3 Among the Wolves (30 page)

A dedicated loner from Cambridge Bay farther east on the northern coast, John had no family ties in Inuvik. He had traveled north after leaving his job in Whitehorse and fell in love with the wide-open space of the delta. He passionately traversed the frozen waterways, forests, and willow thickets on his snowmobile looking for wolves, and in the process developed an intricate knowledge of the territory.

Four years ago he had camped close to our present tent site to wait out a brief snowstorm and discovered wolves living in the shelter of the nearby trees. They stayed for several days before heading across the delta to hunt. He followed at a discreet distance to avoid spooking them. After losing sight of them several times over hills and in trees, he caught up just as they chased down an aging caribou. They gorged themselves, then slept curled up in the snow. After another three days of hunting, much to John's surprise, they returned to where he had first seen them and stayed for three days. He camped a half mile away and kept watch with binoculars from a rise in the tundra.

Led by an alpha male and female, the family repeated the cycle throughout the winter. With spring's first signs of thaw, they disappeared into the hills south of Inuvik, where John suspected they denned, ready for the new season's pups. Although he searched, he never found their den. They repeated the same hunting and resting cycle each winter. Their numbers remained between six and ten, with some young adults dispersing.

Once John watched a fight between a midpack wolf and a stranger, a large dark gray animal. The fight to the death was won by the strange wolf, who continued to live on the fringes of the pack for several weeks. Eventually he challenged the leader. After a brief fight the leader ran for his life. That night, mournful howling filled the air from a distance. The alpha female left
immediately, presumably to join her mate. Then the howling stopped, and John never saw either wolf again.

The stranger took over the position of alpha and bonded with a midpack female, who became the alpha female. John described him as dark, young, powerful, and extremely dominant. He was still the alpha in late January, when John had last visited the area.

One thing in John's notes puzzled us: The alpha leader he described was nowhere in sight. Leadership had changed. The alpha we now faced was lighter colored, looked laid-back, and appeared to rule with serene control. Rather than having lost a leadership fight, we speculated, the alpha John had seen had probably died from injury or disease. Perhaps this new alpha had been the family's beta wolf and had automatically stepped up in rank when his leader died. The present alpha—Mackenzie, as we chose to call him—was far less assertive than Alpha of the summer pack. He reminded us of lovable, calm Beta, who taught the pups and disciplined the teenagers with the same gentleness we saw in Mackenzie.

We were sure that Charlie had confirmed his dominance over Mackenzie when we saw him turn his back on his visitor and enter the tent to abruptly conclude the visit. His actions demonstrated that he had a stronger personality than Mackenzie, whose manner was reflected in the behavior of his family. In our first encounter with the summer pack the entire group had stepped boldly forward, their posturing demanding a reason for our presence. But the delta group had stayed back, allowing Mackenzie to do all the investigating. When we first met the delta family, Charlie had no need for lengthy bouts of posturing and submission, a striking contrast to our initial rendezvous with the summer wolves.

Now that a positive relationship had been established, the wolves occasionally appeared at the edge of the trees and watched us. Haughty Charlie occasionally afforded them an indifferent glance; he seemed to make a point of showing them that he would communicate only on his terms.

At the end of the first day's contact, as darkness fell and a chill wind sent icy fingers down our parkas, we ate dinner and retreated to the warmth of our sleeping bags. We were thrilled about the day's events. A successful connection with a third wild wolf pack, in addition to the summer family and the sea ice pack, was beyond anything we could have wished for. We owed a great debt to John, who, once he understood that we would never harm the wolves, unselfishly shared the vital information that helped us find this delta pack. We eagerly looked forward to when he would visit us on the delta, as he had promised.

That night Charlie awakened us around midnight. We strained to hear what had roused him. Soft, careful footsteps crunched in the snow outside, accompanied by loud, inquisitive sniffs at the base of the tent walls. The wolves were inspecting our shelter.

Charlie sent a low
woof
into the night. In response came a barely audible whine, followed by more sniffing, louder whines, and several whimpers. Charlie continued with gentle
woof
s. The sounds were not those of begging or injured animals, but the language of communication at close quarters in the wild—perhaps even of submission. Could Charlie's dominance have won him such respect from these wolves so soon, even as their curiosity drove them to inspect the tent? We sat tense, still as stone, our ears tuned to the slightest sound, not sure what to expect.

Charlie made no attempt to go outside and, as usual, appeared in complete command of the situation. The wolves had crossed Charlie's well-marked perimeter, but he didn't behave defensively. He appeared to feel no need to prove his position of dominance with this family. In contrast, when the summer wolves had trespassed, he had angrily sent them packing to reinforce his reign over his own territory. Anything less would have shown weakness and decreased his neighbors' respect for him.

Mackenzie and his family eventually departed—satisfied with their findings, we hoped. It was early morning before we finally stopped talking about the delta wolves. Encouraged by Charlie's positive relationship with the delta wolves, we decided to establish Wolf Camp Two here and stay for about one month, until early spring. The pack's apparent calm gave us hope that the family would keep to the cycle John had described. If they showed signs of spooking, we would move our campsite farther away.

When we awoke, the only signs of the wolves were their enormous prints in the soft snow surrounding our tent. Late on the fourth day after their disappearance, we heard a distant howl from across the forest. Charlie, clipped to his leash to prevent him from dashing off to join the wolves, immediately replied. Fifteen minutes later another howl, much closer to our camp, elicited a second reply from Charlie. Soon the same six wolves stood at the edge of the forest, staring at us.

This pack of six was the smallest of the three families we had encountered. The summer pack had had eight members and the sea ice family, eleven. As we had done in the summer, to aid identification we chose names for the six. Mackenzie was named after the river that flowed through the delta.

A medium-size blond female and close companion of Mackenzie was intensely jealous of any female who dared approach her “man.” She snarled and snapped a warning and drew blood one day when she chased another female and nipped her rump. The younger wolf immediately flipped onto her back in a submissive apology. The aggressor was the alpha female. We named her Willow.

Wolves become sexually mature at two years of age and breed from late January to mid-March. The more northerly wolves in colder climates mate later than their southern relatives, so that pups are born in warmer weather. As we approached the end of February in the breeding season, Willow protected her breeding rights with the alpha male by preventing any other female from having close contact with him. Mackenzie, in turn, discouraged the other males from any close association with his breeding partner.

Although the protective behavior produced more conflict than we had observed during our time with the summer pack, we never saw any fights or seriously aggressive acts. A simple rebuff appeared all that was necessary to maintain breeding rights and family harmony.

There were two other adults, both midpack animals. The female, who was almost white, we named Spruce. Her coat had an ungroomed appearance, mostly because its white color showed every bit of dirt. Her ruff was shaggy. She was a playful wolf who often cavorted through the trees carrying a stick and teasing another into trying to take it away. If successful in finding a playmate she would race away, weaving through the trees, kicking up snow at her heels, daring her pursuer to catch up.

We named the male Birch. He was gray with black streaks and a crooked tail, which we guessed had been injured in a hunting accident. He was a serious fellow, but often played with Spruce. Although not as quick at turning, he made up for his slower speed by intelligently cutting corners and ambushing Spruce from behind a tree. When the group set out on a hunt, Birch usually followed immediately behind Mackenzie, as if he were the second in command on hunts.

The two other wolves were younger. They were probably that year's pups, now almost grown but lacking the mature, well-rounded appearance of an adult. Richard, a male we named after Richards Island on the coast, was a well-proportioned animal with a gray coat and an unusual blond ruff. His stare, although not threatening, was intense. One day he would become an alpha.

His sister, Kendall—whom we named for the Kendall Island Bird Sanctuary, north of our position—was less intense than her brother. She seemed almost scattered when she played tag among the trees. Sometimes she stopped to peer around with a “Where did they go?” look. Then, seeing her quarry, she would race toward it full speed with long, bounding strides. Her lithe body destined her to become a speedy hunter.

After three days of resting and playing, the family disappeared during the night after hearing a bull moose trumpet in the distance. The only other sounds were the quiet whispers of a light breeze in the soft moonlight. Two days later the pack returned during a snowstorm, all with full bellies from successful hunts. They dug down into the snow and each curled up in a hollow, allowing the new snow to cover them for warmth.

Beneath their snowy mounds the wolves slept. Hours later, the snow stopped and the sun struggled through gray clouds. Mackenzie rose and stretched, shrugging the snow from his body, then sat on his haunches and yipped his family awake. They uncurled, breaking the layer of caked snow that covered them. One by one they rose to shake themselves free. Cavernous
mouths agape, they yawned sleep away. Mackenzie and Willow greeted each other with soft muzzle caresses; then, together, they strolled closer to Charlie's boundary to peer at him sitting outside the tent, watching them. Spruce tried to initiate a game of chase, but the others were too lazy to respond, instead wandering into the trees to continue an idle day.

Mackenzie was the only one to approach our tent during the next several days. He gave Bill and me sporadic glances of appraisal, but it was clearly Charlie who fascinated him.

A steady cycle of hunting for a few days and returning to rest for one to three days continued. There must have been an abundant supply of large prey in the region to allow such a timetable, we reasoned. We had seen numerous groups of caribou and several moose on the delta.

Alone in camp one day, we heard the faint sound of a snowmobile. We hoped it was John, whom we had been expecting, and not hunters. Just in case, we implemented a plan we had discussed with him before we left Inuvik. As soon as the sound reached us, we clipped on skis and headed away from camp to intersect the snowmobile. If the visitors were hunters, we would tell them a story about “the wolves we saw yesterday going that way.” Of course, “that way” would be in the opposite direction from where the delta wolf family rendezvoused.

Through binoculars we watched a black snowmobile disappear into a stand of spruce and a single figure begin walking toward us on snowshoes. It was John. We met up a quarter mile away. A man of few words, his greeting was short and to the point: “Hello, are the wolves there?”

After hearing a brief account of our adventures and of Charlie's success with the family, his eyes crinkled into slits as a wide smile spread across his weathered face. “Good news.”

We continued on to our camp where John, who agreed to stay a few days, pitched his tiny green one-person tent beside ours. From his large, worn pack he took a sleeping bag with
two rolled-up caribou skins lashed to the outside, and arranged them in the tent: one skin went under his sleeping bag, and the other was spread on top. John wasn't at all impressed with our foam sleeping pads. “
Kabloona
stuff is okay, but caribou skins are warmer.” We made another trip back to his hidden snowmobile to carry his food to camp.

The next day the wolves returned. John, who had spent most of the morning sitting on a sled patiently waiting, didn't move. His body was relaxed, but his eyes sparkled as the wolves appeared at the edge of the trees. They immediately noticed him. Their heads went up; their ears pointed forward. In minutes they relaxed. He remained sitting perfectly still for another hour. Then, quite casually, he rose and said, “They know me.”