Chapter V: Standardized Wolves (1)

Those who want to believe that wolves do not run in packs should read only the first two-thirds of this chapter. For believing in wolf-packs, read the sections “Crumbs for Believers” and “Wolves for Posterity.” The section “Wolves and Babes” can be read safely by believers and non-believers, for these are an entirely different (though standard) species and the nursing complex, save for one classic exception, seems to be confined to Hindu wolves.

To read all sections may prove not merely difficult but also confusing--may we hope even befuddling.

* * * * *

Everybody knows that wolves run in packs. One of the standard definitions of pack is: “A large number of predatory animals, such as wolves, banded together for the purpose of hunting their prey.”

That used to be an undisputed statement of the case. But now there is an argument about whether any wolf-pack ever really existed, with the scientists nearly all on one side, the general public nearly all on the other, and the sportsmen divided about half and half.

On the affirmative side we have the undoubted fact that “everybody knows,” especially in Russia, that wolves do run in packs. If you want to refresh your mind as to what Russian wolf-packs are believed to be like, you can do so easily and pleasantly by turning to Willa Cather’s _My Antonía_, page 63. The people Miss Cather is going to feed to her wolves are the very diet to which Russian wolves are most accustomed--a wedding party. There are six sleighs drawn by three horses each and carrying from six to twelve passengers. There is starlight on the snow and the road is through a forest. The first distant wolf howl does not drown the tinkle of the sleigh bells or the laughter of the wedding guests. But the rallying cry is answered from many sides, the leaders of the pack draw nearer, and fear grips every heart. The bride sobs on the groom’s bosom and the drivers lash their horses to breakneck speed. The rear sleigh upsets, the passengers sprawl out over the snow and the wolves are on top of them in a moment. The screams of horses being eaten alive are more dreadful than the shrieks of people whose entrails are being torn out. The cries of terror from the remaining sleighs are as loud as the cries of pain from the dying. The wolves are silent now--they have other work to do.

And so the story goes on for sleigh after sleigh in Miss Cather’s story, and in all the typical stories, until only the bridal sleigh is left. About forty or fifty people and fifteen horses have now been eaten, but the wolves are still hungry and going strong. There are hundreds of them, you see, and wolves have proverbially good appetites. Nothing will save the last sleigh but throwing the bride to the pack. This Miss Cather accordingly does, and so do half the other authors of tales. But it seldom happens that quite everybody is eaten. Somebody has to be saved, to give the narrator a chance to portray the survivor’s life of shame and remorse through many effective pages that lead to a distant and friendless grave.

Such tales as Miss Cather’s we usually consider to be “true in spirit” only, since they occur in novels, but we take them for sober fact when we read them in books of travel or in newspapers. The press stories excel the books in verisimilitude, for they tell us what is said to have happened yesterday or last week. They give the names of places that are on every map, they frequently mention the widow and orphaned children, they sometimes tell that the funeral of the fragments left by the wolves was conducted by the home lodge of Masons. There is every detail to prove that what you see in the _Sun_ (or the _Bee_ or the _American_) is really so.

If you look in the index to the news published by the New York _Times_, you will discover scores of authentic-looking wolf-pack stories. I have the space to reproduce here only a sample:

WOLVES DEVOUR 3 MEN IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

_An Elderly White Trapper and Two Indians Fall Victims to a Horde of Hungry Beasts_

Port Arthur, Ont., Dec. 27--A great roving band of hungry timber wolves has devoured three men.... Last Saturday an elderly trapper left his cabin in the woods seventy miles north of Ignace to mush down to the settlement for his Christmas mail.... There was no mail, however, and the old man said he would come back Christmas morning. At noon he had not arrived. The postmaster sent two Indians to follow the trail....

About two miles from the settlement the Indians found a spot pounded down in the snow. There was blood. Bits of dog harness torn to shreds were scattered about. In the midst of them the Indians found human bones. They hastened back to report their discovery. The lure of the bounty on wolves, however, urged the Indians to take the trail again, with extra ammunition. They sped behind the dog team into the woods as the villagers waved good-bye. They did not return.

Yesterday a new searching party departed. They found another patch trodden in the snow, with much more blood, about two miles from the first. The two guns the Indians had carried were lying in the crimsoned snow. Scattered about were bones, bits of clothing and empty shells.

The carcasses of sixteen dead wolves--some half eaten--lay stretched in a circle about the remains of the two Indian hunters.

I quote from the New York _Times_ of December 28, 1922. The story, from what is justly considered one of the world’s greatest and most reliable newspapers, gives proof of the cunning no less than of the ferocity of the North American wolf. Judging from the evidence, the pack must still have been hungry when they got through eating the trapper (perhaps he was small and skinny), so they lay in wait to finish their meal on the search party, which they evidently knew was coming. Then, still hungry, and fearing the size and prowess of the second search party, they reluctantly ate a few of each other for dessert before retreating into the shadows of the forest. That was discretion and admirable generalship. They fought when there was a chance to win, and then withdrew before superior numbers.

There are plenty of such wolf stories in the papers, and now and then others even more impressive. During 1926, for instance, in the pages of the New York _Sun_ packs of wolves held Italy under a reign of terror; a bit later in the New York _Times_ villages in Siberia were barricaded against wolves. Two million cattle and many people were killed.

Thus stands the evidence for the affirmative--wolves _do_ run in packs. They devour wedding parties in Russia and they eat trappers and Indians in Canada. They terrorize Italy and lay siege to towns in Siberia--in the papers, at least.

But there are skeptics who do not believe all they see in the papers or read in books of travel. These iconoclasts tell you that every story of a wolf-pack that you ever read or heard is fib, fiction, or folklore, and that there never has been a pack of wolves in Russia, America, or anywhere except in people’s imagination. That seems a hard position to defend, but they go at it valiantly. Their defense lies in both logic and fact. For the logic they ask you to consider the caribou-hunting wolf as a sample.

Their argument begins with the generally accepted fact that there are more than ten million wild caribou in Northern Alaska, Northern Canada, Northern Siberia and the Arctic islands. From these at least two million caribou are born every year; two million must, therefore, die, or the numbers would increase. Certainly less than 10 per cent of these are killed by human hunters. None die of old age and very few of accident or disease, for if a caribou is old or sick it moves slowly and is soon overtaken and devoured. This means that wolves kill every year a good many more than a million and a half caribou.

In summer, when their puppies are being brought up, the northern wolves live in part on eggs, fledgling or moulting birds, and rodents. But in winter the birds have flown south, the rodents are safe asleep in their frozen burrows, and almost the only thing a wolf can find to eat is caribou. I know how wolves kill caribou, and I can offer some personal testimony on wolves in general, for I was born on Lake Winnipeg in a wolf country; I was brought up among wolves and coyotes in Dakota before it became “civilized” and was split up into North and South Dakota; I lived for some ten years in the Arctic, supporting myself most of the time by hunting. I have shot wolves with a rifle and have seen hundreds of them either trotting quietly along or loping steadily in pursuit of caribou. I have seen the tracks of thousands following game, and have found signs of hundreds of tragedies where they had killed some bird or beast. I have asked dozens of Arctic Indians (Slaveys, Dogribs, Loucheux) and hundreds of Eskimos about how the wolf hunts, and there has been no divergence between what they have told me and what I have seen.

A wolf cannot run nearly as fast as a caribou, and must capture it by tiring it out. That is the essence of all I have seen and all I have been told. It means that, before it is killed, each caribou has to be pursued by the wolves from several hours to several days--nobody knows exactly how long. All hunters agree that (except for newborn calves) the youngest caribou are the swiftest and staunchest runners. The ones killed by wolves are therefore chiefly the old bulls and old cows. A cow may weigh two or three hundred pounds, and a bull three or four hundred, live-weight. Nearly half of that is waste. The wolves are, then, pursuing anything from 100 to 200 pounds of food. For, no matter how large the caribou herd may be when the chase begins, they eventually scatter, and the pack, if there is a pack, finds itself pursuing the single slowest animal.

Suppose, now, there are 200 or 300 wolves, as in Miss Cather’s heart-rending story. She provided hers with six sleigh loads of Russians, six to twelve in a sleigh, and three presumably fat horses hitched to each. That would make a square meal for even 300 wolves. But it would be far otherwise if the 300 followed a single 300-pound caribou for three days, or even one day. They would be so hungry that the beast, divided by 300, would be to the pack no more than a tantalizing appetizer. There would be nothing for it but to resort to another well-known habit of the fiction wolf and use their whetted appetites on each other--eating, let us say, a dozen to correspond to the soup course, a dozen for the fish, and two dozen for the roast, with at least another dozen of the youngest and tenderest for dessert. But the continued practice of dining on each other like that would soon reduce a wolf-pack below fiction and movie standards. In fact, you might as well do without a pack altogether; for it is scarcely worth the bother to build one up to the required size, just to have it disappear again in a few weeks by the members of the troupe swallowing one another.

Those who are trying to prove that the wolf-pack really exists will perhaps admit that the abstract logic of pack hunting seems a little faulty, but will insist, and quite rightly, that logic does not amount to a hill of beans when contradicted by facts. The pack stories, they will tell us, are simple truth. Newspapers may exaggerate, but the better ones never invent. Besides, nearly everybody has an uncle or an aunt who had a grandmother or grandfather that was eaten or nearly eaten by a pack of wolves.

That brings us to the evidence--are the wolf-pack stories true? To save time, we shall take at once the testimony of a group of scientists and practical hunters who ought to know because they make the study of wolves their profession--studying also the testimony of everyone they ever heard of who claimed to have seen a pack of wolves. They are Americans, too, and within your reach, so you can write postcards to them tomorrow and see what they really think. Don’t be diffident about asking. You are probably a taxpayer. They are your servants, for they work for the government that taxes you.

The branch of the government that studies wolves as a part of its business is the Bureau of Biological Survey at Washington, and the head of it is Dr. E. W. Nelson,[12] a lifetime student of wild animals. He was four years among Arctic wolves in Alaska (1877-81) and has himself studied wolves in Mexico and all over the United States. Furthermore, he has under him other men who have studied wolves, among them Edward A. Preble, who has spent much time in the sub-Arctic and Arctic forests and prairies of Canada. But more significant still, there is under Dr. Nelson’s successor’s direction the wolf-killing service of the United States Government. This is a body of men who hold themselves in readiness for telegraphic appeals from stockmen, usually in the West, who find their animals being destroyed by wolves. They come and exterminate the wolves “scientifically,” and the flocks and herds are safe again.

In gathering material for a book I was writing about wolves, I consulted Dr. Nelson. We agreed, first, that the accepted meaning of the word pack, when applied to wolves is _a large number of wolves that have come together to help each other in hunting_. In other words, one mother with her puppies would not constitute a pack. Dr. Nelson felt so positive about the nature of wolves in North America, from Mexico to the Arctic, that he thought I would be safe in denying flatly in my book that any wolf-pack ever existed on our continent. But, just to make sure that no different opinion was held among people of authority corresponding to his own, we formulated a letter which he addressed to certain scientific students of wolves, and to all his wolf-killers.

As to how many wolves had been seen together, the various replies naturally gave different answers, for experiences varied somewhat. But they ranged only from two to five. They were unanimous in reporting that if several wolves were seen together then these were always the mother with her puppies, or conceivably the father and mother with their puppies, and never a pack in the usual sense of that word.

Then what about the story of the wolves that killed the elderly trapper and the two Indians on the front page of the _Times_? Surely that was no family of puppies--sixteen dead wolves, killed by the Indians; a few, presumably, killed by the old trapper, and enough left over to eat up one white man, two Indians and part of sixteen dead wolves. To make the inquiry into the truth of the story official and more authoritative than if I were doing it myself, I suggested to Dr. Nelson that he write to Ignace, Ontario. For checking up, I wrote also to Mr. J. B. Harkin, Commissioner of National Parks, Ottawa, who was at that time (1922) in charge of the administration of the game laws of Canada, and therefore in a position to set in motion official machinery to find out about this wolf story. Thus I received the same replies from two directions, one through Dr. Nelson and the other through Mr. Harkin. They were, in substance, that no such man as the old trapper ever existed and that no white man had been killed by wolves. No such Indians as described existed there and none had been killed by wolves, whether in packs or otherwise, either in the vicinity of Ignace, or anywhere in the world, as far as anyone living in the vicinity of Ignace knew.

Hundreds of other tales about wolf-packs, published in newspapers or books, have been traced by the United States Biological Survey and by various students, including myself. In no case was evidence found to support them. Just try it yourself on the next American despatch you read. In spite of all the pretended details--the sorrowing family, the Masonic funeral--it will be reasonable odds to bet dollars to doughnuts that the story will turn out pure fiction, or at best will rest on testimony no court of law would accept as proof.

The case seems to be definitely settled against the wolf-pack in North America. But there still remains Russia. Well, why not let Russia remain? No one seems to have checked wolf-pack stories in Russia for everyone is so sure they are true. And perhaps they are. Besides, it is a distant country, and the fancy must somewhere have play.

The book on wolves which the July, 1927, _Mercury_ said I was writing is still being written (1936), or, rather, the evidence for it is still being gathered. We use here from that accumulation sample case histories which give the trend of the material.

Under a date line of Winnipeg, April 16, 1922, many or most Canadian newspapers printed a story which I read in the Ottawa _Morning Journal_ about the body of a trapper, Ben Cockrane, having been found torn to pieces north of Fisher River on Lake Winnipeg the previous Thursday. “He had been attacked by a pack of timber wolves. His bones and pieces of his clothing and a rifle with a broken stock were found nearby. Before being killed, Cockrane shot seven wolves dead and clubbed four to death, their bodies lying around his tattered remains being the only evidence of his fight for life.”

That story had a personal interest. For I was born on Lake Winnipeg and might, therefore, seem to have had as a child a narrow escape from the ancestors of the pack which destroyed Cockrane--we were there in the pioneer days back in the late 70’s, long before railways, when there was only an odd cabin along the shores of the lake and when presumably the wolves were even more numerous than now, and more predatory. Investigation would be simple, too, for I could write to some of our old neighbors or their descendants.

But the case was being handled so widely and with so much respect by the press that a formal approach seemed indicated, one above the suspicion of bias. Accordingly, two lines of inquiry were started, both of them official. Nelson, at my suggestion, inquired on behalf of the logical department of the United States Government. In Canada, Harkin was then in charge of wild-life investigation for his government and could use the machinery of the Dominion Parks Branch. When I placed the newspaper report in their hands I received friendly assurance that the case would be followed up both in their own interest and because of their previous association with me in similar studies.

Under date of May 22 Harkin wrote that an investigation had been made and that “Mr. Cockrane has stated ‘that the report of his death was grossly exaggerated.’” On May 31, Nelson, after like findings, wrote:

“This amusing climax to the ferocious wolf tale is similar to that of many other newspaper accounts of the killing of human beings by wild animals, which the Biological Survey has run down during the last thirty years or more. Such stories are almost invariably pure fiction.”

A third inquiry, made by a friend in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s office at Winnipeg, brought a statement that when their representative interviewed Mr. Cockrane he seemed annoyed and replied, I gather somewhat petulantly, that as long as he could remember there had seldom been so few wolves around as this year.

Sometimes when we trace the story of a pack devouring a group of school children we find that it all started when a small boy stepped on a dog’s tail and was bitten in the leg. There does not appear to have been even that much local base for the Cockrane fabrication.

The Ignace, Ontario, story (given above in its _American_ _Mercury_ form) has in my files considerable documentation. On January 2, 1923, I wrote Dr. Nelson in part:

“I wonder if you missed the interesting wolf story that appeared in the New York _Times_ for December 28th. In case you did, I am enclosing a copy.

“I am writing an article for publication in _Collier’s Weekly_ about fake wolf stories and especially about the great wolf-packs that gallop through our books and newspapers. Just as this article is being prepared for publication out comes another story. I am so sure that this one also is a fake that I am not holding up the publication of the article. However, I hope very much that you will be able to put a tracer on it and find out whether there is any truth behind this particular version.”

Dr. Nelson replied January 4:

“... I saw the New York _Times_ article copied in a local paper and at once considered it one of the typical wolf articles which appear in the press, particularly every winter.

“In order, however, to get definite information on the subject, I am writing to the postmaster of Port Arthur, Ontario, and also at San Ignace, sending them copies of the article and asking them what basis there is for a statement of this kind. I will let you know the results when they are received....”

I had written similarly to A. Brabant, Fur Trade Commissioner, Hudson’s Bay Company, Winnipeg, and to Harkin. Brabant, who later investigated for me more fully, gave preliminary reply January 6:

“I believe that the wolf story which was enclosed with your letter of the 2nd inst., is merely romance....

“As you are well aware, there are few, if any, cases of wolves attacking people....”

G. D. Russell, Postmaster of Port Arthur, Ontario, wrote Dr. Nelson January 17, 1923, in part:

“There have been similar stories circulated during the past years, but all have been found to be untrue, and while wolves are a serious scourge to wild animal life in the bush, and a source of annoyance to settlers in the back country, in so far as they are not averse to raiding their domestic fowl, yet the genuine evidence of men being killed by them has yet to be established.

“This recent story originated at Ignace, 200 miles west of Port Arthur. My personal opinion (and the consensus of opinion) is, that there is not the slightest foundation of truth in it.”

The Postmaster of Ignace, John Davies, wrote Dr. Nelson January 18, 1923:

“Your letter to hand, RE: the killing of three men by wolves north of Ignace. We in Ignace know nothing about this affair excepting what we read in the papers. I don’t think there is a word of truth in it. There are a lot of wolves which are doing a lot of damage among the wild game but so far as tackling human beings, I have never had any proof yet.”

The press discussion of the Ignace story was voluminous throughout Canada, particularly in Ontario. On January 18, 1923, Harkin sent me a quotation from “one of our local papers, under date the 17th instant”:

“... The scene of the tragedy was laid on a trail seventy miles north of Ignace. The names of the victims of the wolves were not given. Several old timers in Northern Ontario have ridiculed the story and have claimed that wolves are not man-killers. A Toronto man ... wrote to W. T. Thompson, dealer in furs at Ignace, asking as to the facts of the story.

“Mr. Thompson is quoted as replying: ... ‘Wolves are very numerous around here, but I have lived in this country for twenty-five years and have yet to hear of anyone being killed by wolves. During the past ten years, or over, I have been buying raw furs from trappers and Indians and have never heard any such tales that turn out true.’”

Reverberations of the Ignace yarn continued to reach me for several months. For instance, there came in a letter from an old friend, Inspector G. L. Jennings, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police (now styled Royal Canadian Mounted Police), dated April 20, 1923. We shall use the main part of it in another connection but print here extracts from a cutting he sent taken from the Edmonton _Journal_ of February 10:

“Recently I read a letter concerning the habits of wolves. I had also read some time ago of a tragedy in the woods of our north country in which several men were pulled down and devoured by these animals,” says Dr. J. S. McCullough, writing in the Toronto _Globe_.

“In the gold rush of 1897 or 1898, when so many men made an attempt to get into the Klondike country via Edmonton, Athabasca Landing, Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River, I was one of a party which attempted a traverse from the Mackenzie River to Fort Norman to the Stewart or McMillan River over the divide. I was obliged to come back on account of sickness when we had got out about 60 miles on the trail. After dividing the supplies with my partner I made the trip back alone and as it was necessary that the onward-going party should have two tents I did not even have a tent to cover me on the return trip, but built little shelters of spruce, rolled in my sleeping bag with only boughs with a fire at my feet, and this slight windbreak to protect me from the winds and the wolves. Wolves there seemed to be in plenty, judging from the terrifying howls at night, but they were seldom seen. In my weakened condition from dysentery I made very slow time on my return trip to the banks of the river, six miles below Fort Norman, where there were several unoccupied, roughly-built log shacks. With 75 to 100 pounds on my sled I would drag along five or six miles, construct a stage and place my pack in safety, returning over the ground until I had all my stuff moved up. At this time of year and in this latitude I saw little of the sun, and frequently I made my move at night if the light was good and not much wind.

“I found the wolves very curious, following along on my snowshoe track, crossing and recrossing it, appearing at one side and ahead and then on the other side ahead or behind, always, however, in silence. I had been given to understand by Billy Paton, then of the Hyslop and Neaggel Trading Company, that the wolves never attacked a man, and so I traveled all alone, and very seldom with a weapon of any kind other than a light camp axe, and, although I was very lonesome and very weak and very down-hearted, I really never had any fear of the wolves. There was one that I became pretty well acquainted with, a very large and almost black fellow, who was afterward accidentally caught in a bear trap which had been set by an inexperienced miner by the name of Low Day. The trap was lost beneath the snow, and although Day knew about where it was, we were all afraid to hunt for it for fear of getting into it ourselves. The large, almost black, wolf that followed my trail like a ghost in some mysterious way sat down on his haunches right in the jaws of this trap, where we found him dead and frozen stiff.

“I think that those of us who put in the balance of the winter on the bank of the Mackenzie were all more relieved that the trap was thus discovered than at catching the wolf. What I have said here makes a very negative sort of wolf story, but the fact that I was out night after night alone and that every time I went back over my trail I saw fresh wolf tracks, and that through the long Arctic nights one could almost always hear the howl or bark of the wolf probably chasing hares, for the big game was driven away by the 40-odd men who had gone over the country, leaving hungry wolves and little else but hares and ptarmagan, would seem to prove that if ever the wolf would attack a human being the conditions were right for them to do so as I plodded my slow course back alone over this trail.

“... Personally I do not believe that the wolves of Canada ever attack a living human being. They would in time probably become bold enough to pick the bones of anyone dying or being frozen to death in the bush country. I have talked of wolves to many bushmen and never yet have I come across anyone who had bush experience but had an absolute contempt for the wolf so far as being attacked by him or them went....

“I can quite believe that a person who had been fed-up on wolf stories might take to a tree in fear when the wolves kept appearing and disappearing as they will do on the trail of a woodsman as he marches along at dusk, but I believe that it is only the wolf’s natural curiosity that leads to his follow-up tactics. The black tail or mule deer will often do the same thing if you pretend not to have seen him....”

The Cockrane story, as said, never gave us investigators a trace of foundation. One version of a basis for the Ignace story was contained in a letter of January 12 from L. M. Gleeson, of 416 Victoria Avenue, Fort William, Ontario, who wrote me on the letterhead of the Fort William-Port Arthur Rotary Club:

“Replying to your letter of January sixth, re wolf story from Port Arthur. I would say that the story was just a rumor. It originated, I believe, by a trainman running between here and Ignace, Ont., and as the story was re-told it was enlarged upon. I do know that the newspaper here tried for sometime to get a confirmation of the story direct from Ignace, but they were unable to do so. This story did not appear in our local paper although it was telegraphed outside....”

A theory of the Ignace yarn, published long after, makes it a fable devised for the good of a community. On January 16, 1933, the Portland _Oregonian_ printed a letter from Ada Alice Tuttle, summarizing investigations which she had made or was familiar with, the occasion being that the “Ten Years Ago” column had revived the story:

“The occurrence was investigated by several persons, Dr. (William T.) Hornaday among them. The explanation reveals the resourceful boss of a lumber camp, solving an acute liquor problem. It seems that a number of his men were in the habit of going to the nearest settlement to get drunk. So, remembering the effect produced on the youthful mind by the adventures of ‘Little Red Riding Hood,’ he also invented a fairy tale, suiting it to his audience by introducing plenty of action and lots of gore. ... They swallowed the yarn, hook, line and sinker, and after that stayed where they belonged, with the most admirable docility.”

As Dr. Nelson pointed out, the newspapers run dispatches on wolf-packs chiefly in winter. This, according to the stories themselves, is determined by laws of Nature. The rigors of the weather have banished or destroyed the wild animals on which the wolves customarily prey; besides, there is no doubt an increased metabolic rate, wolves, like people, needing some of the caloric energy from the food they eat for keeping themselves warm. In desperation the beasts gather in larger and larger packs and finally in extreme cases attack houses or even villages--the latter chiefly in some distant foreign country. In America they seem to confine themselves to attacks on people that are out in the woods. Usually we have to depend on word pictures by the survivors for information regarding these encounters, but on December 9, 1923, the New York _Times_ was able to publish in its rotogravure section two photographs from Sudbury, Ontario, giving the supporting testimony of a camera. One of the pictures showed two men standing knee-deep in snow as they defended themselves against a pack of wolves. The caption was “A Tragedy Among the Snows of the Far Northern Woods.” The summarized printed account said that, ammunition gone, two huntsmen were set upon by a pack of fifteen wolves. They fought them off, one using for a club the barrel of his gun, the other an axe. Before the battle came to a decision a third member of the hunting party arrived and was able to turn the tide with gunfire. The second picture has the description:

“The aftermath of a bloody battle in the wilds. Huntsmen binding up their wounds after hand to hand battle with pack of timber wolves from which they were saved by the timely arrival of a third member of their party.”

When I sent these pictures to Harkin for investigation, if he thought well of it, and in any case for comment, he replied that he was fed up with tracing stories of wolf-packs. It seemed to him a study of the picture indicated that the wolves in the picture had all been dead for some time. Apparently they had been allowed to freeze stiff in various attitudes and had then been propped up in the soft snow to give the semblance of an attacking wolf-pack.

Doubtless the three hunters were too excited during the battle and forgot about taking pictures. So they had to re-enact the adventure for the camera next day. The chief difficulty about that explanation was that some of the “wolves” looked a bit like dogs.

Sure enough, time proved that the doggy look of the wolves had its reason. On April 12, 1927, the Utica _Press_ carried a letter from B. H. Divine in which he said, in part:

“The New York _Times_ published a picture a while ago of two men with clubbed guns fighting for their lives against a pack of wolves. Following this up I received word from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that the wolves in the picture were dogs very cleverly posed, and the whole thing was a fake.”

During the next years there were few American stories of note although striking accounts of packs and their depredations were printed from Europe--these we shall discuss farther on. The American scene brightened with January, 1926, when on the 17th the Chicago _Tribune_ presented to its readers the desperate situation then facing one of the territories of the United States:

ALASKA TO WAR ON WOLF PACKS WITH AIR BOMBS

Shrapnel from Planes May Save Game

Juneau, Alaska--(Special)--Dropping bombs from airplanes upon packs of big timber wolves is a method for destroying these game-killing brutes, now advanced and approved by Governor George A. Parks. A trial of the idea is planned for next month, generally known as the hunger-month of winter, when wild life is at its lowest ebb and gnawing pangs grip wolves, lynx and owls.

According to reports received at the governor’s office, female caribou, deer, and domesticated reindeers have been repeatedly attacked this winter by large bands of timber wolves. The destruction among the female caribou is appalling.

The bull caribou in winter round-up together, peacefully content, leaving the cows to protect themselves and yearling calves as best they can. All are antlered, but they lack the weight of caribou bulls, likewise the fighting strategy.

Air mail men operating in the Alaskan service have filed many reports of instances where packs of wolves, hearing and seeing the planes in the sky, gathered forces and raced the aviators, leaping and barking at the birdlike machines after the manner of dogs barking at pigeons. To the aviator it seemed that a large rock dropped into the packs would easily kill or maim many.

The plan proposed is to drop bombs loaded with shrapnel and dynamite into wolf-packs powerful enough to wreak terrific damage even hundreds of feet away in all directions. Trappers and hunters believe that the animals, seeing a bomb dropped, would instantly run to examine it, thus bringing about their own destruction.

Timber wolves weighing 250 pounds, seven to eight feet in length, have been killed by trappers this winter near Fairbanks. The same breed of animal infests the territory from Ketchikan, far north in the tundra, where herds of reindeer forage. The native herders report many encounters with prowling brutes eager to pull down young reindeer.

A powder manufacturing concern has offered bombs free for the unique hunting expedition.

The _Tribune_ account thus pictures not only a situation physically serious but paints a discouraging view of the moral deterioration of the Alaska bull caribou which were no longer willing to place at the service of the smaller and weaker members of the herd their superior antlers, greater weight and their fighting strategy.

But it was encouraging to read that the very head of the Alaska territorial administration, Governor George A. Parks, was in charge of the relief operations. I happened to know he was in Washington and wrote him there February 19. His reply came dated February 23 from the office of the Secretary of the Interior:

“Concerning the clipping from the Chicago _Tribune_, I am at a loss to understand how it originated. I left Juneau, December 16, 1925, and have been in Washington since early in January. I never have authorized any such statement. It may be a fact that the bulls separate from the rest of the caribou herd during the winter, but my personal observation has been to the contrary. If any of the pilots in the Air Mail Service have filed reports as alleged in the newspaper account, these reports never have come to my attention. It would be most unusual to hear a wolf bark like a dog. There may be wolves in Alaska that weigh 250 pounds, but I do not know of any such records.[13] I believe that it is conceded generally that a wolf-pack usually includes only the members of the family--father, mother, and pups--and they separate about the beginning of the next mating season. I have no personal knowledge of any large bands of wolves, nor have I been able to find any authentic cases where bands of wolves have molested reindeer or caribou herds. Many times during my winter trips through Alaska, I have been told about the wolf-packs, but so far as I know the stories never have been founded on fact.

Geo. A. Parks

Governor of Alaska.”

Logically the Bureau of Biological Survey was concerned with the situation and its Chief, Nelson, wrote me February 24:

“The other day I had a conference with Governor Parks on various matters relating to Alaska and he showed me the copy of the Chicago _Tribune_ clipping of January 17, a copy of which you sent me, containing the weird tale of the plan to bomb wolves by the use of airplanes. Governor Parks was inclined to be somewhat exercised over the connection of his name with this absurd statement....

“Of course, the whole thing is an absurdity on the face of it ... there is no such abundance of wolves in Alaska as indicated in this article.... The claim that timber wolves weighing 250 pounds have been killed near Fairbanks the present winter is another evidence of the absolute unreliability of the article.”

This is trying to be a chronological statement but we are unable to resist the temptation to print from a Washington despatch of the _Associated Press_ as it appeared in the New York _Times_ of May 31, 1936:

“Plans for an airplane attack on savage packs of Alaskan wolves were worked out today by three Federal agencies....

“Last Winter, Governor John W. Troy cabled for help....”

It may have seemed a bit far afield in 1926 to go all the way to Alaska for stories of wolf-packs, so the _Associated Press_ in 1927, with a Chicago date line of January 24, had a story which one paper used under “Hunters to Renew Search for Wolves Near Chicago. First Venture Fails to Disclose Marauding Pack Reported by Farmers.” However, there was skepticism (that’s the difficulty of having the stories too near home) and Leroy Davidson, former chief of the Cook County Highway Police, was quoted:

“Wolves--bah! Last summer there was a camp of Campfire Girls in the forest preserve. They had three dogs--the dogs were a mixture of Airedale and police dog. When the girls broke camp they left the dogs behind. I also had an Airedale. He ran away and joined the other three. These four dogs are the ‘pack of wolves’ that are causing all the commotion.”

That pronouncement threatened at first to be a wet blanket. However, there is in my files a press cutting dated February 4 with the heading: “Fliers Hunt Wolves on Edge of Chicago. Posse Has Had No Luck.” So the story did keep going awhile.

When it requires ten days on the edges of Chicago to dispose of a wolf-pack, even with the assistance of the chief of the Highway Police, no wonder stories from Alaska have a considerable lease of life. Some of them promise to become, and to remain, a part of the source material of Alaskan natural history.

The year 1927 proved rich in American wolf tales, making up for the comparatively lean years since 1923. My favorite of that season, and of many years, I was able to trace through the help of my old friend Lee Smits, free lance writer and also columnist for the Detroit _Times_. It is not a story of a wolf-pack, but we digress a moment to place chronologically a striking episode of a lone Michigan wolf. We quote the St. Ignace _Enterprise_ of February 3, 1927:

LARGE TIMBER WOLF

Entered the Home of Robert Alexander and Attacked Woman and Children

Mrs. Robert Alexander and children were made the victims of a savage attack by a large timber wolf in their home in Brevort township last Wednesday. The animal, made desperate evidently by hunger forced its way through the doorway of the kitchen and made a rush at the children who were playing on the floor. Mrs. Alexander got between the wolf and the children and called to her husband to get a gun, and she also was leaped upon by the animal and borne to the floor. Before it could do serious harm Alexander appeared with a gun and first kicking the wolf from the prostrate form of his wife fired as the wolf made its escape through the doorway and slightly injuring it. It was making towards the woods when Mrs. Lottie Page, a neighbor, hearing the shot came out of her home with a loaded shotgun in her hand and seeing the wolf made a lucky shot killing the animal.

While wolves have been reported as being numerous in Brevort and surrounding townships, and have done considerable damage, this is the first instance that one has been known to have attacked a human being. The Alexanders are of the opinion that the attack was caused by starvation as the animal appeared to be weak from exhaustion.

On seeing this gem, I wrote Smits, who replied April 29:

“State Conservation Officer George Gish, Jr., who patrols the area in which the ‘attack’ occurred, called at the Alexander home and was shown the dead wolf. It was a small mongrel of the collie type, with a bob tail, a white blaze, yellow in color, weighing not more than 40 pounds. There is an epidemic of ‘running fits’ or ‘fright-disease’ among dogs, and this dog may have rushed into the cabin while delirious, or it may have merely been cold, hungry and lonesome. It was a male dog. The rumor that the animal was a timber wolf started when someone in the neighborhood ‘guessed maybe’ there was wolf blood in the dog. Not because of its appearance, but because it came out of the woods and acted strangely....

“... The story is from a paper at the county seat. It was carried extensively over the wires....”

Although chiefly known to the literary world for his novel _Spring Flight_, Smits is, among other things, one of America’s connoisseurs of un-natural history. So he could not resist going on:

“Not only can many bartenders and hotel clerks in the backwoods give you good wolf yarns--attacks on mankind--but old lumberjacks know, by direct hearsay, of some desperate encounters. The editor of the daily paper at Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., ... has for several years offered $100 for an authenticated report of a wolf attacking a person in the Algoma district of Ontario. No takers.

“The state prison at Marquette, Mich., fronts on Lake Superior and, although on the outskirts of a small city, is at the edge of a strip of wild country extending into rather large areas of swamp and timber and offering cover for a fugitive for hundreds of miles. Very few escapes are attempted, and the fear of wild animals is unquestionably a deterrent. One gang got loose and were rounded up because they made straight for roads and kept on them. They spent one night in the brush, with a few hares, porcupines and owls about them, and perhaps a fox or coyote, and said when they were caught that they all were sorry they ran away when darkness closed in on them. They had a terrible night. All city gunmen.”

That there are at times very special motives behind wolf-pack stories appears from a letter from B. H. Divine, published in the Utica, New York, _Press_ of April 12, 1927:

“To the Editor of _The Press_:

The following wolf story recently appeared in _The Press_:

‘Huntsville, Ont., March 31--While making his way to a lumber camp near Algonquin Park, Elwood Bloss was pursued by a pack of wolves. He fled onto the open ice, where the animals, 16 of them, surrounded him. Their howling attracted the attention of a game warden, who arrived before they closed on their intended victim. He shot seven before the pack fled.’

Upon writing to the authorities at Huntsville for the truth of the matter, I received the following letter from T. Muyhum, postmaster:

‘This story was first published here early in January last, but since that time it has been pretty thoroughly exploded.

‘The young man (aged 22) started out to walk six or seven miles to the railroad station early in the morning. The howling of some wolves at a distance frightened him so badly that he did not recover for some days. It was necessary to make some explanation of his condition, and the truth sounded so inadequate he built the story to suit his condition. It was soon into the papers, and after being contradicted from the pack end he acknowledged that much of it was not true.’”

For some reason there did not come to my attention until 1931 a support of wolf-packs by book reviewers and press commentators who relied on a volume published in 1929, _The Last Stand of the Pack_, by Arthur H. Carhart and Stanley P. Young. At last, said the reviewers, a distinguished biologist and student of wild life has spoken out, resentful about the sniping at wolf-packs by amateur naturalists.

Young was chief biologist of the U. S. Biological Survey, exclaimed the champions of the pack, in consonant triumph. They were right, for I looked him up in _American Men of Science_ and found this substantial record:

“... U. S. Govt. hunter, bur. biol. surv., U. S. Dept. Agr., Ariz., 17-19, in charge ground squirrel control work, 19, coyote control crew, southeast N. Mex., 20, asst. leader predatory animal control, 20-21, leader, Colo-Kans. dist., 21-27, asst. head div. econ. investigations, Washington, D. C., 27-28, prin. biologist in charge div. predatory animal and rodent control, 28-....”

The reviewers did not notice, but I did, a sensational angle. To have Young opposing Nelson was like Roosevelt falling out with Smith--the chief of a division of the U. S. Biological Survey opposing that retired chief of the Survey who had brought him to Washington. It was a delicate situation but I had to get Nelson’s view and wrote him discreetly April 28, 1932. He replied May 14 from California:

“... It will surprise me very much if he has recorded a pack of any considerable size beyond that which you and I believe to be normal (mother with litter of pups). I will look up the matter soon after I return and talk to him about it. Will then write you....”

An invalid, and busy though officially retired, Nelson did not communicate until March 22, 1933. There was to be no Smith-Roosevelt situation, it now appeared, for the retired Chief said:

“Under date of March 14, 1933, Stanley P. Young of the Biological Survey writes....

“‘With regard to your question on wolves, I heartily agree with you that the great packs of wolves such as have been often described in books and newspapers exist only in the minds of writers. In my experience the typical wolf-pack consists of the two parents and their young of the year. One is apt to see this so-called pack in the late fall and up until the early spring. Also it is possible in the formation of this so-called pack for two families of wolves to intermingle for a short time in the fall of the year, particularly if one family group is in close proximity to another, and a kill is in progress. My experience, even under these conditions, however, is to the effect that wolves of several families never unite in a long and friendly association....

“‘It is therefore possible from the foregoing that newspaper writers and authors have in mind the family groups of wolves rather than the packs of adults. However, these writers usually give the impression that these packs are made up of adult wolves. The greatest number of wolves in one litter that I have ever seen totalled eight. This pack was made up of the eight young, which were apparently whelped in early March, and the old female and old male.’”

Nelson felt Young was a bit too generous “in explaining what the writers have in mind in their tales of big packs. Really they are drawing from an inexhaustible store of ignorance on the subject. Probably less than 1 per cent of them ever saw a wolf in the wilds.”

The year 1933 closed on a note ominous for New York State. For the _Herald-Tribune_ of December 30 reported:

“Lithgow Osborne, State Commissioner of Conservation, has assigned Ray Burmaster, game protector of the Saranac Lake district, to exterminate the wolves which have been seen in the northern counties in recent weeks. Ten dozen snares and traps have been set in the wolf-infested areas and seventy-five skilled hunters and trappers will be employed. Wolves recently attacked two farm hands near Fort Covington, in Franklin County.... The pack now at large numbers from twelve to fifty.”

The New York _Times_, evidently not jealous, supported its rival the _Herald-Tribune_ by saying in an editorial of January 5 that: “... one pack hunting in Franklin County at this time is estimated at from twelve to fifty in number....” They added that: “An application has been made to the Biological Survey at Washington for the services of an expert wolf trapper to rid New York of the unwelcome visitors.”

I wrote the Conservation Department of New York at Albany January 5, and Lithgow Osborne, Commissioner, replied January 12:

“... we do not have any definite information to indicate that the wolves which have recently appeared in the vicinity of Owls Head in the Adirondacks are running in packs. We are sending one of our field investigators, Mr. Darrow, into the region which the wolves apparently inhabit, in an effort to determine just what the situation is. I shall be pleased to request a report from him as to whether or not the wolves are actually hunting in packs, and to see that the information is forwarded to you sometime early in the spring.”

The Commissioner’s follow-up slipped and I did not remind him for two years. On July 13, 1936, came a letter from John T. Gibbs, Deputy Commissioner. He mentions several reports on the Adirondack wolves “all of which resulted in our deciding that there were no packs of timber wolves in the Adirondacks.”

One of the reports was from E. A. Goldman of the U. S. Biological Survey. He had been in the region of the packs and “we crossed a fresh track of one of these canine beasts in a remote section of the forest. Owing to the softness and depth of snow it had been making slow progress. The track, about one day old, appeared like that of a rather small dog.”

Two animals from the supposed wolf-pack had been captured, but “general appearances indicated, however, that both are dogs.”