3 Among the Wolves

by Helen Thayer

  All around us, the ice began to sink. Urging each other to hurry, we leaped and sidestepped the gaping cracks that kept opening in our path. Suddenly my legs plunged through the ice and I found myself in freezing water to my waist. Desperate to avoid being swept under by the strong current, I threw my arms out wide across the ice, my fingers frantically clawing at its surface. The water’s cold stab shocked my mind and body.

  In an instant Bill thrust his trekking pole into my outstretched hand. I hung on while he pulled. I levered my body up onto the surface of the ice with my free arm. Face down, I spread my weight across the ice to prevent another plunge. After sliding the last few feet to safety with legs almost numb from the frigid water, I stumbled to the bank with Bill’s help.

  As I shivered uncontrollably, Bill helped me strip off my soaking clothes and boots. Under a warm sun, we vigorously rubbed circulation back into my limbs.

  “Now we know why the wolves fanned out to cross the river,” I said. “They were smart enough to know the ice was weaker than it looked.”

  Soon four ravens arrived and circled overhead as I put on the spare set of clothes I always carried in my day pack. The birds landed on a tussock mound a few feet away and cawed softly.

  “Do you think they’re concerned by our close call?” I whispered.

  “If they are, I’m ready to believe anything,” Bill said.

  Two ravens waddled toward us through the cotton grass, still chatting quietly. Charlie lay down, making no attempt to approach them. Considering his intense dislike of the birds, we were surprised.

  As I finished dressing, two ravens hopped to within six feet of us, still cawing gently. Soon all four circled us on the ground, talking softly, their black eyes fixed on us. After ten minutes of circling, the ravens flew to the top branches of a spruce tree and raised their voices in a loud, hard-edged cackle.

  A wolf—Alpha—howled from the far bank. Surprised, we turned to see four wolves looking on as Alpha howled again. A few flaps of the ravens’ huge wings lofted them over the river to the trees above the wolves. As the wolves disappeared into the forest, the ravens followed overhead. A quarter of a mile away the ravens circled once, then descended below treetop level to what we presumed was a kill site.

  Mystified, we pulled out our snacks and tried to make sense of all that had transpired. “The ravens and wolves must have been close enough to hear us shouting,” Bill said, munching on a handful of peanuts. “They must have sensed that we were in trouble.”

  “The ravens seemed concerned,” I agreed. “But what about the wolves? How do they fit in?”

  The ravens understood our predicament, we guessed, and as soon as the crisis was over had called the wolves. The two howls seemed to represent some sort of communication between the species.

  “Remember Billy McCaw and what he told us about ravens?” I said as we headed back to camp.

  Billy was an elder of the Gwich’in First Nation whom we had met two years ago. He had told us that wolves and ravens talked to each other. So old he could not remember his own age, Billy had spoken to us in a raspy voice with a faraway look in his faded eyes. “Ravens call the wolves and lead them to prey,” he said. “After the wolves eat, the birds take what’s left. Ravens will call the wolves to an injured animal too. They know more than all the animals in the north.”

  When I asked him if ravens helped humans to hunt, he had replied, “Sometimes they do. It is said that they will help only those who respect them. It is said that a long time ago my grandfather’s dogsled overturned and hurt his leg. Ravens who followed him on the hunt flew two miles back, and screeched and circled until his brother paid attention and followed them to my grandfather. Many of our elders can tell when a raven is serious and is talking.”

  Now we understood what Billy meant. After witnessing what appeared to be their real concern over our welfare, we could no longer regard the ravens merely as a camp nuisance. We would always remember them as our friends and protectors.

  Above

  AT 5 A.M. IN THE FIRST WEEK OF JUNE, four of the wolves gathered at the den to set out on a hunt. After the usual lively display of tail wagging and what looked like smiling—the corners of their mouths were turned up slightly—Denali began a brief howling session. The others soon joined in, joyful and exuberant. They frisked around Mother, rubbing her shoulders and licking her muzzle. After several minutes they headed out: Beta and Alpha, with Denali in the lead and Mother following right behind him.

  Hoping they had located prey close by, we hastily grabbed our day packs and set out. But ten minutes from the den, just as we reached a right-hand turn in the trail, we met Mother striding confidently in front, bringing the group back home. They veered off the trail to avoid us while Charlie, who was leading Bill and me, made a quick left into the trees. Having averted a head-on meeting, we allowed the wolves to pass, then puzzled at the sudden turn of events.

  Back at the den, the three males affectionately licked Mother’s muzzle. After a few minutes she disappeared inside, and the others departed once more.

  “Mother must have had a sudden change of heart,” Bill said.

  I was thinking of the pups. “I bet she had second thoughts about leaving the kids at home while she went off hunting.”

  “Well, if we’re going to keep up, we’d better hustle,” Bill said. “They’re already into the trees.”

  We need not have worried. Only two hundred yards away, we came upon all three wolves digging a large hole to one side of the trail at an astonishing rate. Wolves’ reputation as diggers has no equal. With heads down and paws flying, all three soon had dug a hole the size of a bathtub into the soft earth. Then for no apparent reason they all stopped, sniffed the edges, and raised their legs to aim jets of urine into the center. Having engaged in this mysterious group activity, they headed off once more with Denali in the lead.

  After inspecting the hole to nowhere and finding no purpose for it, we continued onward. Charlie added his own signatures, one on each side of the hole.

  Even when hunting, the wolves displayed their natural, unconstrained curiosity. As we hurried along after the pack, we saw a wolf now and then stop briefly, paw at something only he could see, and then run to catch up. Occasionally all three stopped to inspect small rocks in the woods. Or one would pause to scent-mark a bent old tree or a lichen-covered rock that no doubt had seen many years of scent-marking. Denali picked up a spruce stick and carried this prize for some distance, dropping it only when he reached the open tundra. Fresh bear scat on the trail caught their attention too, but proved to be of only momentary interest.

  The wolves traveled without urgency, as though they knew their prey would be there for the chase. They stopped frequently to raise sensitive noses to test the breeze for scent.

  We gradually fell behind. Charlie tugged hard at his leash, impatient with our slow pace. After he almost pulled me off my feet Bill helped restrain him, but our combined efforts barely contained his impressive strength. We jogged behind the wolves as they veered off to the north through a shadowed valley bordered by steep rock. Ahead the wolves were already out in the open on rolling tundra. We continued to jog on as the trail faded into the pathless wilderness, but the threesome was now too distant to follow.

  We realized that if we were ever going to reach a hunt site, we would have to change tactics. As we snacked on dried fruit before heading back to camp to await the wolves, we discussed our options. First of all, we had to figure out where the wolves usually hunted and which route they traveled to get there. “Our only hope is to wait at a place where the wolves usually pass, then take a shortcut to where they’re headed,” I said, hoping I sounded more optimistic than I felt. The wolves’ ability to outdistance us so easily was discouraging.

  “That’s no easy task,” said Bill, ever practical. “But if we find a high place along their most-used route, it might work.”

  For the next several days, we followed the wolves every time a group left the den. We s
oon discovered a frequently used junction three-quarters of a mile away: a two-foot-high rock and an ancient tree snag at the edge of the tundra. Both were heavily scent-marked and surrounded by numerous wolf scats left by passing hunters. From this point the wolves would branch off in several directions, sometimes following faint trails but most often heading across the trail-less tundra. The junction sat beneath an easily climbed three-hundred-foot ridge. We decided to start waiting on top every morning for the wolves to pass by on their way to hunt.

  Charlie sits in our tent doorway as he watches the wolves play.

  The next few mornings we sacrificed sleep to rise at 1 A.M. and hike to our lookout, but we soon grew frustrated when the wolves chose other routes. Finally, one calm morning in mid-June, as we sat on the ridge munching a food bar for breakfast, our patience was rewarded.

  Denali, Alpha, Omega, and Beta stopped at the junction. Together they scent-marked both the tree snag and the rock. Then, after Alpha and Denali vigorously scratched up patches of dirt, the four fanned out to stalk three moose that browsed a half mile away on the open tundra. We scrambled down the ridge and set out. But no sooner had we cleared the trees than all four wolves stopped, heads raised, listening. We strained to catch the sound, but heard only silence. Suddenly the panicked wolves raced past us, melting into the deep shadows of the trees and cliffs.

  Sensing danger, we ran back into the trees, not understanding what we were running from. The wolves had fled something only they could hear. Moments later the faint hum of an aircraft approaching from the north drifted toward us. We pressed our bodies, with Charlie behind us, against a rock wall shielded by trees. A few feet away the wolves crouched to the ground, concealed in the dark shadows.

  A green-and-white airplane equipped with large tundra tires approached directly overhead. With a loud drone that echoed off the mountains, the plane climbed to avoid the steep ridge protecting us and the wolves. Two men gazed down, rifles protruding through the open side windows: They were hunting wolves from the air.

  The plane circled again. Although confident its occupants wouldn’t shoot at us, we stayed motionless to avoid attracting attention to the wolves. They lay still as stone, their coats blending with the surroundings. After another low pass, the plane veered to the east and vanished. The four wolves cautiously rose, stepped into the sunlight, and tilted their heads to listen. Satisfied that the danger had passed, they made a beeline back to the den, in single file, with Alpha in the lead.

  We quickly returned to our camp and found the entire family hidden inside the den and dugouts. Two hours later, Alpha and Denali emerged from their hiding places but remained nervous for the rest of the day. None of the wolves played games, lay in the sun, or climbed the ridges. Instead they stayed close to cover. A subdued Alpha climbed to a rocky ledge and sat alone for several hours, as if ready to protect his family. Mother remained in the den with her pups and didn’t appear until the next morning.

  Although our camp was concealed by ridges, we moved our blue-green tent under a large overhanging rock buttress to make sure no aerial hunters would see us. We also placed willow branches over the tent and latrine cover.

  “I bet the rest of the family we saw last year was shot by aerial hunters,” Bill said sadly.

  It seemed likely. At Eagle Plains we had noticed an airplane equipped with tires large enough to allow landings on the soft tundra. Two hunters equipped with guns had boarded the airplane. Bill asked the pilot what they were hunting. “Wolves,” the pilot replied. Did they shoot wolves from the air? The pilot had nodded defiantly as he ground his cigarette butt into the earth. “As many of the darned pests as we can find.”

  “I hate having to stand by, not being able to do anything to stop it,” Bill said, his rage boiling to the surface. “Perhaps they were attacked more than once.” He shook his head in frustration.

  I, too, felt angry and frustrated about what our wolf friends had already gone through, and what they might have to experience again. It seemed so unfair. What pleasure could anyone get from callously slaughtering innocent animals?

  I watched Alpha stand guard. “At least the survivors have learned their lesson well, and they know to run at the first sound of a plane.”

  We could only imagine the aerial chase it must have taken to kill half the family. Since the mountains and high ridges made it impossible to fly low over the den, we suspected that the wolves were attacked on the open tundra while on a hunt, and some hadn’t been able to reach safety in time.

  Charlie seemed to have picked up on our despondency. Depressed and unresponsive, he lay on my sleeping bag with his head on his paws. Did he sense the danger his wolf friends had faced? That night he showed no interest in dinner, and ate only when I sat with him and fed him from my hand. Not until the next afternoon did he return to his normal self.

  Aerial hunting for wolves has been a controversial subject in the Yukon Territory and Alaska, as well as in the rest of the United States, for many years. Wolves caught on open ground have little chance against a small aircraft that can easily outmaneuver them. As a result, entire packs are often wiped out. In helicopters or in planes with wide tundra tires, hunters can land, gather the pelts, and return home to show off their “trophies.”

  This hunting method has caused such public outrage that it has been frequently banned, but under pressure from hunters, officials have worked to undermine and eventually rescind such bans. Even when outlawed, aerial hunting has continued; in wide-open, sparsely populated areas such as the Yukon, lawbreakers are difficult to locate.

  Historically, gray wolves ranged over the prairies, forests, and tundra of North America, Europe, and Asia. But as their prey species were eliminated by human hunters, and as human populations grew worldwide, the wolves’ range became more confined and they were forced to exploit domestic sheep and cattle. This in turn made the wolves more despised by humans.

  The last wolf in Europe was killed around 1950, but wolves everywhere have suffered persecution and elimination. Extermination practices have ranged from shooting to trapping and poisoning. Many other species, such as bear, lynx, and eagles, have also fallen to such poisoning. In some of America’s lower forty-eight states wolves have been forced into extinction, while in other states the animals have survived only because they have been concealed by wilderness.

  Denali leads a hunt.

  In 1907 an official order was issued to the U.S. Army authorizing the killing of all predator species in Yellowstone National Park’s 2.2 million acres, including wolves, mountain lions, and coyotes. The army and the National Park Service proceeded to exterminate wolves in a relentless campaign that used barbaric methods such as strychnine poisoning and burning. They even used crying pups as bait to attract adult wolves, who were then shot as they attempted to rescue the pups. Elsewhere, Glacier National Park’s native wolf population was exterminated by the late 1920s. In Alaska wolves are still being killed by aerial hunters.

  The wolves of Canada’s Yukon Territories have suffered a similar fate. In Canada, wolves are often killed in government-sanctioned programs, the reasoning being that reducing the wolf population will allow moose and caribou populations to increase, which will benefit hunters. But because of the vast areas of wilderness in many Canadian provinces, the wolf continues to survive. The wolf population nationwide may be in excess of 50,000, and in spite of many people’s desire to exterminate all the wolves in the Yukon, government statistics estimate that 4,500 remained as of the year 2000.

  Many remote areas, such as Siberia and the mountains of many Asian countries, contain thousands of wolves, thanks to the regions’ inaccessibility to aerial hunters. In Mongolia, wolves exist in healthy numbers of around 11,000. Herdsmen there still use guard dogs to protect their livestock from wolf predators.

  Pockets of wolves survive in low numbers in other countries. Several hundred live in Greece and Turkey, and perhaps as many as a thousand live in the mountains of Iran and India. It is thought that a sturdy
population exists in northern China, but no survey has ever been conducted.

  In our travels among native cultures, people have told us of their ancestors’ reverence of the wolf as one of the most sacred animals. Wolves are honored in native legends and folklore for their bravery, their will to survive, and their hunting prowess. Some native cultures acknowledge a high degree of parallelism between wolves and humans.

  When Bill and I trekked 1,450 miles across the Mongolian Gobi Desert in 2001, we discovered that while the nomads spoke of wolves with reverence, they also hunted them as a status symbol to prove personal bravery. Mongolians proudly told us that they were the sons of the blue wolf, who descended from heaven and took as his wife a fallow doe. They believed their great leader Genghis Khan was also descended from the blue wolf. “If you see a wolf in January, you will have good luck for a whole year,” an elderly nomad told us. Another Mongolian told us the wolf tail is sacred, and drinking the warm blood of a wolf promotes good health.

  Back at our camp, we talked about the day’s events. “Now we know why the wolves look skyward,” I said. We had thought they were keeping an eye open for ravens and their dive-bombing assaults, but noticed that they often looked up even when birds were nowhere in sight. In fact, the pack had developed this habit to protect themselves from aerial hunters and had taught it to their offspring. It was evidence that wolves gather information from unnatural, life-threatening events and pass that knowledge on to ensure their pack’s survival, indicating that they have an intelligence capable of adapting to survive.

  After three days the family’s behavior gradually returned to normal. On the fifth day they resumed their usual hunting routine. But from then on our ears, like those of the wolves, were always alert for the terrible sound of an approaching airplane.