Three Among the Wolves: A Couple and Their Dog Live a Year With Wolves in the Wild

by Helen Thayer

  Now, after eight weeks of searching and disappointments, we had found a den. The mountains and ridges surrounding this remote valley of open tundra would provide good views of the wolves as they carried out their daily routines and traveled back and forth from their hunts. And Charlie’s successful conversation with the wolves was a hopeful sign that they would allow us to camp near their den next summer.

  That night we jubilantly celebrated our success and Charlie’s first wolf contact. We broke out the macaroni and cheese and opened a bottle of apple cider we had brought for just this occasion. As we raised our camp mugs under the sun-filled summer night sky, Bill exclaimed, “A toast to the wolves and Charlie!”

  Trekking across the tundra and into the mountains with Charlie, who I hope will facilitate our contact with the wolves.

  Summer

  Approach

  IN APRIL, nine months after our reconnaissance trip, Bill, Charlie, and I returned to the northern Yukon to begin our adventure among the wolves. First, though, we needed to buy a few final food provisions to add to the six months of food, gear, and stove fuel we had already stockpiled. We’d have the help of Margaret Leyland, an energetic New Zealand outdoorswoman whom we’d chosen to be in charge of our resupplies because of her gift for handling the logistical details of an expedition.

  All four of us, and our packs and gear, squeezed into Margaret’s pickup truck for the drive from our home near Seattle to Dawson City, a town located on the far western edge of the Yukon and made legendary during the Klondike gold rush days. The 2,000-mile journey took a mere four days, in contrast to the many weeks it required of the prospectors.

  When we piled out of the truck in Dawson City, were it not for the many tourists snapping photos, we almost thought we’d stepped back in time. The rickety grocery store where we bought a few last necessities had uneven wooden floors, and many other buildings seemed to have jumped right out of a history book, from Diamond Tooth Gertie’s Gambling Hall to the Red Feather Saloon.

  Now a town of just a thousand people, Dawson City enjoyed its heyday back in the 1890s, after three crusty Alaskans, George Carmack, Tagish Charley, and Skookum Jim, stumbled across dime-size gold nuggets in the bottom of a remote stream. Others had passed over the wild area in favor of more inviting places, never dreaming of the riches in that shallow water. News of the find spread rapidly to the outside world, and soon thousands of men and women began one of the biggest stampedes in history.

  To get to the goldfields, prospectors traveled over treacherous mountain passes, enduring subzero temperatures and blizzards. They hauled their supplies by hand or by horses, some even using dogs or cattle. After surviving the land portion of the journey, many gold seekers met their death on the churning white-water stretches of the Yukon River. At the height of the gold rush, the population of Dawson City, a trading post built on a mud flat at the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon Rivers, mushroomed to more than 20,000.

  By 1900 the rush was over. A few fortunate men went home rich, but most, due to poor luck, gambling, and other hardships, returned without the wealth they had sought. Now all that remains is a picturesque ghost town: potholed streets, weathered buildings, unsightly piles of rocks left by the gold-mining dredges. Robert Service, the famous poet, once lived in a rustic cabin on the hill at the back of town. Here he wrote some of his best poetry, such as “The Shooting of Dan Magrew.”

  As the snow melted in the early spring thaw, we hurried around town gathering the last of our supplies, dodging raindrops and jumping across rapidly expanding mud puddles. We hoped to leave before dark, but Dawson City is not a place where you rush anything. After the first few curious stares, we slowed our pace to become less conspicuous.

  By late afternoon we still had not completed our to-do list, so we took a room at a bed-and-breakfast for the night, after receiving assurance that Charlie was welcome. The floors creaked with every step, and the furniture was worn from many years of visitors. But Charlie immediately jumped onto the bed and lay back in complete comfort. When we spread a sleeping bag on the floor, he eyed it ruefully; only after considerable urging from Bill did he consent to leave the bed and sleep on the bag.

  The next day we completed our shopping in clear weather. Tourists stopped to pat Charlie and tell him what a fine fellow he was. He relished the attention.

  At last our seventy-pound packs were crammed full of gear and supplies, including Charlie’s favorite kibble. Over the previous two months Margaret had amassed enough reserves to keep us provisioned during what we hoped would be a six-month stay at the wolf den. With the truck loaded, we were finally poised to begin our adventure.

  We were about to enter a world where spring and summer plant growth accelerates unbelievably. As the summer solstice approaches, the sun stays above the horizon twenty-four hours a day, bathing the tundra in continuous light for several weeks. Flowers, sedges, and mosses grow with a frantic vigor to take advantage of the long days, which all too soon are replaced by darkness and cold. Ahead of us lay a wilderness, natural and free from humans, without the bustle of regulated national parks or the trappings of interpretive centers. Animals rule as they have for hundreds of millennia. The greens, browns, reds, and yellows of plants and trees blend with the stark gray mountains as if swept by a giant stroke of a heavenly artist’s brush.

  Under sunny skies we traveled the Dempster Highway across the Yukon Territory, as we had done on our reconnaissance journey the year before. This potholed, tire-eating “highway,” which was completed in 1979 to exploit the oil reserves of the far north, winds through subarctic wilderness and ends in the modern town of Inuvik, about 475 miles northeast of Dawson City. Apart from scattered basic campgrounds and a few native communities, there are few vestiges of human presence along the road’s length.

  Our first stop was Eagle Plains, 254 miles from Dawson City and only five miles as the crow flies from the Arctic Circle. The settlement, built on a plateau more than a thousand feet high, has 360-degree views. The town takes its name from the nearby river and consists of a hotel, a few small buildings, some fuel tanks, and a gas station that does a brisk business repairing flat tires and selling new ones to replace those shredded by the sharp shale that covers most of the highway.

  After Eagle Plains, the road stretched for miles northeast across the treeless tundra to the distant gray slopes and smooth summits of the Richardson Mountains. The wide-open tundra was breathtaking in its expanse. Its magnitude reduced living things to mere specks. To some this seemingly empty place would hold no interest, but to me it radiated a wild pulse. In these enormous reaches I felt a new excitement as I took in the stark beauty of a land that for centuries had remained unchanged and had no boundaries. A sense of well-being coursed through my body. At that moment I understood why wild animals must remain wild. These are the places where wolves belong.

  After descending the plateau, we drove north across the Arctic Circle, positioned at 66 degrees, 30 minutes north latitude. Here on the summer solstice the sun does not set, while on the winter solstice it does not rise.

  The vast tundra stretches before us.

  We then lost more elevation as we crossed the tundra toward the summits and ridges of the Richardson Mountains. They were named after Sir John Richardson, the scientist on Sir John Franklin’s expedition of 1819, which set out from England to discover the Northwest Passage.

  Approximately ninety miles and one blown-out tire after Eagle Plains, we stopped at a wide, lonely spot, unloaded our packs, and said a cheery “Good-bye, see you later” to Margaret. She headed off, driving north to Fort McPherson, where she would stay in a rented cabin until we were ready to leave the wolf den in October.

  Bill and I were eagerly anticipating spending a long summer in the immense solitude of the wilderness, which was even more magnificent than we’d remembered. Great bare summits reached skyward all about us, with rivers and streams cascading down their rocky faces. Liberated from the world we had left behind, we were free
to follow our dreams. Charlie tugged at his leash to urge us on, and Bill enthusiastically punched his fist skyward. We were off!

  We set out on a different route from the one we had traveled during our reconnaissance trek; the nine-day hike would allow for a direct but still cautious approach to the den site. Happily, despite our relatively diminutive frames—Bill’s five feet five inches and my five feet two—we easily managed carrying our heavy packs over the rugged, often steep mountain terrain day after day. At sixty-nine and fifty-eight, respectively, Bill and I kept ourselves in excellent physical condition through extensive weight training in our home gymnasium, a dedicated running program, and hundreds of miles of challenging mountain hikes. And now, every breath of mountain-scented air made the weight of my pack feel even lighter.

  Our journey began with Bill taking Charlie’s sturdy but lightweight nylon hiking leash and leading the way. After several stops to make sure I was following close behind, Charlie let us know that he wanted me to take his leash, at least for now. Although he was also bonded to Bill, many times when we hiked in unfamiliar territory Charlie would signal that he wanted me to take his leash, until he was sure of where we were and what was expected of him. “Charlie’s telling me he needs his mother,” Bill would laugh on such occasions.

  With Charlie in the lead we trekked over a five-hundred-foot pass, then followed a shallow stream into the shadows. Misshapen spruce, ancient dwarf willow, and barely visible cotton grass covered the snow-dappled valley floor. As the late-afternoon sun dropped beyond the mountains, the way ahead led through tall willow thickets, sparse taiga forest, and melting snow. It took little to persuade us to make camp in the shadows of the trees and tackle the tangled brush the next morning.

  Birds chirping from the nearby forest canopy awoke us just as dawn’s soft light arrived. Charlie stretched and yawned. He had slept well—not surprising considering that he had taken up a large portion of my bed for most of the night. Around midnight, I had felt his generous frame overflow across my bag, giving me only half the length I needed. Too groggy to argue, I had turned over, shifting into the shape of a pretzel to accommodate him. But I made a mental note that things would have to change.

  Now, though, a refreshed Charlie was ready for breakfast. I slowly unwound my body and adjusted the kink in my back. “Charlie, you have to stay on your own pad from now on,” I said irritably. “My back is killing me.”

  Bill, still snuggled deep in his bag, laughed. “You might as well save your breath. He’s not going to move, and you’re never going to make him move.”

  “Well, you tell him to move.”

  “Never,” came the muffled reply. Charlie had won again.

  It was my turn to get breakfast for the team. With my hand on the tent zipper, ready to make as graceful an exit as my aching back would allow, I suddenly froze as a rustling sound came from the direction of the spruce trees. Charlie growled. Moments later, a nearby metallic crash shattered the peace of the early-morning forest. Charlie’s warning grew louder as he snarled, straining at the end of his sturdy leash, trying to get through the door to what we guessed was a bear rummaging through our camp. The animal was attacking our cooking gear with gusto. By the sounds of the racket, he was dramatically shortening the useful life of our pots and pans.

  Bill, who had sat up in bed at Charlie’s first warning, now had his shotgun in hand. Cautiously he unzipped the main tent door while I opened the back. I looked out and immediately retreated in horror. I was inches from the brown, furry side of a large, angry grizzly.

  Without seeing me, he bounded around to the front of the tent. With the barrel barely clearing the doorway, Bill fired a shot into the air. The earsplitting boom at first had no effect, but after another deafening warning blast, the bear loped a few yards into the taiga forest. Then he turned to face us, defiantly rising high on his rear legs to get a better view. After a short pause, he dropped to all fours and lumbered away.

  With Charlie at our side, we clambered out of the tent and stood listening for the possible return of our uninvited guest. Every sound was magnified in the heavy silence. Charlie never took his eyes away from the direction in which the bear had headed. Staring into the dim forest light, we could imagine the bear watching us. But as the first warming rays of sunlight peeked over the ridge, we saw no more sign of him.

  Our food cache, which we had strung high in a neighboring tree, was still intact. We gathered our stove and pots and pans. Apart from a few dents, everything was still usable. We chose to eat a cold breakfast instead of cooking, to avoid producing mouthwatering odors a passing bear couldn’t resist. Charlie gobbled his kibble, still edgy, which made us wonder just how far the bear had gone. At one point he looked up from his breakfast with a quiet growl, searching the woods as though his keen ears had picked up a sound beyond our hearing. Several minutes later he resumed eating, apparently satisfied that no danger lurked in the shadows.

  As the sun climbed higher, spreading its long fingers of golden light across mountaintops still blanketed in snow, we loaded our packs and heaved them onto our backs. The bear episode inspired us to leave early.

  Bill led the way while Charlie and I followed. Dogs and grizzlies by reputation do not get along. We kept Charlie on a short leash, although we knew he would welcome another grizzly appearance, another opportunity to protect us from harm and possibly get to chase a bear. He had warned me of polar bears on the ice cap, and now he was alert and ready to warn us as we traveled through grizzly country in the Yukon.

  Our first challenge that day was a dense willow thicket. Our packs tangled with the protruding branches, and our bootlaces straggled loose. Charlie fought his way through the dense undergrowth. As Bill trailblazed, he described the entire area in rather graphic terms while I mumbled something about our poor choice of route. Dew soaked our shirts and pants, adding to our misery. By the time we cleared the entanglement, we looked as though we had walked through a rainstorm. We were drenched and our tempers were frayed. Only Charlie was in good spirits. He shook the water from his thick black coat, showering our already dripping clothes.

  I pulled the clammy fabric of my shirt away from my body as I looked ahead, hoping to detect an open route. But all I could see was more willows. “This stuff is enough to make me wish I had never left home,” I grumbled.

  “It can’t get worse,” Bill said, adjusting his pack over his wet shirt. “Maybe after we clear this next mess of willows, it’ll get easier. If it doesn’t ease up soon, we’ll have to take to the ridges.”

  Charlie was the only one with the right attitude. With a gentle wave of his tail, he tossed his head back and gave a high-pitched bark. A sharp tug on his leash relayed the message that he was ready to travel whether we were or not. Rather than change into dry clothes, we decided to follow and allow the warm sun to dry us. Happily, our luck changed; as soon as we cleared the thicket and rounded a few spruce trees, we were greeted by the sight of open tundra.

  Even though we had to cross areas of soft snow, the footing was solid enough to allow faster hiking compared to our slow start. As we warmed up, our good humor gradually returned. It was lunchtime when we entered a thicket of untidy spruce that soon thinned to an orderly forest of twenty-foot-high trees. Bill noticed a low rocky knoll sheltered by a few shade trees, a perfect lunch spot. Gratefully, we lowered our packs from tired, sweaty shoulders.

  Charlie stretched out full length for his noon nap while we took out a bag of nuts and dried fruit. Two trees made excellent backrests for us, adding to our comfort. But just as we were congratulating ourselves on choosing such a fine site, the sharp crack of snapping twigs in the forest straight ahead interrupted our tranquility.

  In an instant, Charlie was awake and on his feet, staring in the direction of the sound. All at once, a playful young grizzly galloped out of the trees. The large form of another bear, probably his mother, remained in the shadows. The youngster, perhaps a year and a half old and only two hundred yards away, picked up a l
arge stick, chewed it, then tossed it in the air. Charlie, sensing there was no danger, sat on his haunches and watched quietly.

  We were downwind and shielded by trees. Not daring to move lest we attract the bears’ attention, we at first sat motionless. Then I slowly lifted my camera from its resting place at my side and discreetly photographed the young grizzly as he played. Meanwhile, just in case, Bill reached for his shotgun, which he carried lashed to his pack.

  As we watched, fascinated, the little bear found a larger stick and proceeded to strip the coarse brown bark from its surface until the wood disintegrated. Then he wandered into the stream and caught a small fish, but soon lost interest and dropped it. Splashing his way out onto the low streambank, he gave a gigantic shake and then rolled in the grass to dry, just as piglike grunts came from deep in the forest. The young bear paused, then loped obediently back to his mother, his healthy coat rippling across his shoulders as he moved. Mother and son vanished into the trees.

  Charlie stood, stretched, and lay down to finish his nap. Bill and I leaned against our two trees and began to breathe again, still incredulous that we had witnessed a grizzly bear at play. “The right place at the right time,” I said.