Saturday, March 20, 2010

Hunting the wolves



Hello everyone,
They built a wonderful new road this week up the Red River 45 km's but as a elder explained to me today this means the wolves will be coming to town very soon. Seems that wolves like roads, makes it easy to get around and they always seem to come out at the end of them. Sure enough we drove down the river and we found at least half a dozen had taken down a moose about 40 km's out of town and were heading towards us (nothing like travelling with a elder to know which way the wind is blowing, as they say). Its still a little awe inspiring when your cruising along at 40 km and he tells you a moose went by three days ago, I respond "do you want to stop and see the tracks?", "Naw, it was three days ago, lets pull over yesterday at the earliest, We already know where they was, lets find out where they is."
Fifteen km's later he announces the moose was killed by half a dozen wolves, no need to pull over. Once I had been made aware of what to look for it was obvious that the moose was tracked by a large group of wolves for many km's. I couldn't see the moose tracks, or tell the difference but I could see all the following and tracking tracks, but its still really cool, we never slowed down, he knew what had happened and where and when. The only time he wanted to stop was to see what happened today, So he knew where they would be tomorrow. Apparently I have to go out tomorrow at sundown, with my rifle, around 8:30 pm and the wolves will be running the road towards town, and I have no doubt that if I'm there at that time, I'll find his wolves. Lets see a satellite do that. In this picture you can see part of the story, but without knowing what your looking for, you'll spend the rest of your life seeing nothing. In the photo you can see where the kill occurred, where the wolves went after, and where they will be next, that is if your a 76 year old man who was born and will die on this land.

Take Care,
CG

P.S. Tim, don't even try. This is a world you don't understand. The camera is capable, the eye is not. The kill site is buried by the wolves and the tracks might as well be invisible. You'll notice the valley is in shadow, therefore the tracks might as well be a white ball, on a white sheet of paper, on a white background while your snow blind. Next time your wife visits, you could come along and I could send you on the land with a person who could teach you how to see things and live in ways you haven't imagined. And when he tells you his story about crawling into a bear den for warmth, without his rifle and the bear waking up, you'll crap yourself with what happens next.

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