowel-shaking throb and thunder of a superb organ played by a man who had transcended his mere manhood.

  The impassionata never lasted long enough for me. In three or four minutes it would come to an end and the circle would break up; once more with much tail wagging, nose sniffing and general evidence of good will and high content. Then, reluctantly, Angeline would move toward the den, often looking back to watch as George and Albert trotted off along one of the hunting trails. She made it clear that she wished desperately to join them; but in the end she would rejoin the pups instead, and once more submit to their ebullient demands, either for dinner or for play.

  On this particular night the male wolves made a break from their usual routine. Instead of taking one of the trails leading north, or northwest, they headed off toward the east, in the opposite direction from Mike’s cabin and me.

  I thought no more about this variation until sometime later when a human shout made me turn around. Ootek had returned—but he was not alone. With him were three bashful friends, all grinning, and all shy at this first meeting with the strange kablunak who was interested in wolves.

  The arrival of such a mob made further observations that night likely to be unproductive, so I joined the four Eskimos in the trek to the cabin. Mike was home, and greeted the new visitors as old friends. Eventually I found a chance to ask him a few questions.

  Yes, he told me, Ootek had indeed known that these men were on their way, and would soon arrive.

  How did he know?

  A foolish question. He knew because he had heard the wolf on the Five Mile Hills reporting the passage of the Eskimos through his territory. He had tried to tell me about it; but then, when I failed to understand, he had felt obliged to leave me in order to intercept and greet his friends.

  And that was that.

  14

  Puppy Time

  DURING THE third week in June, Angeline began to show increasing signs of restlessness. She gave the distinct impression that her too domestic life at the den was beginning to pall. When George and Albert departed of an evening for the hunt, she took to accompanying them on the first part of their journey. At first she went no further than a hundred yards from the den; but on one occasion she covered a quarter of a mile before returning slowly home.

  George was clearly delighted with her changing mood. He had been trying for weeks to persuade her to join him on the night-long ranging across the tundra. On one occasion he had delayed his departure by a good hour—long after Albert had grown impatient and struck off on his own—in an attempt to entice his mate into going along.

  During that hour he made eight trips from the lookout ridge down to the nursery knoll where Angeline was lying in the midst of her pups. Each time he sniffed her fondly, wagged his tail furiously and then started hopefully off toward the hunting trail. And each time, when she failed to follow, he returned to the lookout knoll to sit disconsolately for a few minutes before trying again. When he finally did depart, alone, he was the picture of disappointment and dejection, with head and tail both held so low that he seemed to slink away.

  The desire to have a night out together was clearly mutual, but the welfare of the pups remained paramount with Angeline, even though they seemed large enough and able enough to need far less attention.

  On the evening of June 23 I was alone at the tent—Ootek having gone off on some business of his own for a few days—when the wolves gathered for their pre-hunt ritual singsong. Angeline surpassed herself on this occasion, lifting her voice in such an untrammeled paean of longing that I wished there were some way I could volunteer to look after the kids while she went off with George. I need not have bothered. Uncle Albert also got the message, or perhaps he had received more direct communications, for when the song was done Angeline and George trotted buoyantly off together, while Albert mooched morosely down to the den and settled himself in for an all-night siege of pups.

  A few hours later a driving rain began and I had to g
ive up my observations.

  There were no wolves in sight the next morning when the rain ceased, the mist lifted, and I could again begin observing; but shortly before nine o’clock George and Uncle Albert appeared on the crest of the esker.

  Both seemed nervous, or at least uneasy. After a good deal of restless pacing, nose sniffing, and short periods of immobility during which they stared intently over the surrounding landscape, they split up. George took himself off to the highest point of the esker, where he sat down in full view and began to scan the country to the east and south. Uncle Albert trotted off along the ridge to the north, and lay down on a rocky knoll, staring out over the western plains.

  There was still no sign of Angeline, and this, together with the unusual actions of the male wolves, began to make me uneasy too. The thought that something might have happened to Angeline struck me with surprising pain. I had not realized how fond I was becoming of her, but now that she appeared to be missing I began to worry about her in dead earnest.

  I was on the point of leaving my tent and climbing the ridge to have a look for her myself, when she forestalled me. As I took a last quick glance through the telescope I saw her emerge from the den—with something in her mouth—and start briskly across the face of the esker. For a moment I could not make out what it was she was carrying, then with a start of surprise I recognized it as one of the pups.

  Making good time despite her burden—the pup must have weighed ten or fifteen pounds—she trotted diagonally up the esker slope and disappeared into a small stand of spruce. Fifteen minutes later she was back at the den for another pup, and by ten o’clock she had moved the last of them.

  After she disappeared for the final time both male wolves gave up their vigils—they had evidently been keeping guard over the move—and followed her; leaving me to stare bleakly over an empty landscape. I was greatly perturbed. The only explanation which I could think of for this mass exodus was that I had somehow disturbed the wolves so seriously they had felt impelled to abandon their den. If this was indeed the case, I knew I would only make matters worse by trying to follow them. Not being able to think of anything else to do, I hurried back to the cabin to consult Ootek.

  The Eskimo immediately set my fears at rest. He explained that this shifting of the pups was a normal occurrence with every wolf family at about this time of year. There were several reasons for it, so he told me. In the first place the pups had now been weaned, and, since there was no water supply near the den, it was necessary to move them to a location where they could slack their thirst elsewhere than at their mother’s teats. Secondly, the pups were growing too big for the den, which now could barely contain them all. Thirdly, and perhaps most important, it was time for the youngsters to give up baby-hood and begin their education.

  “They are too old to live in a hole in the ground, but still too young to follow their parents,” Mike interpreted, as Ootek explained. “So the old wolves take them to a new place where there is room for the pups to move around and to learn about the world, but where they are still safe.”

  As it happened both Ootek and Mike were familiar with the location of the new “summer den,” and the next day we moved the observation tent to a position partly overlooking it.

  The pups’ new home, half a mile from the old den, was a narrow, truncated ravine filled with gigantic boulders which had been split off the cliff walls by frost action. A small stream ran through it. It also embraced an area of grassy marsh which was alive with meadow mice: an ideal place for the pups to learn the first principles of hunting. Exit to and entry from the ravine involved a stiff climb, which was too much for the youngsters, so that they could be left in their new home with little danger of their straying; and since they were now big enough to hold their own with the only other local carnivores of any stature—the foxes and hawks—they had nothing to fear.

  I decided to allow the wolves time to settle in at the summer den before resuming my close watch upon them, and so I spent the next night at the cabin catching up on my notes.

  That evening Ootek added several new items to my fund of information. Among other interesting things he told me that wolves were longer-lived than dogs. He had personally known several wolves who were at least sixteen years old, while one wolf patriarch who lived near the Kazan River, and who had been well known to Ootek’s father, must have been over twenty years old before he disappeared.

  He also told me that wolves have the same general outlook toward pups that Eskimos have toward children—which is to say that actual paternity does not count for much, and there are no orphans as we use the term.

  Some years earlier a wolf bitch who was raising her family only a mile or two from the camp where Ootek was then living was shot and killed by a white man who was passing through the country by canoe. Ootek, who considered himself to be magically related to all wolves, was very upset by the incident. There was a Husky bitch with pups in the Eskimo camp at the time, and so he determined to dig out the wolf pups and put them with the bitch. However, his father deterred him by telling him it would not be necessary—that the wolves would solve the problem in their own way.

  Although his father was a great shaman, and could be relied upon to speak the truth, Ootek was not wholly convinced and so he took up his own vigil over the den. He had not been in hiding many hours, so he told me, when he saw a strange wolf appear in company with the widowed male, and both wolves entered the den. When they came out, each was carrying a pup.

  Ootek followed them for several miles until he realized they were heading for a second wolf den, the location of which was also known to him. By running hard, and by taking short cuts, he reached this second den before the two wolves did, and was present when they arrived.

  As soon as they appeared the female who owned the den, and who had a litter of her own, came to the den mouth, seized the two pups one after another by the scruff of their necks and took them into the den. The two males then departed to fetch another pair of pups.

  When the move was completed there were ten pups at this second den, all much of a size and age and, as far as Ootek could tell, all treated with identical care and kindness by the several adults, now including the bereaved male.

  This was a touching story, but I am afraid I did not give it due credence until some years later when I heard of an almost identical case of adoption of motherless wolf pups. On this occasion my informant was a white naturalist of such repute that I could hardly doubt his word—though, come to think of it, I am hard put to explain just why his word should have any more weight than Ootek’s, who was, after all, spiritually almost a wolf himself.

  I took this opportunity to ask Ootek if he had ever heard of the time-honored belief that wolves sometime adopt human children. He smiled at what he evidently took to be my sense of humor, and the gist of his reply was that this was a pretty idea, but it went beyond the bounds of credibility. I was somewhat taken aback by his rather condescending refusal to accept the wolf-boy as a reality, but I was really shaken when he explained further.

  A human baby put in a wolf den would die, he said, not because the wolves wished it to die, but simply because it would be incapable, by virtue of its inherent helplessness, of living as a wolf. On the other hand it was perfectly possible for a woman to nurse a pup to healthy adulthood, and this sometimes happened in Eskimo camps when a husky bitch died. Furthermore, he knew of at least two occasions where a woman who had lost her own child and was heavy with milk had nursed a wolf pup—Husky pups not being available at the time.

  15

  Uncle Albert Falls in Love

  THE NEW location of the summer den was ideal from the wolves’ point of view, but not from mine, for the clutter of boulders made it difficult to see what was happening. In addition, caribou were now trickling back into the country from the north, and the pleasures of the hunt were siren calls to all three adult wolves. They still spent most of each day at or near the summer den, but they were usually so tired from their nigh
tly excursions that they did little but sleep.

  I was beginning to find time hanging heavy on my hands when Uncle Albert rescued me from boredom by falling in love.

  When Mike departed from the cabin shortly after my first arrival there he had taken all his dogs with him—not, as I suspected, because he did not trust them in the vicinity of my array of scalpels, but because the absence of caribou made it impossible to feed them. Throughout June his team had remained with the Eskimos, whose camps were in the caribous’ summer territory; but now that the deer were returning south the Eskimo who had been keeping the dogs brought them back.

  Mike’s dogs were of aboriginal stock, and were magnificent beasts. Contrary to yet another myth, Eskimo dogs are not semi-domesticated wolves—though both species may well have sprung from the same ancestry. Smaller in stature than wolves, true Huskies are of a much heavier build, with broad chests, shorter necks, and bushy tails which curl over their rumps like plumes. They differ from wolves in other ways too. Unlike their wild relations, Husky bitches come into heat at any time of the year with a gay disregard for seasons.

  When Mike’s team returned to the cabin one of the bitches was just coming into heat. Being hot-blooded by nature, and amorous by inclination, this particular bitch soon had the rest of the team in an uproar and was causing Mike no end of trouble. He was complaining about the problem one evening when inspiration came to me.