by Helen Thayer
“A perfect place to live,” I said, soaking up the tranquil scene.
“But a bit far to walk out for groceries,” Bill quipped.
We followed a trail to the far side. At an abrupt turn, we saw a flicker of motion as another lynx silently retreated into the brush.
After a lunch break under a weak sun, we headed back to camp. Storm clouds had built on the horizon. Just as we crossed the ridge, I remembered a lens cap I had left at our picnic spot. Bill agreed to wait with Charlie while I went back.
At the lake I was surprised to encounter a hulking mother moose and her calf grazing on the near side, pulling up chunks of aquatic plants. At my approach, the mother moose raised her head with a loud snort, warning me that my unexpected interruption to their foraging was unwelcome. Both animals’ highly sensitive ears pointed in my direction, tuned to the slightest sound. Their dark eyes watched me intently.
Concerned that the mother might charge in defense of her calf, I waited, motionless. After a long minute of appraisal, mother and calf finally relaxed. The mother bent to pull another mouthful of grass. The calf reached beneath her belly to suckle.
Congratulating myself for stumbling across such an excellent photo opportunity, I slowly reached for my camera and became engrossed in finding just the right angle. After shooting two frames, I bent to change the film. I didn’t notice that the female had once more turned toward me. Only when she picked up speed and splashed through the shallows in my direction did I realize the danger.
Terrified, still clutching my camera, I raced back the way I had come, finding speed I didn’t know I was capable of. But I was no match for her anger and long legs. As I frantically reached for every bit of acceleration I could muster, she quickly caught up and, with a tremendous, bone-shaking thump, smashed me to the ground with her thick-boned forehead.
Immediately I covered my head, expecting her to strike with her lethal front hooves, but my racing heart and mind met only silence. I dared not move and prayed as never before.
After several minutes that seemed like hours, the moose turned and splashed into the lake. I looked carefully over my shoulder in time to see her rejoin her calf. I shakily rose to my feet as the two evaporated into the surrounding brush and trees. Now the only sign of the entire incident was a few ripples on the water.
Still shaking, but relieved to have suffered only bruises, I returned to Charlie and Bill, who was unsympathetic. “That was a stupid thing to do,” he said succinctly.
He was right. Moose cows with calves are notoriously cantankerous and aggressive. I would never forget this lesson.
We arrived in camp just as a frigid wind picked up and the first snowflakes fell. The fast-moving storm passed in an hour, leaving our site bathed in sunlight. But the light contained little heat and couldn’t melt the inch of new snow.
Due to the increased hours of darkness, nighttime observation of hunts was now impossible. Just before daylight in the second week of September, we hiked to our lookout above the junction in hopes of watching the pack leave to hunt. The entire family, except the pups and Beta, trotted our way. They paused to scent-mark the rock and the old snag at the junction, then paralleled our ridge before cutting through a low pass to a valley just beyond.
We quickly trekked along and took a shortcut to a high knoll. Below us, the wolves stopped just as they reached the edge of the scrub trees. Prey was just ahead, judging by their excited milling about and tail wagging. In moments they fanned out. Denali and Omega swept to the left, racing ahead through the cover of the surrounding brush, while Alpha, Yukon, and Klondike stayed back. Suddenly Denali and Omega cut right and chased four Dall sheep out of the undergrowth, back across a clearing, and toward the three crouching wolves, who remained concealed on the edge of thick vegetation beneath spruce trees.
Just as the first sheep raced by, all three wolves leaped at it. Alpha grabbed the sheep’s nose, while Yukon and Klondike tackled the flanks. The sheep, with a terrified scream, collapsed beneath the weight of a flurry of wolves, who raked its body with their teeth. After a last few convulsions, all life was gone. The other three sheep veered sharply away as their leader fell.
The pack set to work to eat its fill. In twenty minutes the sheep was reduced to a skeleton. The wolves chewed bones for the next hour, then set off again in search of more prey.
They traveled through a narrow ravine a hundred yards ahead of and below us. After noting the direction they were headed, we took a shorter route, then descended to cross a meadow. We climbed another minor ridge, arriving at the crest in time to see the wolves stalking three sheep, this time all rams, using similar tactics as before.
Denali raced ahead and angled across to cut the sheep off from the open tundra. The confused sheep turned abruptly as one to flee down a shallow gully. The waiting wolves, led by Omega, ran across the lower gully with bodies slung low to a hiding place on the edge of sparsely growing willows to intersect the fleeing sheep.
Just as the sheep came abreast of the ambushing wolves, Omega leaped out to grab the throat of the first, while Denali caught the second sheep by its flank just as Alpha sprang and clung to its nose, dragging it down. Meanwhile, Omega, hanging on with all his strength, was dragged through the willows by the first big, powerful ram. Klondike leaped onto the sheep’s back and sank her teeth into a shoulder as Yukon grabbed a rear leg. The ram kicked violently, sending Yukon tumbling to land several feet away. Instantly she was on her feet and leaping at the ram’s neck.
A startled lynx scurries to the protection of willows.
With loud bleats of terror both sheep valiantly fought back but finally were no match for the attacking wolves. Minutes after the ambush began, both lay dead. As the wolves tore into the carcasses, the third ram raced to safety. After thirty minutes of gorging, the pack walked a few yards away to lick their paws and bodies clean, thus allowing the ravens, who had been circling overhead with raucous caws, to swoop down and eat. They chattered loudly with excitement as they swarmed the remains.
Wolves’ sharp front teeth are well suited for slashing and clinging. Their imposing fangs, or canine teeth, combined with the powerful clamp of their incisors, enable wolves to grip and hang on to their victims, as we had just witnessed. Molars not only crush bones but tear off large chunks of meat, which wolves can then bolt down with little or no chewing. According to biologist David Mech, whole body parts and large chunks of unchewed meat have been found in wolves’ stomachs.
An hour later the wolves repossessed both carcasses from the ravens and tore the remains to pieces. Then, with the ravens flying ahead to herald their triumph, each wolf set out for the trek back with a chunk of sheep held crosswise in powerful jaws. All that was left at the kill site was blood-soaked earth and snow and a few tufts of wool.
The two hunts had been a masterfully orchestrated group effort and were similar in method. Although Denali was the hunt leader, each wolf appeared to know his or her role. They had acted in unison, without waiting for a boss to issue instructions. Having cooperated many times, the pack knew each other’s abilities. They sensed just the right moment to cut off a sheep in midflight or chase it back into an ambush. Clearly the wolves’ traits of individual strength, lightning speed, and intelligence were the components of success.
The notion that wolves kill at will was disproved by their many unsuccessful hunting attempts. Most animals, especially those as large as or larger than a wolf, possess enough agility and speed to escape the jaws of hungry wolves. As a result it is the sick, old, and very young that usually fall to wolf predation. Moose are perhaps the wolf’s most dangerous prey. According to Mech, a moose that steadfastly stands its ground is often left alone.
We returned to camp feeling subdued. We understood the laws of nature. One species must live off a weaker species. Nevertheless, we both admitted that in our hearts we had rooted for the sheep to escape. Whenever we watched a hunt it was always a heart-wrenching experience to see magnificent animals die so violen
tly. However, our sadness was always tempered by the knowledge that death had come quickly and the family needed the food to survive. We had had the rare opportunity to witness, up close in one day, two successful hunts in the wild that ended with wolves sharing their life-giving food supply with the ravens. There is a gentleness in nature that offsets the violence of having to kill to survive.
Charlie remained quiet throughout the chase but growled with excitement, hackles raised, during the final kill. Halfway back to camp, as we trekked through a shallow valley, five sheep stopped on a trail two hundred feet above us, stared briefly, and then ran, their hooves a blur of speed. Charlie leaped to the end of his leash, jerking Bill off his feet. Charlie seemed not to notice as he pulled Bill forward. I sprang to grab the leash too, and with our combined effort we stopped Charlie, much to his dismay. After witnessing two hunts in one day, he was so excited that he was more than ready to conduct his own hunt. Not until we approached the outskirts of camp did he consent to walk forward instead of looking back in the direction of the sheep, who had long since disappeared.
We arrived in camp just as darkness approached. All was silent. The entire wolf family was sprawled about, sleeping off their meal. Even the ravens were quiet.
Charlie looks back. He doesn’t want to leave.
Toward the end of September, we awoke to winter’s first serious snowfall. In three hours, the snow was four inches thick. We needed to plan our departure before the onset of deep winter.
The snow accumulating on the ground over the next several weeks would provide insulation for those animals who hibernated during the winter, as well as for those large and small creatures who continued to hunt throughout the dark months. Animals sheltering in tunnels beneath a foot of snow would enjoy temperatures many degrees warmer than those above.
A blizzard heralded the first week of October. We had been living beside the den for almost six months. The well-fed pack was in good flesh, ready for the winter. With increasing frequency the pups traveled longer distances from the den under strict supervision, sometimes for most of the night and all day. Packs normally leave the last rendezvous site at the beginning of winter, so we knew the entire family would soon be departing to hunt and travel the full range of their territory.
The brothers, who now resembled adults, would go with the group. With their pups accompanying them, wolves can travel over a much wider hunting area in winter, since they do not have to return to den sites until spring. Then the group either goes to an old site, as this family had, or digs a new den in another area to accommodate the next litter of pups.
But Bill, Charlie, and I had to leave. Dreading the parting, we delayed it as long as possible, knowing it would be wrenching for us and even more so for Charlie. When we had first arrived at the den, we resolved not to become emotionally bonded to the pack, but it took only a short time for us to understand the special privilege they had given us.
We could not remain emotionally separate from these intelligent, wild hunters who at times acted like playful children. As we lived close to them and learned of the challenges they faced, we found ourselves caught up in their daily lives. We grew to love them and to appreciate how much they had to teach us. They had captured our hearts.
As for Charlie, he seemed thoroughly enthralled with the wolves and his life in the wild. We knew he wouldn’t want to leave.
But we had come prepared only for summer and autumn. We knew that once the pack left to travel their winter range, we could never keep up with them. With just four days of food left, we had to depart before any more winter blizzards arrived.
With our two-way radio turned on, we waited for Margaret’s transmission. At 10 A.M. the silence was broken by static and the faint sound of her voice. We fiddled with the dials until she came through more clearly, then made final arrangements to meet her at the Dempster Highway in three days.
At daybreak the next morning, we packed our gear. We folded our sadly abused tent, which the wolves had reduced to a barely functional model. The rest of our things had fared relatively well: a few teeth marks on various items, and some corners chewed off in odd places. We stowed everything in our rapidly expanding packs.
We bundled up the garbage, which was minimal because of our simple diet. We filled the deep latrine with soil, covering it with the original sod, which we had carefully kept alive at the side of the stream.
Charlie sat close to the den, watching us prepare to leave. Suddenly he gave the most mournful howl we had ever heard. The entire pack, even the pups, joined him at his boundary. They all sensed our imminent departure. Bill and I paused where our tent had stood and spoke to the wolves. We made no sense to them, of course, but we hoped we might communicate our love and respect.
We also promised them we would return. Weeks ago, we had decided that we must come back the next summer, and for several more, to make sure the wolves had remained safe from hunters. The only way we could leave them was to know we would see them again.
Finally it was time to leave. We both stood facing the family to bid our farewell, fighting tears as we looked across at the group. “If only we could know they’ll come to no harm, it would be easier,” I said. We had talked for many hours about how we could protect the family, but in the end we concluded that all we could do was keep the den’s exact location a secret forever.
One by one I called to them by name and said good-bye.
Bill did the same. “We won’t forget you,” he said.
We lifted our packs and struggled into the shoulder straps, then sadly turned toward the valley. But Charlie refused to budge. He stood facing the wolves. We sat with him and cried.
While Bill held Charlie close, I explained to him, “Charlie, winter’s here. We have to leave. We can’t leave you behind.”
He seemed to sense our emotions. He turned to leave, looked back at his friends for one or two minutes, and then licked my hand.
With the wolves watching, we left the meadow we had called home for almost six months, and the wild family we had become a part of. As we stepped across the stream, we saw Mother and the pups sitting dejectedly on our tent’s spot. The teenagers, who had now grown into two elegant young adults, gathered near Mother and the pups. They all gave a mournful howl.
Alpha yipped twice. Then, accompanied by Denali, Beta, and Omega, he followed us for the next three hours. As we crossed a ridge, Charlie raised his muzzle to the sky for one last cry with his friends. They all howled together for ten minutes, a heart-rending sound. Then the wolves turned and slowly began to walk back in the direction of their den. Several times they stopped to look back as Charlie watched them leave. Finally they were gone. A subdued Charlie led us away. Bill and I followed in silence.
When at last we met Margaret, she immediately understood the difficulty of our departure. She hugged us and helped us load our gear onto the truck. Charlie received a large piece of his favorite beef jerky as a reward for his job well done.
Before we climbed in for the long drive home, Bill and I embraced. Our journey had been more successful than we could have ever imagined. We would return to visit our summer wolves. But in the meantime, our thoughts turned to our upcoming adventure among the winter wolves.
Winter
Arctic
WE SPENT NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER training in the untamed areas of the Cascade Range, skiing and pulling sleds. We experimented to find the fastest way to erect a tent in a storm and the best way to load a sled so it would pull evenly. We amassed winter food supplies and tapped the polar clothing and equipment stockpile in our basement. After years of expeditions to the remote corners of the world, we have a wide variety of gear suitable for any climate.
To add to our first six months’ success, we sought to reach beyond the summer den and travel to the icy shores of northern Canada, where polar bears hunt seals on the sea ice. We would go all the way to the northern islands at the edge of the polar sea ice that marks the western beginning of the Northwest Passage, exploring the
area for wolves and polar bears. On numerous occasions we had seen wolves traveling across the frozen ocean following the bears. The question we wanted to explore was why wolves travel onto the sea ice far from shore, where their normal land prey does not exist.
Just as we had seen wolves, ravens, and grizzly bears in the Yukon living in close proximity to each other and even sharing food, we hoped to encounter wolves, polar bears, and arctic foxes as we skied across the winter land and sea ice to learn more about the cohabitation of these fascinating animals in the harshest environment on Earth.
New maps, with a route drawn in that began at Inuvik, a remote Canadian Northwest Territories town, covered our kitchen table. The black line continued north, more than a hundred miles across the immense Mackenzie River Delta to Canada’s austere northern coast and Tuktoyaktuk—known locally as “Tuk,” meaning “resembling caribou” in Inuktitut, the Inuit language.
From there the line continued across the map at least fifty miles beyond the coast, over the frozen Beaufort Sea, which joins the ice of the Arctic Ocean. Our northernmost point would be tiny uninhabited Pullen Island, north of Richards Island, locked in the winter grip of the polar ice pack. From Pullen Island we would ski back to Tuk, then to a place in the interior of the Mackenzie Delta where our Inuk friend John had told us we would find a wolf family at their winter rendezvous. Our theory was that, by heading for Pullen Island, we would cover enough distance on the sea ice to maximize our chances of encountering wolves and polar bears.
Our winter journey would be quite different from our summer experience. We would be constantly moving through dangerous sea ice as we sought to discover more about the relationship between wolves and polar bears. As we searched out our wolf subjects on the frozen ocean, we would face the added challenge of traveling and camping close to polar bears, among the most dangerous of all carnivores.
