Wolf Island

UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS, 2020
© 2020 BY GREG BREINING

We Didn’t Know
Flying low beneath a sky of leaden stratus clouds, we searched the snowy forest and frozen shoreline of Isle Royale, the 45-mile-long island national park in northern Lake Superior. The leaves were down, of course—it was early February 1960—and the aspen and birch sprouted like thin gray hairs above the snow. But for scattered stands of spruce and balsam and pockets of dense ce- dar in small wetlands, there weren’t many places a pack of sixteen wolves could hide.

We had spotted them yesterday on Lake Richie, one of many small interior lakes on the central part of the island. But today we had trouble finding them or picking up their tracks in the snow. Don Murray, my pilot, had even landed the small ski plane so I could follow the trail on foot. The tracks led north through dense cedar swamps. That explained why we couldn’t follow the trail from the air. Once I determined the wolves had headed west along the Greenstone Ridge, Don landed, picked me up, and we re- sumed our search.

We found the pack on Siskiwit Lake, strung out in a long line as they walked on the ice, heading toward the south shore. From what I had been able to tell on the ground and what we had been able to see from the air, they hadn’t killed a moose yesterday or last night. They were probably on the hunt for new prey.

Unfortunately, we were running low on gas. Don banked the Aeronca Champion and returned to Washington Harbor to refuel. In less than an hour, we were circling back over the wolves. They had climbed the ridge along the south shore of the lake into the woods, and when we finally spotted them, they were running toward a cow moose and two calves. A few wolves charged down off the ridge, as if to cut the moose off to the north. Two others ran toward the south.

The moose were racing along the steep ridge paralleling Wood Lake and dodged south through a burned-over area of aspen stub- ble toward a cedar swamp. The first two wolves were gaining rapidly and within a quarter mile from where the chase had begun had caught up to them, one wolf running on either side of the cow and her two calves.

The cow ran closely behind the slower calf. A couple of times she feinted toward the wolves, which, well aware of the power of her hooves, jumped out of the way. But each time, they quickly caught up. Most of the pack had closed the gap as well. The moose dove into a clump of cedar as four or five wolves tore at the rump and side of one calf and clung to it. Within 50 feet, the calf tumbled to the snow in a copse of cedars. The cow and other calf kept running, the wolves chasing them another 200 yards before pulling up and heading back toward the downed calf. The cow and remaining calf stopped and even drifted back toward their wound- ed relative.

Most of the wolves now bunched around the fallen calf, which hadn’t moved from where it had dropped. From the air, we couldn’t see through the cedars, but from what we could tell, within five minutes of falling, the calf was dead.

As gruesome—and admittedly, exciting—as this was, the kill was a rare opportunity. In nearly two years of fieldwork on the island, I had never witnessed a successful hunt. Nor had I ever had the opportunity to see a fresh kill up close.

“I want to get down there!” I shouted to Don over the noise of the wind and engine. He shot me a dubious look as he circled toward Wood Lake, less than a mile away.

I told Don I planned to hike in to the dead calf.

“Too dangerous,” he said. Don, from Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, was a wolf hunter, one of the men of that era who hunt- ed in planes and shot wolves from the air. Like many men who spent a lot of time in the woods, he believed wolves were dangerous. I wasn’t so sure. From what I had read of wildlife biologists studying wolves—and admittedly, there weren’t a lot!—I figured I could get away with it. Besides, I had a .38-caliber service revolver the National Park Service insisted I wear.

“Look,” I said to Don. “Circle the plane over the kill. And if the wolves give me trouble, dive down on them and scare them away.” We glided to a stop on the ice. I clambered from the plane, strapped the revolver on my waist, and grabbed a canvas pack with camera, notebook, and a 16-mm spring-wound Bolex movie cam- era. I untied the snowshoes from the struts of the plane, stepped into the bindings, and shuffled across the lake toward the kill. The snow was only about a foot deep, but wet. Not the best for snow- shoeing or walking. Don roared down the lake, the plane lifted into the sky, and he began to circle over the kill. To tell the truth, I was not sure it was a great idea either. But the thought of the plane overhead gave me some confidence.

I climbed the ridge on the lakeshore and headed into the woods toward the cedar swamp. Several wolves hung on the edge of the cedars, and when I got to within about 50 yards, they ran off. That was a relief. I continued snowshoeing toward the copse of cedars where the calf went down. Two wolves remained. But when I got to within about 50 feet, they sped off though the snow. So far, so good. I was going to get a look at the fresh carcass.

It lay in the snow, pretty much where it had fallen, about a half mile southwest of the southern tip of Wood Lake. Though clear- ly a calf, it weighed perhaps 300 pounds. The wolves had ripped its nose, neck, the left side of its chest, abdomen, and rump. The snow around the animal was red with blood. Even though it had been dead only about a half hour, the wolves had already eaten its nose and completely skinned its neck and the left side of its chest. The heart, part of the lungs, and the rump were already eaten.

I swung off the pack, took out a knife, and cut away the calf ’s mandible, a valuable piece of anatomy for later determining the health and age of the creature. I fetched out the cameras. I took movies and slides and black-and-whites from every angle I could think of.

Suddenly the roar of the plane grew louder. Don was diving directly at me! I looked around. Two wolves were bounding through the snow straight toward me and the kill. My mind swirled: the movie camera? Or the revolver? An opportunity? Or real danger? 

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