SBWC 2009 National Writing Contest
Nonfiction Honorable Mention
Jo Ann Barefoot of Westerville, OH
“Wolfhunt”
The wolves woke me.
Our wood stove had smoke-roasted the cabin’s air, and I sat up feeling sticky-hot and headachy. Shoving my bare feet into the fleece lining of my boots, I pulled on a parka and opened the door. The night pushed in, clean, black, bitingly cold — and filled with the songs of wolves.
The evening before, my husband Mike and I had left Ohio, drawing stares with our metal boxes of camera equipment, duffels of gear, and cold-weather bush clothing. This morning, we’d begun a four-day flight in two Piper Supercubs north from Anchorage, above the Arctic Circle, looking for wolves. Here at this frozen lake, we’d found them. I listened to their voices weaving together, threads of bright sound twining up and under and around each other in a brilliant, intricate fabric.
On such nights over the millennia, that sound has prickled people’s skin, seared their psyches, and led them to mythologize the wolf in legend, literature, and religion. Sometimes wolves are depraved devils, big and bad seducers of children taking treats to grandma. Sometimes, they are noble, the nurturers and saviors of people in need — think of Kipling’s Jungle Book, the wolf-mother of the infant founders of Rome, or countless Native American tales. It was these Indian stories that first sparked my interest years ago. I looked at a Zuni Pueblo fetish of the white wolf — guardian of the East, connected with sunrise, inspiration, learning, family life, and the inner voice — and I wondered. Why was this animal an emblem of evil in some cultures, and revered in others? I’d begun reading about wolves’ complex society and the odd fact that, in North America, there are no confirmed cases of wolves killing people.
I’d told Mike I’d like to see wild wolves, and he called our friend and sometime fly fishing guide, Chuck Wirschem at Alaska SkyTrekking. Chuck, an Anchorage bush pilot and retired teacher, said we could search by air if we followed strict rules against disturbing the packs. Also, we must go in winter to find tracks. Since winter safety requires two planes, Chuck enlisted dentist Jim “Hoppy” Harrower as second pilot. We all rendezvoused at Anchorage airport where our two red-and-white aircraft sat rigged with wooden skis — every lake and river would be a runway of ice.
The Cub is a two-seater plane. Actually, in our case, “two-seater” was a euphemism —these planes each had one seat, for the pilot. Mike and I contorted pretzel-style behind these, tucked under quilted orange tarpaulins, sitting on hard boxes, and leaning against gear in the tails. Our legs straddled the pilots’ seats and could move only inches the whole time we were in the air — twenty hours.
As we soared toward the Alaska Range, Chuck intercommed me to say the trip had excited local pilots’ hopes for a trend toward “non-consumptive users” — non-hunters — in winter. When I observed that many people fear small planes, he launched an animated defense of the Cub’s safety. “It’s so light,” he enthused, “that we could put it down right here on the tops of those trees.” I eyed the indicated landing spot as he added that when we switched fuel tanks, the engine might sputter and the propeller briefly stop — but, not to worry!
Chuck is a very reassuring fellow.
A storm was gathering over the Bering Sea, so we cut through Windy Pass where the little planes bucked wildly through the sky. We met Mt. McKinley face-to-face and then found a legal landing spot on the frozen McKinley River. The protocol has one plane land first, carving an oval in the snow and ending in its own ski tracks. This eases take-off, and also lets the second pilot watch for “overflow” water in the snow-trail. At a radioed thin-ice warning, the first plane simply lifts back up.
Today’s river lay solid under hip-deep snow that glittered blindingly in the brief mountain daylight. The pilots threw the orange blankets, now soaked in our rapidly depleting body heat, onto the noses of the Cubs and laid out a picnic on one plane’s tail. It was minus-five. I removed my glove to try some pilot bread (flat round wafers) and “the sustenance of the North” (peanut butter), finding my fingers wracked with pain in seconds. We learned to eat and drink hot Tang wearing mittens the size of a cat. We also learned that our boots, advertised by a major outfitter as warm to minus-40, were apparently meant to evoke romantic images of the Arctic but not actually to be worn there. Our feet were agonizingly cold. Chuck, meanwhile, spoke of a supposed “heater” in our Cub, as chocolate bars froze rock-hard in my pockets and my breath made ice-tangles in my hair, inside my parka hood.
Even from an airplane, animal tracks in Alaska’s snow are easy to see in sunshine, as winter sun hovers on the horizon and throws slanting light, outlining every mark. We learned to read the trails of caribou, arctic fox, hare, mountain sheep, martin. The double-dot print of the wolverine. The string-of-pearls left by the round-footed lynx. The sausage-link slide-trail of the otter. The porcupine’s footprints-in-groove. The lacey designs of the ptarmigan. And, the railroad track marks made by moose in deep snow — often accompanied by those of their primary predator.
The wolf pack travels single-file behind the alpha female who breaks the snow, leaving a trail one-footprint wide. Air-trackers must guess at direction and numbers, seeing where individuals have digressed to explore or play. We searched for kills, reddish smudges on the white river-roads, often circled by ravens. In the veins of an icy riverbed near Denali, the radio suddenly crackled and Chuck yelled, “Big dog!” There, trotting along the bank, was a wolf.
I’ve studied wolves. I know their many colors; their long, straight legs and big, splayed feet; their compact ears that conserve body heat; their facial features outlined in black to communicate; their cold-proof undercoats and nearly water-proof guard hair; their agility, endurance, speed, strength. I know all that, but still was not prepared for this sight. The wolf blended grace with a palpable, thrilling wildness that made my pulse quicken as the short Alaska daylight dimmed to dusk.
We headed for shelter and eventually spotted dog sleds speeding over frozen Lake Minchumina toward Denali West Lodge. Twenty years ago, Jack and Sherri Hayden settled on this lakeshore, where their son, now at college, shot the marauding bear whose pelt decorated the wall. Their ten-year-old daughter Katie greeted us while busily disciplining the lodge’s many dogs, especially a huge, fuzzy husky pup named Sweet Pea that often escaped to sanctuary under the wood-burning cook stove. We shared Sweet Pea’s affection for this stove, which kept the room hot enough to melt butter and tempted us to sleep in the snug loft above. Instead, though, we selected a cabin with private outhouse (Mike is still talking about minus-ten degree toilet seats) and communal “shower” — sauna with buckets of steaming water.
After dinner, Sweet Pea jumped in my lap to get comfortable for the evening’s entertainment. The lodge’s neighbors, twin sisters Julie and Miki Collins, work a Denali trap line. This night Miki was gone for two weeks checking traps, but Julie gave a slide presentation — how they hunt moose, gather berries by boat, garden prolifically in Alaska’s all-day summer light, haul water from the lake, travel by sled, guard their animals. A slide of a very large Icelandic pony in a very small airplane prompted a tale of attempted midair exit, through the windshield. The sisters have published a book, Riding the Wild Side of Denali (Epicenter Press, 1998) and sell crafts, including beaver mittens. (Beavers, I learned, know a thing or two about staying warm.)
Turning in as Julie’s dogsled departed over the frozen lake, we soon learned that our cabin stove had only two temperature settings — approximately zero, or over one hundred. We chose heat, and so periodically opened the door to welcome the frigid air and the songs of wolves.
At breakfast, we enjoyed Alaska’s staple sourdough hotcakes, garnished with the Haydens’ wolf stories. Jack speculated reasonably that there may be fatal wolf attacks for which, shall we say, a report is never made. In his experiences, though, the wolves have simply followed and fixed him with their famous stares.
Even Supercubs need a flat spot (or at least a reasonably large treetop) to land in. Since vast swaths of Alaska lack these, we headed to Manley for fuel and manna from heaven — hot tea. Then, northward, ice mountains, frozen rivers, until Chuck finally radioed that we were crossing the sixty-sixth parallel. The Arctic.
A kaleidoscope of earth and sky rolled through the frame between our wing struts. We crossed the Yukon River, envisioning raft-building gold rushers waiting feverishly for the thaw, hoping to survive the rapids at White Horse. We flew low over vast, backlit forests of translucent iced trees. We skimmed over razor-backed ridges, some with solo wolf prints running for miles along the knife-edge. We lunched near caribou in a beautiful, bleak ice bowl scooped out by a river, where we heard wolves howling but saw only walls of snow. At Bettles, we slept in a lodge huddled amidst eye-high snowbanks under the sky-fire of Northern Lights. There, we even found running hot water to thaw throbbing, blood-red toes.
We saw wildlife from lynx to wolverine to, of course, wolves. On the Chandalar River, we unlaced snowshoes from the wing struts and inspected a recent kill. No bloody snow. No bones. No hide. Just tufts of coppery moose hair.
Late the third day, as I sat behind Chuck trying to wiggle fingers and feet, he made me laugh by asking, “Did you pack swimsuits?” It was no joke. We landed at Circle Hot Springs, an ornate Victorian hotel where thermal springs feed an Olympic, outdoor pool. After choosing the room nearest the bathroom and settling in among antiques and satin and lace, we checked it out. Steam rose into the minus-20 air, blurring the mountain backdrop. Bathers’ hair stood high in frozen spikes. A man climbed out and hightailed it across the icy deck, whooping.
We headed for the saloon.
There, coincidentally, were Hoppy and Chuck, who spent the evening sharing fabulous (if sometimes improbable) tales of the Alaska bush.
One wolf remains etched in memory. At the trip’s northernmost point, Chuck radioed excitedly, “Here is a big dog, a big dog!” A huge wolf — back steel-gray, chest and legs soft-dove — crossed our path, racing through deep drifts on the river ice. Its legs stretched, each step spraying long plumes of snow that caught the sunlight. Raw power and beauty in a fluid dance, like notes of a melody.
Sometimes at night, I still hear it.
We flew home over mountains patterned in white and black and purple, all edged in flame as the sun poured down its sideways light. The Wrangells off our left wing, the Chugach Range below. We got boxed, once, in a notch too high to cross, but worked our way along to friendlier peaks. Eventually we were over the top and descending toward Anchorage, Cook Inlet sparkling on the horizon.
Anchorage airport. Sorting of gear. Deplaning chores. Retrieving bags. Affectionate goodbyes to Hoppy, who kept saying he’d had more fun than we did. When he dropped us off, Chuck said he and Hoppy hope we’ll return next year. We must, they say, fly to the Arctic Ocean, land on the ice pack — and find the polar bears.