A Wolf Called Romeo

by Nick Jans

  It seemed as if Ryan’s hazing shots and Anita’s equally stinging words had broken a strange spell; though of course, the shift was due to a broader, collective shame that came from within for those with a conscience, and from a lack of opportunity for the care-nots. The wolf indeed seemed to draw back for a time, and the shows and crowds ceased as abruptly as they’d begun. And, while Harry and Hyde continued to fare out on an almost daily basis, they kept a distinctly lower profile. Harry took to setting a public example by walking Brittain on a leash (which he removed once out of sight) and taking an active role in encouraging others to do the same. Forest Service enforcement also suddenly raised its presence and handed out a spate of warnings, followed by an expensive ticket or two, to shocked and incensed dog owners who wondered why them and why now, while others agreed that it was about time. All boded well for a quiet spring on the lake, but the vortex of conflict merely shifted elsewhere.

  As far back as 2004, a black wolf had been sighted some distance from the glacier, in the coastal area from Amalga Harbor to Eagle Beach, a rural neighborhood that encompassed several dozen homes. Most lay less than a half mile from The Road but abutting two vast, wild, life-rich river valleys leading inland—the Herbert and Eagle—and rimmed to the west by an equally untrammeled seascape. Both rivers bulged each summer into late fall with salmon; beaver, mink, otters, and waterfowl ranged through backwater ponds. Of course there were bears of both species, and wolves, at least one of them black—perhaps Romeo, or not. In any case, a black male wolf in the area seemed driven by a strong social attraction to local dogs—a compelling coincidence, to say the least. He made regular rounds of houses where certain dogs lived, and often howled to call them outside. It had to be Romeo, some Amalga area residents insisted, and common-enough sense supported that conclusion. Others swore that the playful wolf was a different animal from the one at the glacier, a noticeably smaller guy some locals called Junior. They pointed to the distances involved and to the undeniable fact that the wolf couldn’t be in two places at once; at times, sightings on the lake and near Amalga were noted on the same day, and sometimes damn near simultaneously. While true that the driving distance between Amalga and the Mendenhall Glacier totaled more than twenty-five miles, a far more direct, wolf-friendly route existed: a human-made trail network that stretched from upper Montana Creek, near the heart of Romeo’s home territory, over a low divide into the Herbert River valley near Windfall Lake, and to eventually within a half mile of tidewater. The route traced roughly a dozen miles, a comfortable two-hour wolf trot under good conditions—all through prime country affording the small animals, occasional deer and mountain goat, carrion, and salmon (whether frozen, half-rotted, or in season) upon which the black wolf depended. Far more strange if Romeo, like any other wolf, hadn’t used that route and adjacent hunting grounds, beckoning away to the north. “I know for a fact he went out that way on a regular basis,” John Hyde told me, years later. “At certain times, especially in spring when the snow got hard, he had a beaten trail.” John also added that he positively identified Romeo near Amalga, through snapshots taken by a local resident. But Hyde also encountered at least two other lone black wolves in the area over the same time period: a somewhat smaller male, and a female, each identified by its urinating style—leg-lifting versus squatting. Nene Wolfe (an itinerant veterinarian, with an incidentally perfect name in this context) also confirmed a close sighting of a smallish, shy, black-gray female wolf she was positive was not Romeo, on a winter beach walk near the mouth of the Herbert River.

  Writer and seasoned outdoorsman Lynn Schooler, an Amalga resident himself and among the first to see Romeo out on the lake in late 2003, told me he was “a hundred percent sure” the tolerant black male wolf he and other neighbors saw around Amalga in 2006–2007 was a different, smaller animal. “I think there were several wolves operating around Amalga that winter,” he said. “It was the worst winter in Juneau history for snow, and everything got pushed to the coast. I think the wolves followed the deer to tidewater.”

  Positively identifying a given animal can be a tricky business; several times over the years, I spied a distant black wolf out on Mendenhall Lake that seemed to not be Romeo (apparently smaller, or perhaps a different shade, or moving differently), only to discover, upon getting closer, that my eyes had been fooled by vagaries of light or perspective. That said, Hyde’s, Nene Wolfe’s, and Schooler’s identifications, supported by their detailed observations and their expertise, along with corroborating evidence from others, support the assertion that more than one wolf frequented the Amalga area, and one of them was almost certainly Romeo. I had my own corroboration of at least two black wolves in the general area, as well. On a late winter afternoon, I watched Romeo lounging at the northwest corner of the lake; at exactly that same time—a bit after 4 P.M.—photographer Mark Kelley encountered friends on Spaulding Meadows, an alpine area several miles distant, in the direction of Amalga, who had just seen a black wolf. Obviously, Romeo couldn’t have been in two places at once.

  The identity of the Amalga wolf (or wolves) would have been nothing more than topic for a spirited conversation over an Alaskan Brewing Winter Ale or two, if not for the vehemence of several lupophobic locals. The residents in question—a vocal subminority of the Amalga community—didn’t like the idea of any wolf hanging around. Amalga wasn’t some designated wilderness or recreation area, they said, but a place where families lived. Never mind that bears wandered near houses in season and occasionally engaged in nuisance activity. This was different. A wolf was lurking: playing with dogs, scattering unsecured garbage, howling, trying to get near dogs, and . . . and . . . well, they sputtered, that was about it so far, but it could get worse, fast. The biologists listened and nodded; management of problem wildlife was part of their job. But there was no basis for action unless something actually happened. And then it did.

  Denise Chase, herself a Fish and Game employee, and her partner, Bob Frampton, had two highly unusual dogs. Korc and Bobber were lundehunds—a breed so rare it was just recognized by the AKC in 2008, with less than four hundred registered in the entire United States. These small, independent canines—feral, foxlike, and dainty, with six toes and an amazing proclivity for climbing (originally island cliffs off the Norwegian coast, in pursuit of nesting puffins)—were allowed by Bob and Denise to range in the forests surrounding their waterfront cabin, a quarter mile from the nearest road on the southern lobe of Amalga Harbor. The two half sisters were inseparable; Korc was highly protective of Bobber.

  So, when Bobber came limping home alone one snowy March day, Denise Chase was alarmed—even more when she discovered deep wounds piercing the dog’s shoulders, as if seized from above. Tracing the dog’s trail through deep, fresh snow, she found evidence of an attack. “You could read the story in the snow,” she remembered. Korc’s and Bobber’s tracks were crossed by those of a single wolf, which then climbed a hill and came out in front of the two dogs. At that point, there were signs of a struggle, along with a clump or two of dog hair. Only one set of dog tracks continued from that point, and the wolf’s trail wound off into the timber. “One dog just disappeared,” murmured Chase, the emotion still thick in her throat five years later.

  By the time Fish and Game area biologist Ryan Scott investigated the scene, enough new snow had fallen to blur the trails and make the going still more difficult; he was unable to find any sure sign of a kill, or even that a wolf was positively involved. Meanwhile, Bobber needed eighteen stitches to close deep punctures the vet determined were made by the bite of “a very large canine.” Chase believes the wolf first attacked Bobber, and Korc was overpowered as she tried to defend her companion, and carried off. By sticking to personal observations, and being cautious in his on-the-record conclusions, Scott was just doing his job as a scientist. Most Amalga residents who knew of the incident, though, were certain a wolf killed the dog. The question remained: Which one? The morning of the attack, a black wolf was spotted playing
with the two black Labs at a house several miles away. Was it Romeo, Junior, or neither? “We’re not sure [Romeo] killed Korc,” said Chase. “We never saw him or any other wolf near our house, only tracks now and then, and three times, like once a year, wolf droppings. . . . We never blamed Romeo. I let my dogs run free. I knew they would encounter wildlife. I just never thought something like this would happen.”

  Chase and Frampton were forbearing; they and most of their neighbors (including Schooler and Fish and Game) kept the incident so low-key that it didn’t even show up in the Empire, and even those with ears to the ground didn’t hear much. The couple came under immediate pressure from a local minority to push for removal of the wolf. At least one longtime Out The Road resident vowed to take things into his own hands if he had to. Chase and Frampton quietly resisted, and once more Fish and Game took a notably cautious approach. Ryan Scott set out a motion-activated trail camera near Chase and Frampton’s cabin and asked the couple to report any fresh tracks or sightings. But in the ensuing weeks, there were no signs of a wolf near their home, and as snow piled deeper and deeper, wolf reports in the area dwindled. Whatever had killed Korc the lundehund had slipped away. The Amalga wolf issue faded into the background for the time being, though antiwolf angst among that same small cluster of residents continued to simmer. Things weren’t settled by a long shot, they muttered.

  Back at the lake, life for the wolf in the wake of the twin pug incidents was quiet—muffled, it seemed, by the feet of snow that continued to swirl from the sky at that record pace and pile up in head-high drifts. As one might expect, Romeo stuck close to his core territory, conserving energy on main trails. He appeared thinner than I could recall since his first winter; hare trails were as scarce as their makers, and beaver lodges lay buried deep. But spring was in the air. March faded into the lengthening days of April, and on sunny afternoons, water began to drip, then trickle and pool. I’d just snapped into my ski bindings on such a day when I encountered a neighbor named Debbie and a friend of hers headed off the ice, eyes wide. “You won’t believe what I just saw,” she exclaimed, and pushed a point-and-shoot camera toward me. There on the viewing screen was an image of Romeo bounding away with a small, brown, longhaired dog dangling in his jaws. “Where?” I asked, and she pointed toward the river mouth.

  I skied over as fast as I could, but the wolf was gone. There were too many tracks in the crusted snow to sort out or hope to follow, and no one was there. I got the story later, from Debbie. A woman had been walking her dogs on one of the trails leading out of Dredge Lakes near the river mouth. She paused to wait for a Pomeranian that had lagged a few dozen yards behind her. The wolf rocketed out of the brush, snatched the dog just above the waist, and disappeared. From what I could see, zoomed in on the image on a computer screen, the dog seemed utterly limp and lifeless. Unlike with the pugs, there was no one nearby to shout no; and unlike the Akita puppy, the little dog didn’t return, bouncing out of the willows. And as there had not been with Tank the beagle, there were both eyewitnesses and photographic proof. The Pomeranian was never seen again, though Harry Robinson said he and others found prints of a small, solo dog in Dredge Lakes, and that he heard through the grapevine that the dog had indeed been found wandering near the glacier and was adopted into a new home. Pretty to think so. Everyone who knew this latest story, and cared at all about the wolf, tensed.

  However, the thunderclap never came. Thanks to the current news cycle or who knew what, the story, sans image, was relegated to a mere several-line mention on the second page of the Empire. There were no quotes from a distraught owner or outraged citizens, no plan of action from deeply concerned biologists, no angry public letters. It was as if all of Juneau gave a collective shrug and finally murmured, as one: Well, it’s Alaska, and we know there’s a wolf around. What do you expect? As for Romeo, not too hard to figure a possible motive. Winter had been long and hard, and here came this little, obviously limping creature all by itself—literally, fair game—right through one of his usual hunting spots. And maybe that was that. Or not. In the too-numerous-to-count dog-wolf interactions over the next few weeks, all was as it had been. I glanced out the window one early morning that spring, and there was Jessie, the rabbitlike border collie from two houses down, a thin-boned creature that weighed just a scant few pounds more than the larger pug, cavorting on the lake with Romeo. The snow melted, spring came, and the black wolf lived on.

  Wolf grin

  12

  Friends of Romeo

  April 2008

  The lake flexed with spring’s rising flood, a patchwork of standing water and failing ice, riddled with sun-rot. Where the glacier’s furrowed edge met the lake, currents bored dark, ever-widening holes; the past autumn’s calved icebergs, caught in place, began to creak free. I watched from afar as Romeo stood on the westernmost point of the Dredge Lakes beach, gazing toward the opposite shore. He gathered and leaped over a moat of shore melt, onto a pan of solid ice, and picked his way, testing with nail, nose, and eye, at times almost crawling to spread his weight, once backtracking around a spot he must have judged uncertain. Angling toward Tern Island, just north of the Big Rock, the wolf read his way across the lake via the one avenue where passage was still possible, drawing on all he’d learned of ice, and on the echoes of what his forebears knew. As a matter of survival, any Southeast Alaska wolf must navigate water, whether liquid, frozen, or a mixture of both: mountain rivers etched with canyons, waterfalls, and glacial sluices fierce enough to drown a bear, and current-torn fjords that themselves must sometimes be swum. A wolf unable to traverse such obstacles is hemmed in to almost-sure starvation in too narrow a slice of country. But a wolf too bold is no less doomed in a land where a slip of foot or judgment forgives nothing.

  At last Romeo hit an expanse of sure going and broke into a smooth, distance-dissolving wolf trot that carried him across the lake. Then, with a few last splash-haloed bounds, the black wolf disappeared into the timber rising toward the West Glacier Trail. A matter of days, and winter would collapse; the lake’s cold, gray-green face would shift awake once more, murmuring in the wind. There wouldn’t be many more crossings for the wolf.

  Call it spring of 2008; which year doesn’t matter now, if it ever did. Time swirls, expands, and contracts as the mystics and physicists confirm, even as our clocks and calendars insist otherwise. So it was the next stretch of Romeo’s life seemed merged into one—a good sign, one might guess, marking less drama and an overall easing of the emotions that had always crackled about him. Most Juneauites did indeed step back, as if finally grasping how we, both together and as individuals, might better live with this wolf, accept him as full-partnered neighbor. The set-piece rhetoric from both sides swelled at times but always faded again; all seemed well enough from a filtered distance. But in truth, Romeo was no safer then than ever: his life, both among us and beyond, an endless crossing over unsure ice. We asked ourselves, and sometimes each other, if he would one day simply vanish into the land, or if we would discover how and where his end came. And if we could choose to know or not, which would we rather?

  By winter 2007–2008 Romeo was no longer hewn of new sinew and synapse; the once deep-black guard hairs were now streaked with lighter, reddish and gray strands, and white peppered his muzzle. He rose from naps with slower, longer stretches and sometimes stiff first steps, but his teeth—one of the critical measures of a wolf’s overall condition, and absolutely vital to his being—showed as unworn as a three-year-old’s when he gave one of his wide, social yawns. His movements in play and travel, though creakier, still flowed with lupine grace; he’d so far avoided the sort of crippling injuries that shorten many a wolf’s time. Approaching at least six years of age (perhaps as old as seven), he stood in his full prime, a half head higher and at least ten pounds more than an average Alaska male wolf, and as well-sculpted an example of Canis lupus as ever breathed. If indeed of the smaller Alexander Archipelago strain, he verged on towering paragon.

&n
bsp; Even more formidable than his supercanine physiology was his inner maturing: the gangly exuberance of youth shaped on the lathe of years into a penetrating, sentient intelligence—steeped in wisdom, informed by hardwired instinct. With level-gazed amber eyes, he looked out on his chosen territory and those who crossed it, understanding both as well as any wolf that had spent his life on a single piece of ground. Woven into memory, a cognitive map of trails and routes, and the scent posts, rendezvous points, and pockets of prey to which they led, plus the features and dangers along each way; the catalog of individual dogs and humans, and their comings and goings—all strained through a sensory array beyond our ken. Romeo’s survival had far exceeded chance. Running a Darwinian gauntlet that demanded constant adaptation and complex responses, with scant margin for error, he had accomplished what few large, wild predators ever had, or will: he lived near, even among, thousands of humans over most of his life—not just a shadowed presence or camp follower, but as an independent, socially interactive creature whose territory overlapped our own—without the benefit of a large-scale preserve. Through his time among us, he remained his own gatekeeper, his comings and goings defining the ever-shifting boundary between worlds, rendering our own surveys and markers meaningless. And though the core of the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area of course did offer protection by rule, actual enforcement presence (even after it picked up) focused on little more than discouraging dog interactions during peak daylight hours. The wolf’s safety, even on that shard of terrain at the core of his territory, continued to be far from certain, and anywhere else, downright tenuous.