Wild, Untamed Music

A year ago, on an early January day, we were enjoying mid-morning cups of coffee when I glanced out the front window just as a lone wolf emerged from the birch trees between the cabin and beaver pond. Large and cinder grey, it strode across the snow-covered meadow, crossed the driveway and disappeared into the forest beyond. (the photo – though not too good – is all I managed to get). If I had not been looking out the window at that exact moment, we would never have known it was there but for tracks in the snow. It was the first wild wolf either of us had seen and quite a thrill. A few days later, we heard a series of long howls nearby, ending with a deep harmonic tremolo, then an echoing overtone that reverberated inside of us. I found this description in Barry Lopez’s book, “Of Wolves and Men.”

It was wild, untamed music and it echoed from the hillsides and filled the valleys. It was a queer shivering feeling along my spine It was not a feeling of fear, you understand, but a sort of tingling, as if there was hair on my back and it was hackling. ….Alda Orton, Alaskan trapper

... P. L. Morningstar
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