Shadows on the Koyukuk

by Sidney Huntington

  I stuck an oar into the soft mud bank, tied the boat to it, and we went to examine our prize. I couldn’t believe the size of that moose. “Holy criminy, what am I going to do with this animal?” I asked Angela.

  I probably wouldn’t have taken him if I had realized how big he was. In relation to his body size, his sixty-two-inch-spread antlers were small. One hindquarter later weighed 284 pounds. Two hindquarters totaled 586 pounds. I estimated the front quarters at 300 pounds each (front quarters weigh more than hind). That’s 600 pounds for the front, 586 for the rear, for a total of 1,168 pounds of meat. The meat from a moose usually weighs about fifty percent of the animal’s live weight. Alive, that moose probably weighed a ton.

  We let the carcass cool for a couple of hours while we set up camp and prepared to go to work. Angela wanted a good moose hide, and decided this one would do. Unfortunately, the finest moose skin comes from pregnant cows killed in late March. Such skins, stretched from a cow carrying her calf, are more uniform in thickness than other moose hides. But such hides aren’t available legally.

  We had to use ropes and spring lines to hold the legs up so I could cut up the animal. Although I was young and strong, I couldn’t even lift one leg.

  We managed to roll him on his right side, which I’ve found is best for dressing a moose because the blood flows out more freely. Removal of the viscera is also easier when the moose is on his right side.

  We left the hindquarters intact, but cut the front quarters into smaller easy-to-carry pieces. We hung all the meat in nearby trees to drip and dry. Angela carved the meat from the head. We left behind nothing edible.

  Edwin Simon and Bobby Vent, on a hunt, came along shortly after we had killed the big moose. They stared at the animal in disbelief.

  “That’s as big as they come,” Edwin remarked.

  “It’ll probably be tougher than hell,” I replied in disgust.

  “Don’t be sure,” he said. “If you caught him when he was asleep that makes a difference.”

  Bobby and Edwin camped with us and helped me load the hindquarters into our boat.

  We were in a good spot for moose, and had hopes another would appear while we were butchering. Sure enough, about daylight a fat young bull walked right into camp. Angela shot it. We stayed another day to clean and care for the meat of that animal.

  Edwin was right about the meat of that big moose. I hung it twenty feet or more above ground where flies usually won’t bother meat. At Christmas, when visitors came, we ran low on meat, so I knocked a hindquarter of the huge old moose down. Two of us had all we could do to haul the aged meat into the house. After Angela thawed and cooked it, I rated that old bull as the best moose meat I ever ate.

  The greatest abundance of moose in the Koyukuk occurred between 1945 and 1955. By then, moose had become our “livestock,” as important to the Koyukon people as cattle, sheep, and hogs are to residents of agricultural states. Traditions become established quickly, and within a decade and a half, it became traditional for many Koyukon families to make an early September moose hunt in the Koyukuk valley. It made a wonderful change in our lives to have fine moose meat to eat through the winter.

  In the middle and late 1950s, wolves, which like the moose had been absent from the Koyukuk valley, followed the moose into the Koyukuk. Because moose was the wolves’ main food, the wolves quickly increased, and as they did so, they killed more and more moose, and Koyukuk moose numbers began to dwindle.

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  KOYUKUK WOLVES

  A few years ago my son Gilbert, trapping on the Big Portage just below Coffee Can Lake along the lower Koyukuk River, caught a wolf in a trap. Gilbert had never seen a wolf in a trap.

  “It looked like a beautiful gray dog,” he told me. And because he didn’t want to kill a fine sled dog, he approached the animal to release it. He planned to put a rope around its neck, so he could handle it and examine the foot for injury. As Gilbert neared, the wolf lay down and made no attempt to bite, nor did it fight the trap. As Gilbert worked to open the trap, the wolf pulled as far from him as he could and turned his head away.

  “I could have petted him,” Gilbert said.

  Once released, the wolf stood up, looked at Gilbert (probably in amazement), and swiftly ran off. Only then did Gilbert realize that the animal was a wolf.

  Gilbert’s mistake is common; wolves do look like and to a degree behave like dogs, and many people unfamiliar with wolves and their habits think of the wolf and man’s best friend in the same terms.

  The wolf is Alaska’s most efficient predator. He lives by killing other animals. His senses of smell, hearing, and sight are acute. He is intelligent, and hunts cooperatively in small groups or occasionally in large packs. Koyukon hunters have great respect for the wolf, and consider only the bear and perhaps the wolverine to have greater spiritual power.

  Mature wolves weigh from 75 to 150 pounds. Black wolves are common and other colors include gray, white, and a brownish shade. Some wolves have a dark mask. Although wolves and dogs belong to the same family, wolves commonly kill and eat dogs that stray from camps or settlements; occasionally a dog chained near a cabin or at the edge of a village is killed by wolves. In the late 1970s, many Fairbanks residents became upset one winter when wolves killed many chained dogs at homes on the outskirts of that city. Once in a great while a female dog in heat may breed with a wild wolf.

  One quiet evening in the fall of 1939, while hunting moose, I sat on a log at Hog River, looking over a little clearing. It was the time for moose to come out to feed. Then, for the first time in my life, I heard a wolf howl.

  I turned toward the sound, listening. Again came the long, low, quavering howl. It had a nice tone. To some people, the howl of a wolf is spine-tingling or “chilling.” But I enjoy hearing it, for it is a natural sound in the wildlands of Alaska.

  When I was a boy, no wolves lived in the Koyukuk valley, or they were so few that we were unaware of them. We never heard one and we never saw a track. With none of their major prey—moose and caribou— living in the Koyukuk, they had no reason to be there. Throughout most of Alaska, besides moose and caribou, wolves also kill and eat Dall sheep and Sitka deer. Snowshoe hares are an important food in some years. In summer, moose and caribou calves are a common food.

  When moose became established in the Koyukuk in the late 1930s and then wolves arrived, as trappers we were pleased to be able to catch the animals for their valuable fur, although we quickly learned that wolves are smart and difficult to trap. At first, most of the furs were kept and used by Koyukon women in making winter clothing. Wolves continued to increase, for moose were abundant. An adult wolf eats six to seven pounds of meat each day, and a pack of ten wolves eats sixty to seventy pounds of meat daily. This is about fifty adult moose a year, or about 120 caribou. By the mid-1950s, wolves had increased enough to be a threat to the Koyukuk moose population.

  In 1972 Governor William A. Egan appointed me to the Alaska Board of Fish and Game. This board developed all hunting, fishing, and trapping regulations for the state, and established policies for fish and game. At our long meetings, we studied reams of scientific information on various populations of fish and game, heard reports from fisheries and game biologists, and held public hearings. When the board was split in 1975, Governor Jay Hammond appointed me to the Board of Game, where I served until early 1992. As a member of these boards, I learned much about wolves from scientists who provided us with basic biological information on Alaska’s wildlife.

  Millions of dollars have been spent on studies of Alaska’s wolves and their way of life.

  The availability of food—primarily moose, caribou, deer, sheep—is the primary determinant of wolf densities in Alaska. When these prey species are abundant and easily taken, wolves fare well and have larger litters, and more pups survive their first year.

  When food is scarce smaller litters are produced, and mortality of pups increases because of starvation and cannibalism. Under these conditions, fift
y to sixty percent of pups born each spring usually die within eight months.

  A number of studies in Alaska have shown that when the ratios of wolves to moose drop below about one wolf per twenty moose, the moose population is unlikely to maintain itself, and it will probably decline. In some cases moose have been entirely killed off from an area by wolves, at which time the wolves had nothing to eat and they themselves either starved, or left that area, leaving the land with no moose or wolves.

  Many people believe that wolves take only sick and misfit prey. Several Alaskan studies have shown that usually wolves take moose or caribou in almost exactly the same proportion as found in the prey population. A cow moose heavy with calf is the most valuable moose, from the standpoint of the moose population, yet such a cow is most vulnerable to wolves. Moose and caribou calves are especially vulnerable, and they too are valuable from the standpoint of the moose population.

  The Koyukons respect the wolf as an intelligent animal and an efficient killer of big game. Elders say that early Koyukon people viewed the wolf as powerful and important, and in the days before rifles they feared the animal. Until rifles, steel traps, and steel snares were available, it was not possible for the Koyukon people to take wolves in numbers. Rarely, wolves were killed with bow and arrow.

  Throughout Alaska, wolf skins are prized for making parkas, boots, and mittens. Among the Koyukon people, only men were supposed to wear wolfskin garments, but this tradition is not strictly observed today. The most important use of wolf fur is for a parka ruff. It is used in conjunction with wolverine fur; the wolverine fur lies immediately next to the face where the bulk of frost forms from the breath on cold days. Long, stiff wolf fur protects the face from wind, and the coarse hairs shed frost easily. A good wolf parka ruff can extend a foot or more beyond the wearer’s face.

  Wolves don’t attack humans, although I am aware of one wolf attack on a child. Many years ago in the Bettles-Wiseman area of the Upper Koyukuk, toddler David Tobuk was playing on a beach along the river. Suddenly a wolf ran out of the brush, grabbed him by the head with powerful jaws, and carried him off.

  A nearby Koyukon Indian named Napoleon, who saw the wolf steal the child, ran after the wolf with a rifle and shot it. I knew Napoleon, who told me the story.

  David Tobuk survived. He was captain of the Teddy H., trader Sam Dubin’s steamboat, which rescued us after our mother’s death. David carried a large scar on his face from the wolf attack. Occasionally the scar became raw, and it bothered him all his life. Photos of David I’ve seen always show him with his head turned to conceal the scar.

  Eskimos tell interesting stories about the wolf. A few years ago I hunted in the Kobuk Valley in Eskimo country and killed four caribou from a herd. While dressing them, I was careful to save the legs for the skin, which makes fine winter boots. Two Eskimos, both about my age, arrived while I was working on the caribou.

  “Sidney, you’re doing a good job, but you’re doing one thing wrong,” one said. I remained silent, knowing that these Eskimos were probably going to share a belief that they wanted me to observe.

  “You aren’t taking the hooves off. You should do that,” one suggested.

  “OK. I’ll do that,” I agreed.

  They showed me how to cut all the hooves off—a simple job. Then they put all sixteen hooves on a string. As I continued to work on the caribou, one of the Eskimos said, “This practice comes from an old story. We know the story is true, so we always cut the hooves off like that.”

  Then the Eskimos told me their story:

  A long time ago there were more caribou than now. Our people could kill caribou year-round. The animals never left. There were really too many caribou in the Kobuk valley. Soon wolves became thick, and they, like the caribou, were all over the place. Our people had no way of killing them except with bow and arrow. They managed this difficult feat once in a while. So many wolves roamed the area that the Eskimos’ lives were in danger, for the wolves were fearless.

  The wolves killed many caribou, and dead caribou lay everywhere. Day after day the wolves killed, and in about two years few caribou remained. Then the wolves started to kill and eat each other. Soon they were so hungry they started to attack the people. The Eskimos had no safe place to flee to, but old legends told them what to do.

  The legends told the Eskimos to go into their underground igloos, where they could keep fires going to keep warm. Since they couldn’t leave their igloos because of danger from wolves, they began to run low on food. They knew that if they stayed inside their igloos long enough, the wolves would kill each other off; then the people would be safe.

  Soon the Eskimos had nothing to eat, so they began boiling caribou hooves, which keep for a long time hanging in a cache. The hooves, of course, have some dried tendons and meat attached. They supply some nutritional needs. The hooves must be boiled and boiled before the broth is ready to drink.

  The Eskimos kept alive by boiling the caribou hooves and drinking the broth while they waited and watched. When the wolves no longer appeared, they ventured out of the igloos to resume life. They traveled to lakes and rivers to catch fish. By then the caribou were all gone, having been killed by wolves. The wolves were also all gone, for they had eaten one another or starved to death.

  This story fascinates me for several reasons. It may be based on a time when wolves with rabies attacked Eskimos, or when healthy but very hungry wolves attacked these people. This traditional story also parallels the findings of Alaska’s wildlife scientists—that wolves in Alaska can and do sometimes wipe out their prey and then starve or depart the area. This may be why there were no wolves or moose in the Koyukuk in the late 1800s and the first three decades of the 1900s. And the Eskimos’ story of wolves eating wolves is supported by findings of modern scientists; wolf cannibalism is a trait well known to wildlife scientists, as well as to the Koyukon people.

  In 1956, Donald Stickman, son of my Koyukon friend Joe Stick-man of Koyukuk Station, operated a small air charter service on the Lower Yukon. While flying above the Koyukuk River one day, Don saw twelve dead moose lying on a gravel bar, and landed to investigate. Wolves had killed the moose but they had eaten little meat. On some of the moose, only the tongues had been eaten. The wolves had ripped open the moose stomachs to eat the fat, kidneys, and livers. Most of the red meat of the moose was untouched, leaving it to go to waste.

  The moose had become the most important single source of meat for the Koyukon people. Don remembered the 1920s and early 1930s when moose were rare and people had to work hard for the fish and small game they needed for food. Moose in the Koyukuk made life easier.

  Don flew up and down the Koyukuk valley, searching for wolves, and he discovered more wolves lived there than anyone had imagined. He obtained a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and, with my brother Jimmy as gunner, started hunting them from the air. That winter they killed 149 wolves. At the same time, trappers from Huslia, Hughes, Allakaket, and Alatna made a special effort to catch more of the big predators.

  In the winter of 1957–58, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent reported finding more than 200 dead moose that he identified as wolf kills in the Koyukuk valley. Again Don Stickman and Jimmy hunted wolves from the air, and that season they killed another 150.

  That was enough to change the balance, and Don and Jimmy stopped hunting wolves. There were still wolves in the Koyukuk, and they are still present today. The wolves continue to kill moose, but wolf numbers had been reduced so that the moose herd was no longer threatened with decimation.

  During the 1950s, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which managed Alaska’s wildlife when Alaska was a territory, employed six or seven full-time predator control agents who ranged over Alaska killing wolves. To the federal government, wolves were undesirable vermin that threatened valuable moose, caribou, and other animals. These agents used strychnine baits, often dropping them from airplanes. This use of poison was repugnant to most Alaskans. The poison killed not jus
t wolves, but bears, birds, and other furbearers that ate it. The predator control agents also hunted wolves with airplanes as another way of attempting to reduce their numbers.

  When Alaska became a state in 1959 and management authority of fish and game was transferred from the federal government, Alaska halted statewide wolf control, banned the use of poison for any reason, dropped the bounty on wolves, and classified the wolf as both a furbearer and a big game animal. Aerial hunting for wolves as a sport was banned.

  Wolf management in Alaska is controversial. A very few Alaskans would like to see all wolves destroyed, while others strongly oppose killing wolves, for any reason. Most Alaskans feel that management of wolves, as for Alaska’s other wildlife, should be based on the sustained yield principle, allowing monitored harvest through trapping and hunting where wolf numbers justify it.

  I doubt the issue will ever be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

  On a July day in the mid-1980s, Angela and I and several of our older kids were at our fish camp on the Yukon River. One morning we saw some objects moving across the mile-wide river. At first we thought they were ducks, but with binoculars I made out seven wolves. We jumped into a boat and sped to the animals, circling them at a respectful distance. It was a pair of adults with five pups.

  Why they chose to swim across that wide river I’ll never know— they had left hilly country, which is good wolf habitat, to swim to a brushy flatland area.

  Enjoying the sight, we followed them from a distance. When they reached shore the pups were nearly exhausted. As they left the water, each animal shook itself, spraying water all directions. One had to lie down for a few moments to recover. All seven stood looking at us for a few moments, and then they turned and disappeared into the brush.