Feature:
Walking With Wolves
Maya sniffs
my hand, takes a step forward & offers her back for me to pat. This would
be utterly mundane if Maya were a dog. But she’s 100% grey wolf.
And wolf handler & trainer Shelly
Black tells me how lucky I am to receive any affection from this regal
creature.
‘Maya has her quirks & is shy &
aloof,’ Black explains. ‘If she gives anyone the time of day, it’s usually only
2 seconds.’
I’m flattered.
Maya leans into my leg & I run
my left hand through the long & luxurious fur from her shoulder blades to
mid-back for a good 10 seconds…
I’m taking part, with 5 other
tourists, in Northern Lights Wolf Centre’s special Walking With wolves program
just outside of Golden B.C. It’s the only place in the world where people can
go on a hike with wolves…The wolves run free & we follow on a stretch of
pristine, sunny, & snowy Crown land in the Blaeberry Valley
bracketed by the Rocky & Purcell mountains…
It is
surreal to trek in the wild with these majestic animals…
Maya is the black-grey-&-white
regal veteran at 14 years of age…
We’re also joined by 21-month-old
Scrappy Dave, the equivalent of a rambunctious, lanky teenager. And he’s also a
real looker with his white-&-buff coloring & piercing yellow eyes…
And when we reached the sunny clearing at
the halfway point of our hike, Scrappy Dave frolicked & posed for pictures
with each of us…
Originally, the Blacks bought a
couple of wolf pups from zoos to raise for photography & film work…
They decided to test their British Columbia license
to keep wolves & asked if they could offer a Walking With Wolves program
for tourists. The government said yes…
The key to allowing such human-wolf
interaction is imprinting. Northern Lights acquires only wolf pups born in
captivity that will imprint on Shelly & Casey.
‘We become the alpha male &
female for all our wolves,’ Shelly explains.
‘We are the leaders of the pack
& provide them with food…So they will interact with humans. But they are
still the same as their wild cousins. They are shy. They won’t wag their tail
for you. They will approach you, but they are not like your pet dog’.”
Steve
MacNaull
POSTMEDIA
NEWS
The Montreal Gazette
March
22/2014
Weekly Chuckle
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