Medicine of the Wolf

1

There is a place up north, far north.

A place called Wolf country.

When I heard that

wolves had been removed

from the endangered species list,

after 40 years of protection,

I was surprised.

As I knew we only had

a few thousand wolves

left in the country.

And it troubled me that we were still

so divided in our thinking

about this highly intelligent species.

So I decided to travel to places

where they still could be found

and talk to people who knew

and studied them,

and somehow try to understand why

there were those who still

feared and misunderstood them.

Wow, it's a beautiful day.

And we're headed up

to northern Minnesota

to go see Jim Brandenburg.

Jim Brandenburg has been photographing

and writing about wolves

for over 45 years.

He's known all over the world

for his study of wolves.

This is a really unique area

that we're going to.

It's... it's actually

called wolf country,

and where Jim lives, it borders on

the boundary waters canoe area,

which has a million

acres of pure wilderness.

Being out here, it's very

different from where I grew up.

You can see all kinds of wildlife.

You can see eagles,

and if you're lucky,

you might even see a wolf.

This is northern Minnesota.

It definitely takes

a unique and hearty person

to live out here.

Everybody's up here

for a different reason.

My reason was to be close to the

wilderness and to photograph wolves.

Or to see wolves, I didn't

have to photograph them,

I just want to be around them.

And it evolved, it took me years,

many, many years to get

some decent photographs,

so it wasn't a practical consideration,

it wasn't a job, or a career move

to come up here and photograph wolves,

and do posters and do

books and do movies.

It was just an intuitive

fire inside of me.

I got into photographing

wolves and telling their story

because I thought they were the most

persecuted animal in the world.

More than lions, more than tigers,

I really believe the wolf...

the wolf's reputation

is worst, misplaced reputation

of any animal in the world.

And I thought, there's a story.

1968,

about a mile from here, I

was walking with my camera,

Nikon F manual exposure

with a 300-millimeter lens,

snowshoes, on lake Juan

at the end of the Fernwood

trail, which is right here,

I saw a wolf before it saw me.

I fell down onto the ice and the snow,

crouching, thinking maybe, maybe

I can sneak up on this wolf,

maybe the wolf won't see me.

The wolf kept coming, the wolf saw me,

and it said,

"ah, is that food, is that a beaver?"

"Is that a dead moose?

Is that a dead deer,

is it... what is that thing?"

The wolf started stalking me,

you think I was excited?

That's one of my first

encounters with a wolf,

and I was stalked by a wolf.

I have photographs to prove it.

Not just a story.

I cherish those photographs,

but you should see the look

in that wolf's face

when it finally decided

that I was a human.

That's when I knew that

wolves were slightly

different than what I thought they were.

I could see all the embarrassment

condensed in one expression,

and walking away,

like, "well you fooled me for a second,

but don't tell anybody."

That whole...

the series of photographs is precious,

I never even published it.

Steve Piragis and his wife

have lived up on the edge of

the boundary waters canoe area

for over 35 years,

outside of a town called Ely, Minnesota,

which is the closest town

to wolf country,

with a population of 3,500 people.

They came and fell in love

with the wilderness

and decided to make it

their permanent home.

Now it's their backyard.

They have an outfitting company,

Piragis northwoods company,

where they lead canoe excursions,

including howling for wolves canoe trip.

You know, I mean,

we enjoy that we live in a place

that's wild enough that

we have wild wolves

in our neighborhood,

and we hear 'em howling,

and I mean, I had a great

experience with wolves, myself,

oh, just a half... oh, about

a mile actually, from here,

when I was out on a run,

very unusual opportunity

to see wolves close up.

There was, uh... two adults

and two... two very young pups.

Uh, it was in may, so it was probably...

they were probably

six or eight weeks old,

and they were down in kind

of a hollow in a clear cut,

so I could... as I ran along the road,

I could see these four wolves,

two adults, two pups.

And, uh... they saw me,

and the mom, I assume the mom,

kind of a large Grey wolf,

and the other one's a very dark wolf,

much smaller, um,

the mom kind of scurried

up into the woods

and made a high-pitched caw, a very

high-pitched screaming kind of caw,

and everybody followed her up into

the woods. The babies stopped,

they were just rolling over each other

like two little pups having fun,

and the mom started,

you know, alerting them,

and they walked up into

the woods together.

So I go around the backside of the hill,

and I imitated this little sound,

this... this high-pitched

call that the mom was doing,

and lo and behold, out of the

woods come the two pups.

Like right to me,

right within four feet of me.

And... they... you know, they thought

I was the mom calling to them.

So, uh, I said, wow, this is...

this is pretty neat,

and, uh... within seconds later,

the trees kind of

start shaking down the hill,

and down the hill comes the mom,

making a... a show of it

by shaking the trees.

Shows up right in front

of me with the two pups,

looks at me, and runs away.

And I thought, that's fairly unusual

for the mom to run away.

And a couple seconds later,

back she comes,

same thing, trees shaking, you know,

and this time she stands over the pups,

I'm probably 12 feet away at the most.

Stands over the pups,

all of the hackles on the back

of her neck come up,

her head low... lowers down,

she's looking straight at me,

and goes "woof."

And I said, you know, intellectually,

that was the one time

I was a little afraid

Of wolves.

The place we meet wolves

for the first time

is in that fantastic story

of little red riding hood.

And it's not a very

complimentary story to wolves,

it in fact is one of the

first fear characters

that we, as children, engage with.

These all relate to some

of the myths around

wolves. And... and they're dangerous,

because they're not accounts

of the actual wolves,

they're not accounts F real, live wolves

and the behaviors that wolves engage in.

My God!

No!

The werewolf, the loup-garou, was...

was a... is a mischievous creature

that will come at night

and steal your shoes.

So you wake up in the

morning, where are my shoes?

Oh, they took it, right,

and so you go into the forest

looking for this creature that is

hiding behind the tree with your shoes.

And all of a sudden,

it became this, you know,

blood-thirsty animal

that will steal your kid,

not your shoes.

The risk of being injured,

or killed by a wolf

is... is... is minuscule.

If you are afraid of a wolf,

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