Large Fierce Mammal

There’s an old saying: “Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.” On 5 July 2007, Sea Kayaking the Inside Passage posted this story on their website under the heading, Kayaker Fights Off Starving Wolf. As a wilderness survival instructor, and bush traveller of no small experience, I read this article with great interest and, not surprisingly to those who follow my rants, felt compelled to comment on it. First and foremost, I’m examining this event from the perspective of its having occurred between two animals in Nature, and take the stand that, in the end, it played out exactly as it should have. Not because the human survived and the wolf died. No, this could have gone either way. Mistakes were made on both sides, as they are in all matters of life and death. It’s just that the mistake the human made was, fortunately for him, correctable through his own commitment to survival. When we go into the bush we are as the others who live there. No better nor more deserving of life in the eyes of Nature. Our families and friends may value us, but to Nature, our importance in the scheme of things is entirely based on how well we make use of the tools evolution has provided in the critical task of surviving to procreate. This attack was initiated by an aged and semi-starved female wolf. She was clearly hampered from hunting by issues connected with her age. She was doing what Nature designed her to do. In prosecuting her attack on the human, she was going in with the full commitment and intention of applying every fibre of what strength she had left to winning, because to win meant life. This was not evil. This was pure.

The human was ambushed which put him at a disadvantage, but he was fit and strong. He outweighed the wolf, but when you consider how he overcame his injuries, and fought through the pain to drag her to his boat so he could obtain the knife that saved his life, taking that of the wolf instead, he demonstrated that he was tougher and more fit to survive the contest than was his attacker. This too contained no shred of evil. This too was pure, no matter how confused a slant the domesticated mind of urbanized humanity may take in trying to understand it.

In the end, I am not saddened for the man. He will recover from his injuries, and he prevailed. Neither am I saddened for the wolf. She died doing as her nature intended, and even though Nature sang her to sleep, ending her death song with the crescendo of a shotgun blast, her end was one she could understand; no better or worse than those she had inflicted upon countless of her own prey in the days when she was sound and in the full flower of her strength.

So, where were the mistakes made and by whom? For the wolf, she attacked an animal that was bigger and tougher than she was and ended up paying the ultimate price. Instinctively she was fully aware of the risk but desperation often justifies the gamble.

For the man, his toughness and resolve gave him the presence of mind to correct his biggest mistake, but he won because he was bigger and stronger, not better. The wolf brought all her weapons to the fight while he had left his teeth and claws in the boat.

Thus endeth the lesson.