The Wisdom of Wolves

by Jim Dutcher

  Just after 4 a.m. we arrived on Nez Perce tribal lands to the site of the new wolf enclosure. Our headlights spooked a flock of wild turkeys, which flew off with a ruckus. Those turkeys are about to have a rude awakening, I thought. It was still dark, so we settled down to sleep in the vehicle and let the wolves rest until sunrise. The elevation was considerably lower at the new home. I could feel the thickness and humidity of the air, and I supposed the wolves could feel it too.

  After sunrise we carried the crates into the enclosure and lined them up side by side in a grassy meadow. We thought that it would comfort the adults to see the pups free and safe—it would give them something on which to focus besides the discomforts of travel and the strange new surroundings—and so we let the pups out first. Piyip, Ayet, and Motaki bounded out of the crate and into the grass. Still at the age of blissful ignorance, they were untroubled by the trip and eager to explore all the new sights and smells. And then they turned back to see where everybody else was.

  Kamots was the first adult to be released. For a moment he held his head low, tucked his tail, and looked around tentatively. It was a posture of uncertainty—I think the only other time I saw him carry himself this way was after his sister, the elder Motaki, had died. I could see just how stressful this was, even for him. Still, he went straight to the pups and inspected each one. They gathered around their father in a frenzy of licks and whines, overjoyed to see him again.

  We let Matsi out next. He enthusiastically greeted the pups and then lowered himself slightly and licked up toward Kamots. As quickly as we could, we released the others, Chemukh, Motomo, and Amani, Wahots and Wyakin. Each wolf went first to the pups and then to Kamots. It was similar to their customary morning greeting but with considerably more whining, licking, and reassurance. They obviously had a lot to talk about.

  We purposely let Lakota out last. If he had been able to greet the pups and Kamots before the others had a chance to, they might have used him as an outlet for their stress. We opened the door of Lakota’s crate, but he held back. The pack had begun to move around, sniffing the ground with growing curiosity, confident enough to begin exploring their new territory. Still Lakota did not emerge. Kamots must have noticed. He stopped his explorations, turned, and walked back to stand beside Lakota’s crate. The two whined back and forth for several seconds. At last Lakota, wide-eyed, poked his head out of the crate and took one tentative step forward. At that, Kamots stepped up and pressed his shoulder against his brother’s. Lakota lifted his head, and they walked into their new home side by side.

  Watching that scene, I could tell that Kamots would never leave his brother behind, no matter how stressful the situation was. He understood that the wary Lakota needed a little encouragement, and he knew how gently to coax him forward. It seemed fitting that, as Jamie and I prepared to say goodbye to the pack, they would make such a profound gesture of their devotion to one another.

  Later that afternoon we gathered in a field, a few hundred yards from the enclosure, where the Nez Perce Tribe conducted a small ceremony to welcome the wolves. Amid the sound of drumbeats and voices we began to hear a distant harmony rising up into the air. The wolves, responding to the music, had begun to howl. I remember looking at Jamie holding her boom microphone, recording audio of the event with tears streaming down her cheeks. The pack continued to howl after the human song ended, and everyone stood motionless and listened until the last sound drifted away.

  SEVERAL YEARS LATER, when we received word that Kamots had died, we were deeply saddened. The life of a wolf is so short, and he had meant so much to us. Kamots was the strong leader that the project needed, and I really believe that he was the one who held the project together through all its years. In Kamots we saw the power and wisdom that gave the other wolves confidence and security.

  Kamots taught me so much about the companionship and trust that wolves have for each other. He showed me that if one is lucky, a wolf may extend that honor to a human as well. Losing an animal friend like Kamots is doubly painful, for I can never know if he realized how much he meant to Jamie and me. Nor did he know that as we went on to tell his story, he and his packmates are known worldwide as wolf ambassadors, sharing their truth with everyone. This is our greatest consolation: that people are starting to understand wolves better and to know them as deeply emotional, caring, and family-oriented animals that deserve the chance to survive.

  For three weeks after Kamots’s death, a single wolf was heard howling alone in the night. Knowing them as we did, we figured it was probably his brother, Lakota, grieving the loss of his magnanimous brother and friend, and letting the world know.

  Motaki, the first omega

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE WOLF IN THE MIRROR

  JAMIE

  I MISS WINTER NIGHTS MOST OF ALL, especially during those happy years when the eight wolves we knew best had formed a cohesive pack—at those times when Jim and I were the only two human beings at wolf camp. We’d spend our days out in the deep snow and biting cold, Jim filming and me recording sound, following the pack and watching their lives unfold. The sun would dip behind Williams Peak just after two in the afternoon. When the light grew too poor for filming, we’d go into the yurt, shed our heavy coats and boots, light the woodstove, put a homemade pizza in to cook and open a bottle of wine that we dubbed “Chateau Yurt.” Then Jim and I would sit, talk about the behavior we had witnessed that day, and brainstorm scenes that we wanted to film in the days to come. At about 9 p.m. we’d head down the steps from the yurt platform to our sleeping tent. Jim would light hurricane lamps and a small woodstove, just enough to take the edge off the cold, and we’d snuggle into bed under a heap of down.

  Everything in our tent froze solid the moment the little woodstove went out. Sometimes I’d wake in the middle of the night, but I wouldn’t dare move lest I disrupt the warm cocoon of our bed. So I would just lie still and listen to the forest at night. In the ice-cold air every sound seemed amplified, and I could hear the wolves stirring quietly just outside.

  The pack kept its own schedule, but they often liked to bed down for a snooze at about the same time we did. We noticed that each wolf had its favorite sleeping spot. Just as dogs do, they turned a few circles before lying down. Repeating this action, night after night, each wolf would pack down a little hollow in the snow that we called a “sleep sink.” After a while they would customize their sinks with willow branches and even pieces of elk hide, which may have added a layer of insulation. Once in bed, they never slept for more than a couple of hours at a stretch.

  Sometimes, before going to sleep, I’d set up my microphone outside the tent and run the cables inside to the tape deck, which I’d have to keep in bed with us to prevent the batteries from dying in the cold. If the wolves awakened me during the night, all I had to do was push the record button, then I’d lie comfortably in bed and listen to their sounds through my headphones. I could hear the crunch of snow under their paws as they moved about, chewing on a leftover bone, conversing and playing just as they did during the day. They were completely unfazed by the darkness, and they didn’t seem to mind the brutal cold one bit. On special occasions of their choosing, their howls would pierce the night.

  Wahots slept as close to our tent as he possibly could. During the day he was somewhat aloof, but at night he liked to be near us. Perhaps the glow of our lamps and the muffled sound of our conversation were a comfort to him, reminding him of the days when we cared for him as a newborn pup. With only chain-link and thin canvas between him and us, we could hear his breathing just a few feet away. When he was inspired to howl in the middle of the night, he could launch us right out of bed.

  Kamots slept farthest from us, and I believe that was by design. As alpha, he was the pack’s guardian and protector, always ready to face danger. He seemed to understand that our camp was a safe place, so he stationed himself at a far outpost where he could keep eyes and ears on
the rest of his territory. When he would howl, the sound would float in with a spooky echo coming off the mountains.

  Wolves howl for more reasons than we will ever know, but after years in their company I began to detect nuances in their delivery and understand their basic meanings. Sometimes only Kamots and one or two others would howl into the night, seemingly in response to a far-off sound too faint for me to hear—perhaps a distant coyote or the rustle of an elk in the forest. In this way, I could feel the tension hanging in the silence as they listened for a reaction. Sometimes I thought they might be checking to see if other wolves were out there.

  At other times their night howls sounded more like their energetic daytime howls—the ones that signaled a pack rally. As unperturbed by the cold and darkness as they were, I could tell they were indeed gathering for a rally or a spirited round of play. I could hear the galloping of paws as they ran toward each other, followed by cheerful snarling, yipping, and Chewbacca sounds that always accompanied their good times.

  By far my favorite of their nocturnal vocalizations was what I thought of as “check-in howls,” because it really seemed like they were checking in with one another in the darkness. In what sounded like a friendly conversation, one wolf would howl, then pause, and another would reply, and sometimes a third would chime in. I imagined they were saying something like:

  “Are you there?”

  “I’m here. I’m fine.”

  “I’m fine over here too.”

  The final note would end and then echo back from the mountains and fade away. I would hear Wahots shift restlessly and let out a deep sigh as he lay back down. Then everything would be silent again.

  Daytime always centered on work. Our first priority was capitalizing on the best light of morning and evening for filming. We filled the rest of the daylight hours with repairing equipment, chopping wood, shoveling the all-important path to the outhouse, or doing any of the hundred other chores that had to be done. But at night all that fell away. It was a time just to be still. At night I could reflect on the incredible reality in which I found myself—snuggled and warm, next to my partner in creativity and in life, in the most stunning wilderness in North America, surrounded by a pack of wolves that knew me and trusted me.

  That trust and that intimacy with another being were the greatest gifts that Lakota, Kamots, Chemukh, and their family gave to Jim and me. In the years we lived with the Sawtooth Pack, we experienced flashes of discovery and occasional moments of great drama, but these are not what I remember most. What resonates far stronger in my memory is the privilege of being among them and sharing day-to-day moments of simple beauty: the gestures of compassion, the acts of humor and curiosity, and the displays of unbreakable pack bonds. I came to know every wolf in that pack as an individual with a personality as unique as any human’s, yet each individual expressed devotion to the others with an openness and a sincerity that are, I think, beyond most humans.

  RECENTLY I WAS RUNNING ERRANDS near our home and had NPR on, as I usually do, half paying attention to the stories and half wrapped up in my own thoughts, when an interview hooked my interest. Terry Gross was talking to Kenneth Lonergan, director of the film Manchester by the Sea, on the subject of grief. Lonergan was explaining something he had read about overcoming loss, and he made the distinction between two ways of facing the future: “moving on” and “moving forward.” To move on is to push the past away, forget grief, ignore the lessons, and put everything behind you. To move forward is to hold on to some of the sorrow and pain, but in doing so to honor the memory of what you’ve lost and the wisdom that came from the experience. That’s a harder, more rewarding path to take. I guess I would say moving on is cutting off the past while moving forward is allowing it to change you.

  Though it has been years since our project ended, when I heard this interview my mind immediately went back to wolves. I’ve heard some people speculate that wolves live in the “eternal now,” that they are unburdened by past and future, forever existing in the purity of the moment. Having lived with them, I’m not convinced. Of course I’m certain that wolves are far more grounded in the here and now than we are. It’s a struggle for me to stay in the present, when every sight and sound sparks a million mental connections firing in every direction. I suspect wolves are not plagued by the endless mental chatter that clouds our human minds, but I think it’s an oversimplification to think that wolves don’t remember their past or ponder their possible future.

  We’ve learned from watching them that wolves are curious and inquisitive and prone to exploration. What would have impelled a wolf to make a journey of hundreds of miles if not his own imagination conjuring images of new places and new experiences? From our friends, we’ve heard heartwarming reports of a young male wolf exuberantly dragging a bison skull over a mile to deliver it to his younger siblings. What could have driven this seemingly pointless endeavor other than his own expectation of the joyful reception his gift would elicit? We have also watched the Sawtooth Pack stand in silent mourning in the spot where, months earlier, their beloved packmate was killed. What could have been running through their minds other than memories of their lost friend and the grief of knowing she was gone?

  I find myself believing that wolves do not live in the eternal now, nor do they blindly move on and forget past experiences. Wolves move forward. In fact, they may do so better than many of us can. Think of all we have done to wolves over the centuries, and all the suffering we have inflicted upon them. We have shot them and caught them in painful traps by the thousands. We have killed parents in front of their children and ripped families apart. As a result, wolves have changed. Where once they strode confidently over open plains, they now live in the shadows. They have adapted to living as fugitives in a world dominated by unfriendly human beings.

  I believe wolves hold on to memories of grief and fear and carry them as they move forward. Perhaps they carry older, more pleasant memories too—memories of past times of camaraderie when wolves and humans were equal on this Earth. Even today, if you see a wolf in the wild, you can rest assured he knows you’re there and he’s letting you see him. Wolves are still curious, still playful and compassionate. Occasionally they still reach out to us. After all we’ve done, we have not broken them. In the long, tangled relationship between our two species, perhaps we are the ones that have failed to move forward, opting instead to simply move on. We have forgotten our past kinship and have slammed the door on these ancient memories.

  In the closing paragraphs of one of the greatest books ever written on wolves, Never Cry Wolf, Farley Mowat writes: “We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be—the mythologized epitome of a savage ruthless killer—which is, in reality, no more than a reflected image of ourself.”

  What strikes me most deeply in this passage is the word “deliberately,” for without a doubt our vilification of the wolf has been deliberate and methodical. Our ability to kill wolves with the dispassion that we do requires willful ignorance, given the intelligent, family-oriented creatures they have revealed themselves to be. Over centuries we have wrapped them in a complex mythology woven of medieval fears and superstitions. Wolves may indeed be killers, but then again so are we, and we are much more ruthless, efficient, and prolific at it.

  If wolves were half as terrible as we make them out to be, they wouldn’t have been so easy to eradicate. A primer on wolf trapping from 1909 includes a quote from a hunter that attests, “I never hesitate in entering a wolf den, even when I know the mother wolf is with her young, and have never known one to act vicious, but always sneaking and cowardly.” The book goes on to instruct readers on how to use “strong fishhooks” to drag pups out of their dens. In the face of such brutality, adult wolves responded only with passivity and fear, and perhaps despair at being unable to protect their pups from such a powerful foe. Yet we continue to call them savage. Farley Mowat was right
; some of what we hate about wolves is nothing more than our own reflection.

  Wolves have never stopped showing us who they really are. Beneath the suspicion and mistrust that we heap on them, they really do offer a reflection of ourselves, as Mowat wrote, and it is far brighter than the one we’ve grown accustomed to seeing. To my eyes, wolves are virtual superheroes, embodying so many of the qualities we admire in the best of our kind. As athletes, they are unparalleled, able to pull down animals more than four times their size with nothing but their legs and their jaws. As team players they excel at cooperation, reading each other’s actions and thinking as one. They look after their youngest and oldest with limitless patience, care, and devotion. Almost every day in a wolf’s life requires some kind of heroism, some act worthy of our admiration. I suppose when we lived more like they lived, we were heroic too. Perhaps we resent them for retaining some of the virtues we’ve lost.

  Our last film, Living with Wolves, aired in 2005, just as films like ours were falling out of favor with the major networks, replaced by so-called reality programs that were cheaper in every sense of the word. The reality-style competition shows that emerged during that era spawned a phrase uttered with such frequency that it became a cliché: “I’m not here to make friends.” In the world of reality television, compassion is a liability. Might is passed off as strength, and selfishness masquerades as clear-eyed realism. Meanwhile, we seem to mistake gentleness for weakness. It has been said that a society can be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable. Maybe we’re conflicted about wolves because we’re so conflicted about ourselves.