3 Among the Wolves

by Helen Thayer

  They all burrowed down in the snow to rest for the next several hours. After awakening with the usual long stretches and wide yawns, the stranger carefully approached Charlie’s boundary, as if to make friends with the last holdout. Charlie at first simply watched him and then, just as with Mackenzie, he stepped inside the tent and ignored the stranger, who sniffed one or two markers and then discreetly retired to the forest.

  It took me twelve journal pages to describe all that had transpired from the moment the newcomer had first appeared. Watching the acceptance of a stranger into the family circle was an unforgettable experience. “Just when we think we have seen everything in wolfdom,” I wrote, “something happens to remind us that there will always be more to learn.” In our notes we both referred to the new wolf as Stranger. We agreed that would be his name.

  His immature body, exceptionally long-legged and large for his age, was covered in dense fur characteristic of that found on northern wolves, who must endure cold temperatures. His markings were typical of a gray wolf. Along his back and around his ruff, coarse, black-tipped guard hairs covered gray and white fur, giving his entire coat a gray cast.

  As the days passed he played, but he always kept to the fringes. He didn’t fit the role of omega, though. The family, which now numbered seven, accepted him as an equal and never picked on him, as they would have a true omega. Judging by his gashed shoulder, we guessed that Stranger had been driven forcefully from his pack and had traveled the delta alone, looking for a new family. Happily, he seemed to have found one.

  Charlie leaps toward the stranger.

  Affection

  ONE EARLY EVENING IN MARCH, Birch, Spruce, and Stranger left to hunt in the south. An hour later Mackenzie and Willow and the two youngsters gathered for their ritual of excited muzzle licking and yipping. Soon they galloped away to the north. Two days later Spruce and Birch reappeared, each carrying a hare. Stranger followed, carrying part of a caribou hind leg.

  Upon seeing that the rest of the wolves had left, they dropped their food and rushed back and forth through the trees, alternately voicing short alarm barks and yipping. The three distraught wolves appeared panicked that the rest of the family wasn’t there to greet them. In unison they stood together at the forest edge and sent long howls into the dusk.

  Minutes later a barely perceptible sound of howling reached our ears. The threesome howled again, their bodies quivering with tension. Another answer rode in on the wind from afar. Messages were sent back and forth for an hour, the distant howls coming closer with each chorus. Finally the four burst through the trees, to be greeted with happy bouncing, yips, and frantic muzzle licking.

  Suddenly Spruce, Birch, and Stranger dashed to the food they had carried home and placed it at the feet of the returning foursome, who graciously accepted it, wolf style: by gulping it down. The four, although arriving without food in their jaws, had already eaten well, judging by their distended bellies. All seven then burrowed into insulated pockets of snow just inside the perimeter of the trees and slept away the next several hours. We never determined why the young threesome had panicked when they found wolf town empty.

  Every time we saw wolves display their attachment to each other, we were reminded of the way that dogs bond to human masters. Dogs engage in the same body wriggling, licking, enthusiasm, and, most of all, boundless love. This is the core of pack bonding.

  In fact, the more we learned about wolves, the more they reminded us of man’s best friend. The domestic dog descends from the same genus (Canis) as the wolf. Both are meat eaters and highly social. Wolves and dogs breed together readily, even in the wild, with gestation time and litter size about the same. Both animals give birth to pups that are blind for the first days of their lives. A few differences are that wolves tend to have longer muzzles, thicker fur, and longer and far more powerful jaws than dogs, who lack the mile-upon-mile stamina of wolves.

  Wolf-dog hybrids have become increasingly popular in recent years. (Since Charlie’s wolf heritage stems from three generations back, he is mostly dog and could never be considered a true hybrid.) Because of the Inuit husky’s distant link to the wolf, breeding the two creates a more compatible mix than the potentially unstable combination of a wolf and another breed of domestic dog.

  Too often wolves are bred with domestic dogs selected for their aggression. Dogs exhibit far less control over their instincts than wolves, so such a union produces an animal that will fight to the death, whereas wolves will kill only what they can eat and will avoid danger if at all possible.

  Lois Crisler raised wolves in Alaska in the 1950s and made significant contributions to wolf research. She bred wolves to dogs, hoping to produce animals more compatible to humans. The hybrids were more aggressive than wolves and seemed to suffer from an inbred schizophrenia resulting from the wildness of wolves and tameness of dogs. She felt that the two opposite traits filled the animals with alternating rage and anxiety and could never be treated as dogs.

  Charlie stares across the frozen delta hoping to sight caribou.

  Some people try to raise wolf pups as pets, but as the adorable puppies grow they often become difficult to manage and end up in the backyard, permanently chained or caged. The highly sociable wolf part of the animal longs for the freedom to roam and hunt, to establish rank within a pack, and to enjoy the close-knit structure of a caring family. Instead, many captive wolves and hybrids turn into dull-eyed, pathetic creatures who know nothing but submission and torment as they are forced to obey human rules and accept confinement. If the animals become emotionally unmanageable, the owners surrender them to shelters, where they are often killed or turned loose into the wild without the skills to survive, causing them to attack dogs and domestic animals in their quest for food.

  Over the weeks, when the pack wasn’t hunting, Mackenzie spent an increasing amount of time watching Charlie. Sometimes he sat at the tree line and, although he never crossed Charlie’s scent marks, he would wander along the boundary, sniffing here and there. There was a longing in Mackenzie’s stare that we couldn’t fathom, something far beyond the respect a subservient animal would have for a dominant alpha. We finally decided it was infatuation.

  Charlie, for his part, grew less haughty and would sit alongside the tent, silently communicating with Mackenzie via an increasingly softer gaze. One of the many things we had learned during our year with wolves was that animals communicate with humans and each other on a level beyond words, and that human language is clumsy and limited compared to the emotional language of animals.

  As mid-March approached, our rations were beginning to run low, even with the extra supplies Mark and Tommy had brought us from Tuk. We reluctantly acknowledged that we would soon need to leave the wolves, and began to prepare ourselves emotionally for another parting.

  Perhaps the wolves caught wind of our thoughts. One day in the second week of March, Mackenzie stood in his usual spot a hundred feet away from us and howled, then whined softly, as he watched Charlie. He walked toward the trees, glancing back over his shoulder at Charlie, urging him to follow. Charlie, at the end of his seventy-five-foot leash, urinated on two of his scent marks, looked intently at Mackenzie, and then returned to the tent, giving him the same sort of looks. Each appeared to want the other to follow.

  For some reason Mackenzie was attempting to entice Charlie to join him in the pack. But Charlie was steadfastly bonded to Bill and me. Instead, Charlie was trying to persuade Mackenzie to join him. After several minutes of unsuccessful efforts to persuade the other, they appeared to reach an agreement to enjoy each other’s company from their own respective territory. Charlie possessively leaned on the tent, while Mackenzie calmly settled in the snow and cleaned his paws.

  One moonlit 19-degree night in mid-March, the sound of thundering hooves awoke us. We leaped to the door as the tent was bumped by an unseen body. Grabbing the shotgun, Bill was first out the door, followed by Charlie and me.

  Caribou swept past both sides of our t
ent, with seven wolves right on their heels. The frenzied caribou reached the forest at full speed and fled into the night. The hunters closed on a straggler. The sounds of leaping wolves and the desperate cries of an animal going down cleaved the still air. The wolves gorged themselves.

  Charlie, caught up in the excitement, tugged hard at his leash. We pulled on our boots and allowed him to lead us closer to the feasting wolves, stopping a few yards away. Mackenzie looked up, saw that it was Charlie, and turned his attention back to gulping the meat.

  Returning to the tent with a reluctant Charlie following, we discovered two bent pegs where the caribou had hit the tent. After Bill straightened them, we resumed our interrupted sleep. The next morning Charlie discovered a gift: A portion of the caribou’s hind leg lay at his boundary. Mackenzie watched from the edge of the trees as Charlie picked it up, then lay alongside the tent to enjoy the fresh meat.

  Three days later, an hour after the pack returned from a hunt, Birch left alone. He returned with a limp fox in his jaws and laid it on the snow. As he ate, he ignored the three youngsters, who groveled and pleaded for a share. After the entire carcass had disappeared, even the white furry feet, he walked away. The youngsters greedily licked blood from where the fox had lain. Perhaps it had been a deliberate lesson to the three young wolves to respect an older member. Soon Birch returned and initiated a game of chase. They all leaped and ran in wild circles with great grins on their faces, disappearing into the trees at top speed only to reappear in a burst of flying snow.

  As the end of March approached, Mackenzie’s apparent reluctance to dominate except when absolutely necessary, coupled with his desire to please Charlie, gave us more clues that eventually helped us solve the mystery of why Mackenzie would try to attract Charlie into the ranks of his family. The most obvious answer was that Mackenzie wanted Charlie, with his stronger personality and greater dominance, to take over as the family alpha, which would allow Mackenzie to return to the beta position.

  Mackenzie’s tranquil personality and intrigue with Charlie made it increasingly clear that he was not comfortable in the alpha position. We had earlier speculated that he would have functioned more happily in a beta midpack role, but had reluctantly stepped up the social scale to replace the family’s lost leader.

  The contrast between the personalities of Mackenzie and Alpha widened with the passing of winter. Alpha had been as strict as Charlie. With Mother, he had reigned supreme over the summer wolves. Although a beloved ruler, Alpha proudly relished the respect that his rank brought him. It was the only position he would tolerate. But Mackenzie, although the head male of his family, ruled in a less demanding way.

  Stranger’s integration into family activities appeared complete after three weeks. Once the ordeal of the initial submissive ritual was over, his life appeared more tranquil. He avoided Charlie’s wrathful gaze for the first two weeks, but gradually plucked up enough courage to inspect his markers. Charlie watched, stiff-legged and challenging, unwilling to cut Stranger any slack. After the third week, though, Charlie relented. When Stranger approached the scent marks, Charlie treated him with the same haughty superiority he showed the other wolves.

  Stranger was an intense animal, with a steady gaze that seemed to pierce our souls. He quickly assumed a dominant role with respect to the two other younger wolves, Richard and Kendall. His play was more gentle than theirs, but they and the rest of the pack developed a definite respect toward him, and over time his natural dignity and grace came to the fore.

  One night the sounds of wolves again surrounded our tent. They sniffed and snuffled. One boldly scratched the wall close to where Charlie silently listened. He barked a single gruff challenge. The scratching immediately stopped. Soft crunching sounds faded away into the forest. The neighbors had obeyed Charlie’s barked order to go home.

  By the end of March the deep chill of midwinter had passed. Our rations were stretched to the limit. The wolves would continue their lives of hunting and returning to their resting area, but we could stay no longer.

  We hated to leave, but knew we must. It seemed ages since we had set out last April, almost a year before, to travel to the summer den in the Yukon.

  We waited until all the wolves had returned from a hunt before we took our tent down and loaded it onto a sled. As in the summer, we wanted the family to know where we had gone, especially because Charlie would have to abandon another group of companions.

  While we packed our sleds, Charlie watched. Although subdued, he did not show the extreme sadness he had when we left Wolf Camp One.

  Mackenzie and his family all watched from the trees. Charlie walked to his boundary and renewed a few scent marks, as if he didn’t want his friends to forget him. He stood with his back to us and returned the family’s stare. Mackenzie paced back and forth and quietly yipped. Charlie fanned his tail in conversation.

  We finished securing our loads and clipped on our skis. As we had with the summer pack, we said good-bye to each individual and promised to return. Bill and I both cried as we skied away with Charlie’s leash attached to my harness. He stopped to glance back at the wolves several times.

  Willow stood at the edge of the clearing with the family, while Mackenzie followed a hundred feet behind our sleds. We climbed a low rise and descended the other side. Mackenzie stood tall and regal on the crest for several minutes, then slowly turned back to his family. It broke our hearts to watch him leave.

  We skied single file, led by Bill. We were too choked up to talk. Charlie walked quietly at my side without looking back. I could feel his sadness, but he seemed to have accepted that we were going home.

  An hour later, the wolves surprised us as they flitted through the trees to our left. Charlie stopped, sat on his haunches, and raised his muzzle in one last sorrowful howl to his friends, who answered with a long wailing chorus. Mackenzie had brought his entire family to say one last good-bye to Charlie.

  With tears we bade our friends farewell again. Then Willow touched her shoulder gently to her mate’s. Mackenzie, who had blossomed into a gentle if reluctant leader, turned and led his family away, with Willow close at his side. She seemed to know that Mackenzie longed for Charlie to stay, and comforted him with little brushes to his muzzle.

  Our hearts heavy, we continued through the forest that now seemed terribly empty. But our hearts and minds were full of unforgettable memories and insights—many unexpected—that we had gained from our year with the wolves.

  Epilogue

  Passages

  OUR YEAR WITH THE WOLVES immeasurably deepened our knowledge and appreciation of these much maligned animals. While wolves are often portrayed as villains—as in fairy tales such as Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs—our experiences told a different story. We witnessed many acts of compassion and kindness in the three wolf families we observed. They had ample opportunity to attack us as we traveled among and lived close to them, had that been their true nature, but they did not.

  Following our year of observation, we continued to visit the summer wolves every other year. To ensure that their familiarity with humans would not reach a level that might endanger them, we never again directly approached the den. Instead we observed them from a ridge downwind to ensure that we would remain undetected, the same ridge from which we had first surveyed them on our reconnaissance journey. The rocks easily concealed us, enabling us to camp with our sleeping bags on the ground for several days at a time.

  We watched Beta, as gentle as ever with each set of new pups, for four years, after which we assumed he had passed on. The pack continued to be led by Alpha through the summer of 2001, but by 2003 a five-year-old gray-black wolf had adopted the alpha role. Meanwhile, the aging Alpha had taken over the beta role and appeared to be a respected elder just as Beta had been.

  Mother remained the leading female for five years, after which her place was taken by a regal female who seemed to have joined the pack from another area. Mother seemed happy in her new role
; we never observed any animosity as family social roles changed.

  Yukon remained but Klondike disappeared, we assumed to find a mate and start her own family. Denali, although no longer the first to dash off to lead a hunt these days, is still hunting and spends long hours watching for prey from the ridge top. Omega now holds a midpack position and displays greater confidence. The two young, mischievous brothers grew into large and powerful, but still playful, adults.

  Many pups have been born; some have stayed on and others have dispersed, bringing the total number of wolves in the family to sixteen. The wolves appear content to use the same den and surrounding rendezvous area year after year.

  We also followed the delta wolves for the next three winters, traveling by snowmobile with John to visit them. We watched Stranger become the new alpha male, while Mackenzie seemed content in the role of beta; we believe he encouraged the change. Mackenzie’s mate, Willow, appeared as devoted as ever, even though her position as alpha female was assumed by a new wolf. John surmised that the new alpha female had followed Stranger from his original pack to become his mate. Spruce, Birch, Richard, and Kendall remained with the pack and by 2002 the addition of new pups had raised the family’s number to fifteen.

  The delta wolves also faced a crisis that year. Oil and gas exploration on the delta had reached an intense level, bringing with it a dramatic increase in the number of heavy trucks that traveled the ice road. The invasion of the wolves’ hunting range by humans caused the animals to become so distraught that John feared they would leave the area altogether.

  All through January 2002, Stranger and Mackenzie rarely relaxed when the family returned to their winter rendezvous. John remained close by, camped in a spruce thicket all month without a break. His worst fears were realized in the first week of February when, led by Stranger, the pack left for the rugged hills and valleys many miles southeast of Inuvik.