by Asta Bowen
Because Marta was by all accounts tenacious, and her neighbors relatively tolerant, she and her packmates were successful in their journey home. The Ninemile Valley continues to be occupied by packs of varying size, and dozens of pups have been raised to adulthood. Chances are good that Marta and Greatfoot’s bloodline is still present there. In a haunting footnote, Mike Jimenez told me that the fate of Marta and Greatfoot was repeated in excruciating detail in the summer of 1995, when the alpha female of the Ninemile pack was killed illegally, and the male was hit on the freeway. However, this time the pack included other adults, so the young of the year were not entirely alone.
Despite such setbacks, the frontier Marta pushed forward has been expanding. In addition to the longstanding Camas wolves of Glacier Park and the new inhabitants of Yellowstone, resident wolves are now making their home in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and other regions of the northern Rockies. This ecosystem was wolf country long before it was claimed by humans; if the habitat is preserved and wolf populations are allowed to recover, our two species may share this extraordinary place for ages to come.
Author’s Statement
When this story came to me, I was not a wolf person. I was an author who worked in writing, broadcasting, and education. I did have a fascination for wilderness that developed after I moved to Montana in my twenties; it led me to write The Huckleberry Book, and I often touched on natural resource issues in my newspaper column. At the time, however, I was neither a wildlife biologist nor an animal tracker, and as an outdoorswoman I was more enthusiastic than accomplished.
Like many of my neighbors in northwest Montana, I had followed the story of the Pleasant Valley wolves in the Daily InterLake. One day after work in June of 1991, I found myself reading about yet another wolf death: the body of one of the Ninemile pups, a yearling, had been found floating in Mud Lake, not far from my home in Flathead County. Like too many others, the Mud Lake killing was not accidental. For me, it was one death too many.
The book formed itself in that moment, as I stood looking at the newspaper. This was a story that needed to be told. It had to be told from the wolves’ perspective, it had to be true to the facts that were known, and it had to be accessible to young people. I did not know where the story would begin or end, or who its heroes would be; I did not know what it would take to make science dramatic and drama scientific; at that moment, I scarcely knew the difference between a wolf and a coyote. There was much I had to learn.
Over the next four years, I did that learning. Between graduate school, teaching, and writing projects, I walked the mountains these wolves walked; I studied wolf science; I interviewed wildlife biologists; I studied maps and drew diagrams; I played with captive pups and had my coffee cup stolen by a quick-witted mom. As I learned, I wrote: badly at first, but better as I learned the ways of the wolf, the lives of these wolves, and the shape of their story. Slowly the book came into being.
Though this story belongs to the wolves, its existence in book form would not have been possible without the help of many human beings. Wolves seem to inspire a measure of generosity, patience, and courage in our species, and this book has been the beneficiary of that.
For science, I thank Mike Jimenez, Joe Fontaine, Diane Boyd, Carter Neimeyer, Steve Fritts, Mike Fairchild, and books by L. David Mech. For the opportunity to observe live wolves, I am beholden to the Triple D Game Farm. For editing assistance, I am grateful to Alex McLennon (and Savana), Jack Campbell, Hillary Funk, Maggie Jimenez, and the insightful others who read the manuscript at crucial stages. To those friends who variously accompanied me, saved me, sheltered me, hiked in to meet me on (and sometimes wisely talked me out of) those long wolf excursions, I owe you. For the previous edition of this book, my thanks to Michael Korda of Simon and Schuster. For the volume you now hold, all credit goes to my editor Melanie Cecka; my agent, Charlotte Sheedy; and the “godmother” who brought us together, attorney Karen Shatzkin. Finally, for living the story it has been my privilege to write: the wolves.
After all my research, I still am not a wolf scientist—that title is long in the earning—but I have come to see the world in a new way. I have tried to see it through wild eyes, to smell and feel it through wild nose and paws, and to love it with a wild heart.
To see the world through wolf eyes is not so great a leap as it may seem. Our two species have much in common with each other. We are intelligent, adaptable animals who work and play with a passion; we form complex and enduring social bonds; we share a sometimes-fragile environment; we love to sing.
There are important differences. Where humans adapt the environment to meet our needs, the wolf must adapt to the environment and so, like other animals, belongs to nature in a way we can only imagine. The wolf is not just a symbol of wildness; the wolf is wildness. We cannot live in nature as she does, but we can—with a little imagination and a little more effort—walk to the edge of our world, and peer over the edge into hers.
The wolf is a spark of nature’s intelligence that lives apart from, and sometimes despite, the structure of houses and cars and jobs around which our lives are now built. In her freedom, she reminds us of the wild spark from which we came, and to which we all, in the end, return.
Copyright © 1997, 2006 by ’Asta Bowen
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Originally published as Hungry for Home: A Wolf Odyssey by Simon & Schuster in 1997
First published in the United States of America in January 2006
by Bloomsbury Children’s Books
E-book edition published in August 2013
www.bloomsbury.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury Children's Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bowen, ’Asta. [Hungry for home]
Wolf : the journey home / ’Asta Bowen.
p. cm.
Originally published: Hungry for home. New York : Simon & Schuster, 1997.
1. Wolves—Fiction. 2. Montana—Fiction. 3. Wolves—Reintroduction—Fiction. 4. Canadian
Rockies (B.C. and Alta.)—Fiction. I. Bowen, ’Asta. Hungry for home. II. Title.
PS3552.0856H86 2006 813’.54—dc22 2005045212
ISBN: 978-1-61963-028-4 (e-book)