Julie of the Wolves

by Jean Craighead George

  DEDICATION

  To Luke George, who loves wolves and the Eskimos of Alaska

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Foreword

  Part I

  Amaroq, the wolf

  Part II

  Miyax, the girl

  Part III

  Kapugen, the hunter

  Bonus Materials Newbery Medal Acceptance Speech

  Julie of the Wolves: Discussion Guide

  Suggested Reading List

  Excerpt from Julie

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  FOREWORD

  Jean Craighead George was our mother. She made us huge breakfasts each morning, helped with our Halloween costumes, and led our Scout troops. She was also an author, who by the early 1970s had written over thirty books for children, including inspirational books like My Side of the Mountain and many others in which she taught us that humans and wildlife could live together and learn from one another. As part of her lifelong interest in wildlife, we often received orphaned animals and lived with them in our house. So, that breakfast we ate was shared at times with a crow, a raccoon, or whatever wild pet was in residence in our home at that moment.

  Mom approached writing as she approached life: she got up early, worked hard, and never stopped until she was done. Before she started a writing project, she spent time reading books and scientific papers about the subject to make sure she was up-to-date on the latest scientific thinking. The books in her library were filled with underlines and marginal notes attesting to the long hours she spent mastering the often complex information. She also traveled to distant locations to observe species and become familiar with ecosystems. She would pack her notebook, binoculars, magnifying lens, field guides, and backpack and spend as much time as she could hiking, camping, sketching, and getting to know the area and the species that lived there. It was these firsthand experiences—looking into the eyes of a wolf, observing a grizzly bear fish for salmon, watching a thunderstorm on the prairie—that made her books so compelling and authentic.

  As a single mother, she often brought one or more of us along on her travels, and when we were grown up, she visited us where we were doing our own naturalist work. Twig went to Katmai, Alaska, to research The Grizzly Bear with the Golden Ears (1982) and Craig hosted Mom at his field camp on the sea ice off Barrow, Alaska, where he was doing research on bowhead whales; that trip resulted in Water Sky (1987). And in 1970, Luke went to Alaska to study wolves.

  Our mother was writing for Reader’s Digest at the time. She published over 200 articles throughout the 1970s and ’80s, which gave her enough dependable income to support a family and time to work on her books. In the late ’60s, new research was casting wolves in a different light. Rather than the big bad wolves of fairy tales, scientists were finding that wolves were not only integral to maintaining the health of their prey populations, they showed evidence of complex social interactions, communication, and even emotions. Mom approached Reader’s Digest with the idea of writing a piece about wolves, and in July of 1970, Luke and Mom packed their bags and set off for Barrow, Alaska.

  Barrow in 1970 was a small Inupiat town with a culture that reflected the lifestyles of both the research scientists at the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory (NARL) and the native people. The Arctic tundra was to be forever one of our mother’s favorite places on Earth, and the people of Barrow, some of her favorite individuals. Mom described many highlights of that trip in her Newbery speech, for though the trip had started as an assignment for Reader’s Digest, the experience ended up inspiring Julie of the Wolves. One incident Luke vividly remembers was getting lost on the tundra:

  We started out from NARL with our borrowed parkas and walked inland looking at plants, birds, and frost heaves. At one point we came across a collection of human skeletons. We learned later that the land was a makeshift graveyard from the 1918 flu epidemic. Because the ground was perennially frozen and the death toll was high, many bodies could not be buried and were just left on the tundra. After walking for a few hours we turned to head back to NARL, but a fog bank had enveloped us; the tundra looked the same in every direction. I looked at Mom and she looked at me, we pointed in opposite directions, and said, “I think we go that way.” I felt my stomach sink; we were alone on the tundra, the weather was turning, and we had little food, no shelter, and no idea which way to go. At that point Mom calmly said, “Let’s sit and eat some gorp and wait for the fog to clear.” In less than an hour, the DEW stations (Defense Early Warning radar installations) located along the coast emerged from the fog and we quickly found our way back. Mom may have been thinking of that moment when she wrote, “She had been lost without food for many sleeps on the North Slope of Alaska . . . the view in every direction is exactly the same” (page 6 of Julie of the Wolves).

  After returning from our hike, we went to the animal pens at NARL and watched a captive female wolf interact with her young, the other wolves, and the researchers. We had been invited by Dr. Michael Fox, who was an expert in wolf behavior and was studying captive wolves. Dr. Fox explained that when the female looked at Mom directly, it meant she would accept her, that Mom would be part of her pack. For days, the wolf—while calm and friendly—did not look at Mom. But during one of her last visits, the female turned and looked at her. Her golden eyes connected with my mother’s, and she was accepted. It was a moment Mom never forgot.

  When Mom and Luke visited Alaska that summer, the debate about drilling for oil in Prudhoe Bay was raging. The key to drilling in Prudhoe was building the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System (ironically abbreviated as TAPS). Environmentalists were fighting to stop the pipeline; the state and the oil companies were pushing ahead. It was clear that the project would change Alaska forever, and once it was in place there would be no going back. Passions were high on both sides and the Inupiat people of the North Slope were conflicted. The project would generate income for the communities and provide high-paying jobs. It also would bring in outsiders and pose challenges to maintaining their traditional way of life. The conflict between old and new affected Mom deeply and became a central theme in Julie of the Wolves. When Mom returned home from Alaska, she got right to work and wrote an article about recent discoveries in the understanding of wolf behavior. It was one of her best, she thought, but Reader’s Digest decided not to use it! She was truly stunned and hurt. Authors are used to having their work criticized, edited, and even rejected, but now and then there is a story that means more than most. When those are turned down it is a soul-searching moment.

  Twig was at Bennington that year:

  I got a call from Mom and she sounded upset. The Digest had rejected her wolf article. She sounded very discouraged because she thought it was one of her best pieces. “Why don’t you make it into a book?” I asked. She paused, and with her Jean George determination she said, “I will!” Mom had more in mind than just the wolves; she brought together all that she had seen, read, and experienced in Alaska—Julie of the Wolves was on the way. At that moment no one knew what the book would mean to her, her readers, and even to the wolves.

  The book won the Newbery Medal in 1973.

  Mom’s relationship with the people of Barrow and with the animals of the tundra and ocean did not end with that trip. She returned to Barrow many times after that initial visit. Craig moved there in 1981 and with his wife, Cyd, stayed and raised a family. Our mother visited often.

  Barrow lacks big, snow-covered mountains and scenic rivers, but the seemingly endless tundra surrounding it has an awesome subtle beauty. It’s a place one loves or strongly dislikes. On her first visit, Mom was charmed by the t
undra and fascinated by the Inupiat people who have lived in the region for thousands of years. Her fascination would grow into deep friendships and a love of the people of Barrow and Arctic Alaska over the next forty years.

  Her interest in Eskimo life may have started with her close friendship with Bob and Ellen Young in Chappaqua, New York. In the 1960s Bob had spent months in the Canadian Arctic filming the Netsilik Eskimos in one of their last traditional winter seal camps as a nomadic people. The result was the stunning film The Eskimo: Fight for Life. Craig still recalls previewing the film in his teens: “We watched Bob Young’s raw footage at his home and no one moved a muscle for hours. It left us all speechless.” None of us knew at that moment how important Barrow and the Arctic would become to our family. Andrew Young, Bob’s son, is now working on developing a new film based on Julie of the Wolves.

  When Mom connected with someone, she maintained a strong friendship throughout her life. Mom always liked “real people” without pretense, and she identified with the North Slope Inupiat, which makes sense because Inupiaq literally means “real or genuine people” (inuk ‘person’ plus -piaq ‘real, genuine’) in the Inupiaq language. Julie’s stalwart personality in Julie of the Wolves is clearly a tribute to those friendships and the people of Barrow.

  Our mother was greatly influenced by the people and culture in Barrow, and she, in turn, influenced them. Julie’s conflict was felt by many people who grew up in Barrow. One girl, Mayak, was moved to write the following letter about what Julie of the Wolves meant to her:

  Dear Mrs. Jean Craighead George,

  More than ten years before I was born, you wrote a story that resonates within me forty years later. Julie of the Wolves is more than a book to me; it is a girl that has broken the trail for me.

  Inupiaq names are links to ancestral spirits that lived before us. My family gave me the Inupiaq name of Mayak (or Miyax) in 1985 and raised me in Julie’s hometown of Barrow, Alaska. Much like me, Julie imagines a life beyond Barrow. She is running both from and to something at the same time. Julie is strong enough to risk everything she knows for the chance of a better world, but she is also humble enough to find strength in her Inupiaq heritage and the lessons of her ancestors.

  I opened your book at a moment in my life when I was struggling to release the grasp my family and community had on my soul. I yearned for more than Barrow, but I needed someone to share the heartache of leaving home behind. I found it in your words and my namesake. Our creator used you to remind me that I am not alone, and I am thankful to you both.

  Most sincerely,

  Mayak

  Mayak is not alone; people throughout the world are thankful for Julie of the Wolves. From Barrow to Connecticut to Korea, people have identified with Julie (Miyax)—her strength, her struggles.

  Mom also contributed to the movement to shed the “big bad wolf ” reputation. In The Wolves Are Back (2008), she sums up the role that wolves play in natural communities and the changes that occur when they are returned to the wilderness.

  In many ways Julie did what many of us dream of; she connected with another species and lived as part of them. Julie helped us see ourselves in the wolves. They are our furred counterparts in the wild—our wilder, better selves.

  Our mother, Jean Craighead George, passed away on May 15, 2012. But she left behind her best self: her words and her vision of a world where nature and humans coexist—understanding and supporting one another.

  —Luke, Twig, and Craig

  Part I

  AMAROQ, THE WOLF

  MIYAX PUSHED BACK THE HOOD OF HER sealskin parka and looked at the Arctic sun. It was a yellow disc in a lime-green sky, the colors of six o’clock in the evening and the time when the wolves awoke. Quietly she put down her cooking pot and crept to the top of a dome-shaped frost heave, one of the many earth buckles that rise and fall in the crackling cold of the Arctic winter. Lying on her stomach, she looked across a vast lawn of grass and moss and focused her attention on the wolves she had come upon two sleeps ago. They were wagging their tails as they awoke and saw each other.

  Her hands trembled and her heartbeat quickened, for she was frightened, not so much of the wolves, who were shy and many harpoon-shots away, but because of her desperate predicament. Miyax was lost. She had been lost without food for many sleeps on the North Slope of Alaska. The barren slope stretches for two hundred miles from the Brooks Range to the Arctic Ocean, and for more than eight hundred miles from Canada to the Chukchi Sea. No roads cross it; ponds and lakes freckle its immensity. Winds scream across it, and the view in every direction is exactly the same. Somewhere in this cosmos was Miyax; and the very life in her body, its spark and warmth, depended upon these wolves for survival. And she was not so sure they would help.

  Miyax stared hard at the regal black wolf, hoping to catch his eye. She must somehow tell him that she was starving and ask him for food. This could be done she knew, for her father, an Eskimo hunter, had done so. One year he had camped near a wolf den while on a hunt. When a month had passed and her father had seen no game, he told the leader of the wolves that he was hungry and needed food. The next night the wolf called him from far away and her father went to him and found a freshly killed caribou. Unfortunately, Miyax’s father never explained to her how he had told the wolf of his needs. And not long afterward he paddled his kayak into the Bering Sea to hunt for seal, and he never returned.

  She had been watching the wolves for two days, trying to discern which of their sounds and movements expressed goodwill and friendship. Most animals had such signals. The little Arctic ground squirrels flicked their tails sideways to notify others of their kind that they were friendly. By imitating this signal with her forefinger, Miyax had lured many a squirrel to her hand. If she could discover such a gesture for the wolves she would be able to make friends with them and share their food, like a bird or a fox.

  Propped on her elbows with her chin in her fists, she stared at the black wolf, trying to catch his eye. She had chosen him because he was much larger than the others, and because he walked like her father, Kapugen, with his head high and his chest out. The black wolf also possessed wisdom, she had observed. The pack looked to him when the wind carried strange scents or the birds cried nervously. If he was alarmed, they were alarmed. If he was calm, they were calm.

  Long minutes passed, and the black wolf did not look at her. He had ignored her since she first came upon them, two sleeps ago. True, she moved slowly and quietly, so as not to alarm him; yet she did wish he would see the kindness in her eyes. Many animals could tell the difference between hostile hunters and friendly people by merely looking at them. But the big black wolf would not even glance her way.

  A bird stretched in the grass. The wolf looked at it. A flower twisted in the wind. He glanced at that. Then the breeze rippled the wolverine ruff on Miyax’s parka and it glistened in the light. He did not look at that. She waited. Patience with the ways of nature had been instilled in her by her father. And so she knew better than to move or shout. Yet she must get food or die. Her hands shook slightly and she swallowed hard to keep calm.

  Miyax was a classic Eskimo beauty, small of bone and delicately wired with strong muscles. Her face was pearl-round and her nose was flat. Her black eyes, which slanted gracefully, were moist and sparkling. Like the beautifully formed polar bears and foxes of the north, she was slightly short-limbed. The frigid environment of the Arctic has sculptured life into compact shapes. Unlike the long-limbed, long-bodied animals of the south that are cooled by dispensing heat on extended surfaces, all live things in the Arctic tend toward compactness, to conserve heat.

  The length of her limbs and the beauty of her face were of no use to Miyax as she lay on the lichen-speckled frost heave in the midst of the bleak tundra. Her stomach ached and the royal black wolf was carefully ignoring her.

  “Amaroq, ilaya, wolf, my friend,” she finally called. “Look at me. Look at me.”

  She spoke half in Eskimo and half i
n English, as if the instincts of her father and the science of the gussaks, the white-faced, might evoke some magical combination that would help her get her message through to the wolf.

  Amaroq glanced at his paw and slowly turned his head her way without lifting his eyes. He licked his shoulder. A few matted hairs sprang apart and twinkled individually. Then his eyes sped to each of the three adult wolves that made up his pack and finally to the five pups who were sleeping in a fuzzy mass near the den entrance. The great wolf’s eyes softened at the sight of the little wolves, then quickly hardened into brittle yellow jewels as he scanned the flat tundra.

  Not a tree grew anywhere to break the monotony of the gold-green plain, for the soils of the tundra are permanently frozen. Only moss, grass, lichens, and a few hardy flowers take root in the thin upper layer that thaws briefly in summer. Nor do many species of animals live in this rigorous land, but those creatures that do dwell here exist in bountiful numbers. Amaroq watched a large cloud of Lapland longspurs wheel up into the sky, then alight in the grasses. Swarms of crane flies, one of the few insects that can survive the cold, darkened the tips of the mosses. Birds wheeled, turned, and called. Thousands sprang up from the ground like leaves in a wind.

  The wolf’s ears cupped forward and tuned in on some distant message from the tundra. Miyax tensed and listened, too. Did he hear some brewing storm, some approaching enemy? Apparently not. His ears relaxed and he rolled to his side. She sighed, glanced at the vaulting sky, and was painfully aware of her predicament.

  Here she was, watching wolves—she, Miyax, daughter of Kapugen, adopted child of Martha, citizen of the United States, pupil at the Bureau of Indian Affairs School in Barrow, Alaska, and thirteen-year-old wife of the boy Daniel. She shivered at the thought of Daniel, for it was he who had driven her to this fate. She had run away from him exactly seven sleeps ago, and because of this she had one more title by gussak standards—the child divorcée.