EDITOR’S NOTE: Every new year millions of us around the world, seeking fresh healthier direction and breaking free of old destructive habits, adopt resolutions—to change our lives. Statistics say most of us abandon them from lack of will power or not knowing how to re-orient ourselves. But Nature and her compass representing True North never quits on us. She is unrelenting in offering opportunities for enlightened reinvention that enable us to become better more compassionate humans. In the column below by Brad Orsted, a man whose earlier award-winning book, Through the Wilderness, was about recovery from addiction and unspeakable grief that resulted from time spent in wildlands observing grizzlies, he shares this moving vignette about the power of wolfian first impressions in our first national park. —Todd Wilkinson
by Brad Orsted
It was the wolves of Yellowstone that first drew me into the wild as medicine.
We heard them howling in the distance and saw the bedded elk stand up behind the new house, butts facing in, that frigid January as we moved into Lower Mammoth. The snow-heavy clouds enshrouded Mt. Everts and spilled down into the Gardner Canyon, so you couldn’t tell exactly where the howls were coming from, nor see any wolves, just their mesmerizing chorus in the fog while we unloaded couches.
Looking back, I had no clue how intense my new backyard was. Somewhere out there, howling in the oyster bisque sky, were wild wolves.
A few weeks later, I heard a coyote alarm barking close by and looked outside. I couldn’t see the coyote or what it was alarming on until the neighbor yelled from next door, “Look, wolves!”
I turned to the direction she was pointing and my eyes caught movement in the nearby clearing as a gray wolf trotted through. I could see its thick coat and bloody muzzle. Just then, a movement much closer caught my eye, as a black, collared wolf walked past me 50 feet away moving in the same direction as the bloody muzzled gray. Then I saw the white wolf. The fabled white wolf. The alpha female. She looked fake. Like AI. All bathed in light and walking calmly towards the black wolf that had passed me. It was the Canyon Pack I’d heard so much about.
I got my camera and tripod out and began clicking images. They were all bedded so there wasn’t much to photograph, and they were a little far off for my gear, but I held the shutter down anyway. Back then, bad wolf pics were better than no wolf pics.
When the pack laid down, all but disappearing in the snow and sagebrush, I would step inside the house, flip pancakes, and refill my coffee. I was having breakfast with the wolves.
Welcome to Yellowstone!
I could see all of the cars racing by heading over the Gardner bridge and towards the Lamar Valley presumably to look for 832F, but the neighbor and I had a whole pack of wolves preening and lounging in the morning light from our backyards.
I had been enjoying walking our dogs on leash, strictly on the road, down by the helipad behind our housing complex in Lower Mammoth. One day, a new acquaintance and National Park Service Law Enforcement Ranger pulled up next to me and the dogs. Brian informed me there was a pack of wolves on the hills right next to us, and it was breeding season. He had been watching the wolves, I never knew were there, react to me hiking my dogs into their living room. It shook me up; how close I was to marching the pups right into a pack of wolves. Not smart. I thought of how our chubby Golden Retriever would look like a deep fried Twinkie to hungry wolves.
One Sunday evening, fighting the urge to drink again, I decided that if I didn’t feel better after a stroll in the cold, I would go get some booze. I walked the service road down past the school and helipad and then cut off before the road curved down to the Gardner River foot bridge. There was a game trail that went to a seasonal pond I liked to walk to. When I got to the dry marsh, a gray wolf stood up on the opposite side. I froze. We stared at each other with only icy wind between us. It was then; while quickly scanning the surrounding hills, I noticed the other bedded wolves. The sun was setting, I could see my breath in the gathering dusk, and there, in the distance, were at least six wolves all staring at me.
One Sunday evening, fighting the urge to drink again, I decided that if I didn’t feel better after a stroll in the cold, I would go get some booze. I walked the service road down past the school and helipad and then cut off before the road curved down to the Gardner River foot bridge. There was a game trail that went to a seasonal pond I liked to walk to. When I got to the dry marsh, a gray wolf stood up on the opposite side. I froze. The sun was setting, I could see my breath in the gathering dusk, and there, in the distance, were at least six wolves all staring at me.
I wasn’t scared but thought it best to leave. It was getting dark fast that time of year, so I decided to quietly walk back out the way I had come in. The one wolf who had remained standing up began paralleling me as I left. Another, then another, got up and fell in behind the first one. Now, with three wolves mirroring my passage, I felt a little uneasy, and had to restrain myself from speeding up my gait. Don’t show fear. Don’t run.
That area of Yellowstone is mostly glacial moraines, swales, and rolling hills. I lost sight of the wolves as I went low around a long, sloping hill. Where the land softened under a crescent moon, I rounded the ridge and there they were. All three gray wolves — now much closer. I kept walking. Not making hard eye contact but glancing occasionally to see what they were doing. The three wolves continued to parallel at a respectful distance on the ridge above me.
I cried. It was so cold and simple to be alive right then. Nothing else mattered. I wanted to live in that singular moment alone and forever. No past. No future. Just me, frozen in time with twilight turning the fallen snow pink and wolves on the ridge. Wolves that didn’t know my back story nor my front story. They didn’t care, and neither did I, as we moved through the evening together.
The way wolves trot through sagebrush with such ease. The way a wild animal looks at you when you’re close enough to lock eyes and it immediately knows more about you than your therapist. Something passes between you. The Medicine.
NOTE: Below are other columns by Brad Orsted brought to you here at Yellowstonian. Enjoy.
