Becoming | (Re)colonized

A young national park wages biological warfare and nature finds a way. This is a history of wolves in Glacier.

Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Eric Carlson art: https://www.instagram.com/esccarlson/ Behind the scenes pictures: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmSxSe2J

Sign up for a Glacier Institute course: https://glacierinstitute.org/

A young national park wages biological warfare and nature finds a way. This is a history of wolves in Glacier.

Glacier Conservancy: https://glacier.org/headwaters Frank Waln music: https://www.instagram.com/frankwaln/ Eric Carlson art: https://www.instagram.com/esccarlson/ Behind the scenes pictures: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmSxSe2J

Sign up for a Glacier Institute course: https://glacierinstitute.org/

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TRANSCRIPT:

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Lacy Kowalski: Headwaters is brought to you by the Glacier National Park Conservancy.

[car noise in the background]

Diane Boyd: With wolves, they're always they're always doing something you don't expect.

Gaby Eseverri: [in the field] That's a fun characteristic.

Diane: Yes.

Gaby: [in the field] Would you say you're like that at all?

Diane: Yes. [both laugh]

Gaby: This is Dr. Diane Boyd, a biologist who has spent her life studying wolves in northwest Montana.

Gaby: [in the field] Well, when you're younger, did you think you'd be you'd be here now?

Diane: No, I had no idea. You know, I came out here in 79 for a two year study, and here I am. But it stole my heart. The North Fork stole my heart, after being here and doing and living with... The wolf researchers in the grizzly bear researchers shared a cabin. And I mean, my first week out there, I was helping them trap radio collar grizzly bears! This girl from Minneapolis! My God. [laughs] I mean, how could you not fall in love with it?

Gaby: Riding in a truck up a dirt road, I'm thinking about all the people who have fallen under the spell of Glacier National Park, and I'm wondering if it'll capture me, too.

[pensive music begins]

Gaby: [in the field] So I've been here since January, and it was my first winter.

Diane: From Florida, and that's quite a change.

Gaby: [in the field] From Miami! [both laughing]

Diane: Oh, my god!

Gaby: [in the field] Palm trees and—

Diane: Good on you! Yeah.

Gaby: [in the field] My entire family was very nervous for me. They said, you're going to move to Montana. No one goes there right now.

Diane: Mind my asking how old you are?

Gaby: [in the field] I'm 24. I turn 24, I'm 23.

Diane: I came to the North Fork when I was 24.

Gaby: [in the field] I know, I know! Yeah when I was reading your story, I was so touched.

Diane: I had the same response. “Don't move there, there's nobody there. We're worried about you. You're going to die!” [both laughing]

Gaby: This landscape feels magical in the way that it pulls people in. But in Glacier's early years, rangers were intent on keeping some things out.

Diane: Things have changed a lot, but it's still the same ecosystem is still those all the same creatures, just more people.

[car noise fades out]

Daniel Lombardi Things have changed and not just in the North Fork. History is in some ways a method of keeping track as the world bends itself into new shapes. The arc of history is long. It stretches too far to see in one lifetime. But some say to have faith, to trust that this long arc bends toward justice, that each twist towards injustice is countered eventually by a turn back toward justice. [Headwaters season three begins; starting with flutes and a drumbeat] This episode is about two such bends in the arc of history. One more than a century passed and the other less than a lifetime ago.

[theme finishes playing]

Daniel: This is season three of Headwaters: Becoming. A collection of histories of how this place became what it is today. And this episode is all about wolves. And also about Gaby trying to see a wolf for herself.

Gaby: [laughing] It's about so much else, too.

Daniel: But you have been looking into the history and looking for wolves all year, right?

Gaby: There's just something about this story that grabbed my heart from the beginning.

Daniel: Yeah. So if you want to learn something new about Glacier, where's the best place to start?

Gaby: I think one of the best places to begin learning about this place is with the Glacier Institute.

Daniel: Ah. The Glacier Institute is Glacier National Park's official education partner. They have all kinds of classes that are open to the public. It's cool.

Gaby: Yeah, it is really cool. And I joined a wolf biology course taught by Dr. Diane Boyd.

[a springtime soundscape fades in—birds calling, Swainson’s thrushes singing]

Gaby: I'm awake before my alarm. It's 5 a.m.. The birds are singing. It's spring and Glacier. I grabbed my bear spray and binoculars and get ready for a day. I've been anticipating for a long time.

Diane: [teaching a course] Any questions before I begin? I just updated this last night, actually, so I got the most current information that I could find. Can everybody hear me? All right, we shall carry on. So I'm going to talk about 42 years of wolf recovery in Montana.

Gaby: And this is where I meet Diane, along with a dozen or so other people taking the class.

Diane: I'm Diane Boyd. A little background on me. I came from Minnesota. Yeah, you betcha. [she and the group laugh] If you can't hear it, I'm like Fargo alive here. I started working with wolves in 1977, and I came out here and did a Master's and a Ph.D. through the University of Montana. But I've kind of stayed through the thread of wolf recovery in all of these years.

Gaby: In the classroom, Diane gave us a wolf 101. My favorite thing that I learned is that wolves are highly social animals. They travel as a pack, they care for their young together, and they hunt together. But the part of the day I was looking forward to the most was the field trip.

Diane: We'll meet back here or the busses are, I guess in about 10 minutes. Please use the toilet. Gather your lunch.

Gaby: I ride with Diane, who has a big truck and a big dog named Benny, who hangs out in the back seat. We're headed to the North Fork, which is also where Diane lives in an off-grid cabin.

[car noise fades in]

Diane: [talking to Gaby] My favorite thing I'm doing this year, I have what I call the golden hour in about a half an hour before sunset, a half hour after I sit on my porch and I look to the west and I do nothing, I get a little bit melancholy of my friends who have died or moved on or whatever, but—of love lost, family or whatever. But it's all beautiful. And I feel so. Blessed privilege to be able to be there. I get grizzlies in my yard and wolf trucks on the road and go, wolf scat on my driveway and it just. I'm thankful. I'm pretty much at the end of everywhere, way beyond the Mecca of Polebridge.

Gaby: [to Diane] It's kind of going through some articles from the 1970s, 1980s, kind of a line that I remember was that you were going to the river and getting your own water and melting snow.

Diane: I still do. I don't have a well, I haven't been all in water today, actually, or tomorrow. Now from the river, there's artesian springs that come out about two miles from me. I figure it's my free gym membership. [both laugh] I don't know how many more years I can continue doing that. I'm almost 70, but I'm doing it!

Gaby: Diane's wearing a black baseball cap that says, follow your instincts on the back. It's a message for everyone that follows her. She doesn't need the reminder. She's been following her own instincts and wolves for a long time.

Diane: We just crossed over Coal Creek, and I remember how we used to go down to the river from your ski down to the river, put on our chest waders in the middle of winter, get out skis and then ski on the wolf tracks. And by the time we'd come back, the waders would be frozen solid, [Gaby gasps] you’d break the ice off of them. But that spot, it just triggered that memory. Now, I imagine that when I get old and get dementia, I can't remember peoples who I saw yesterday or what age. But I'm going to remember all these wolf adventures. [laughing] Don't you think?

Gaby: I do. And I don't doubt that she'll remember. I wonder if today will be one of those wolf adventures.

[birdsong; western tanager and varied thrushes singing]

Gaby: Since getting here in the winter, I've seen lots of deer and squirrels and a very elusive pine marten. But not any big animals yet.

[car door slams, people talk in the background]

Gaby: We huddle around the cars at the trailhead and Diane tells us it's pretty rare to see a wolf, especially with a group of this size. So I know it's not likely, but I can't help but hope for a bit of magic.

Diane: Gradual uphill, the last one quarter mile’s flat. Otherwise, it's a gradual uphill. And we’ll come into this beautiful old meadow and there's this massive, huge tree in the middle, I believe it's a Doug Fir—we’ll sit under it for lunch. And it's really wonderful. When we look out over there, there's a lake. We might see loons, we might see swans, we might see wolves. You never know, though.

Gaby: As we hike through the forest, she pokes her head into fallen trees and greets their inhabitants with a warm “hello!” And when you hike with any wildlife biologist, one thing they're always looking for is poop. But to be polite, they call it scat.

[footsteps walking, then pausing]

Diane: Okay, we got some scat. Scat. Yep. That one's different.

Gaby: So Glacier is home to over 70 species of mammals, ranging from the super tiny pygmy shrew to larger animals like coyotes, elk, bears and wolves.

Diane: So what we have here, I think, that's probably a coyote scat—it’s full of deer hair. You know, you're not supposed to handle scats because they contain echinococcus, as I was telling you. My tapeworm is my favorite friend. [chuckles] But it could be a small wolf, I suppose, but it's probably a coyote. So when you see a wolf scat, for sure you know.

Gaby: Wolves are larger than coyotes and so are their poops—ahem—so are there scats. While coyotes weigh about 35 pounds, wolves weigh about three times as much.

Gaby: [in the field] And so this is one of your favorite hikes.

Diane: I love this hike. It's short and sweet. And there's always rewards.

Gaby: [in the field] What do you mean by rewards?

Diane: Wildlife to be seen up at the top.

Gaby: [in the field] Is this one you used to do a lot, when you were starting out around here?

Diane: Yes. And I also used to hike into trap wolves here.

Gaby: Diane started trapping wolves in the late seventies in order to radio collar and track them. And she describes the process they used to set these big metal traps, which grabs the animal's leg without hurting them. It is elaborate, and the key is disguising any human smell.

Diane: When you boil them in alder bark, it smells like what's here. And then you always wear gloves. You kneel on a piece of cloth. The cloth sits in a box full of dirt. The traps are stored in a box full of dirt in the truck. There's all these precautions. They still know you're there. I mean.

Gaby: Despite taking so many precautions to disguise any human smell. Wolves are often too smart and sneaky to be caught in the traps.

Diane: I just feel the wolves are ultimately the smartest animal in the woods, and smarter than us sometimes. And I've had many a time where I've had a wolf trap perfectly disguised and been in the ground a while, and I'll come by and there will be a fresh wolves get like right here. It's like, “no!”

Gaby: And she points out the ground right in front of where the trap would have been. It was a chicken wolf outsmarting Diane's trap and adding a scat to insult.

Diane: So we're almost to the meadow now. “Yo bear! Okay.”

Gaby: The trail leaves the forest, and we arrive in a beautiful open meadow sloping down to a small lake. We find some ducks and a pair of loons. And we eat lunch under that massive tree. We get Diana, tell us more stories about chasing after wolves. But there's one thing missing.

Diane: So I just got to tell you, all this is, uh—so when the wolves used to breed about five miles south of here, we would see wolf scat on this trail all the time. And I haven't seen it this year, haven't seen it for a few years. But the wolves used this meadow a lot. Now, they aren't apparently here, but nobody knows because they're collared. I think they moved south.

Gaby: I knew the chances were slim, but I can't help feeling a bit let down. [wistful music begins to play] I would love to see a wolf myself. But because of their tense history with people, wolves are understandably secretive, so it isn't surprising that seeing one is so rare.

Daniel: So you didn't see a wolf with Diane?

Gaby: No. It's such a bummer, but I'm still sort of keeping my fingers crossed.

Daniel: I'll cross my mine for you, too.

Gaby: Thanks.

Daniel: I—I mean, they're special to see anywhere, I think. But they're. They're really hard to see in Glacier.

Gaby: Is it just because the landscape is so densely forested?

Daniel: I think that's a big part of it. But, you know, for decades it wasn't just like hard to see a wolf here. It was literally impossible because there were no wolves here at all.

Gaby: Because wolves were basically exterminated from the lower 48 in the 1900s.

Daniel: And I think it is generally underappreciated how wild it is that it was park rangers, it was the National Park Service that helped kill off wolves.

Gaby: It just blows my mind. It's the opposite of what I think of a national park doing today. I talked to an expert on the history of wolves to learn more about this.

Michael Wise: History—historians, or you know, just kind of everyday people thinking about the past, don't ordinarily include the nonhuman world as a historical agent, in the grand narratives, sweeping narratives that most people tell about the past.

Gaby: I called up Dr. Michael Wise, an environmental historian who studies the relationships between people and predators like wolves.

Gaby: [to Michael] So historically, where did wolves live and how many were there?

Michael: Well, historically, wolves lived all throughout North America and into South America, possibly, and all across Europe and Asia. I mean, even within the last thousand years, yeah, there were certainly wolves present in every single inch of the North American continent at one time or another.

Gaby: [to Michael] With wolf extermination, like when and where does this all start?

Michael: A lot of people often begin with is that there is this sort of timeless antagonism between wolves and men. So, wolf, eradication happens, you know, almost immediately with the arrival of the first English colonists to what's now the United States.

Gaby: The first recorded wolf bounty law in America was passed in Massachusetts in 1630, and other colonies followed suit. These early bounties were paid out in cash, tobacco, wine and corn. Basically, as soon as colonists arrived in North America, they were trying to exterminate wolves.

Michael: Yeah, I think that is a surprise to a lot of folks that one of the first, in a way, like cooperative, democratic kind of processes on the ground is like, “okay, we all have to work together to kill wolves.” And, you know, so I think that if there is an explanation, the simple explanation for this is that people started killing wolves when they started raising livestock.

Gaby: Montana established its first wolf bounty law in 1884, five years before it would become a state. By this time, cattle ranching was big business in Montana. As other usual food sources were killed off wolves turned to cows and other livestock. And not only did ranchers kill wolves threatening their herds, but the government backed a campaign to kill predators.

Gaby: [to Michael] How many wolves were killed in the 1800s and in the 1900s?

Michael: [sighs] Oh, boy. I mean, probably overall, millions over those two centuries. If we’re thinking about just Montana? Probably 50000 to 100000 in the 19th century. And maybe another 50,000 total in the early 20th century.

Gaby: It's easy to point to the livestock industry as being the beginning and end of wolf eradication. But the story isn't that simple.

Michael: But wolves don't kill as many livestock as livestock growers expect them to. And the cost of killing wolves greatly exceeds the amount of money that any livestock grower ever saved from losing stock to a wolf attacks. What I'm interested in then is why did there remains such a commitment to eradicating wolves?

Gaby: This went well beyond protecting livestock. Federal land managers killed wolves too, because they were invested in protecting prey animals like deer and elk—animals that people like to see and hunt.

Gaby: [to Michael] So economics is part of the story, you know, wolves killing livestock is part of the story. But it's really not the reason why people are doing this.

Michael: I think that ultimately there were remains today much more difficult to articulate and uneasy reasons why people want to kill wolves. And I think that is important to try to understand those reasons. Just for the same reason, I think it's really important to for us to articulate why we love wolves.

Gaby: Often, people killed wolves by lacing carcasses with a poison called strychnine. But many other animals, especially scavengers, came across the bait and died as well. [pensive music begins to play] Ultimately, though, killing wolves became a way to make a living. Professionals were called “wolfers.” While the bounties in the 1880s were only a couple of dollars, within a few decades, they were as high as $150. Adjusted for inflation, that's over $4,000 today. These bounties led to a lot of dead wolves, but they also backfired. Wolves became almost a kind of currency. People would try to trade in one wolf multiple times or in multiple states. There were cases of people raising wolves, farming them, basically only to kill them later for the bounties.

Michael: Wolfers did most of the killing, and then by the 1910s through the 1930s, the federal hunters killed the kind of holdouts, and because they were paid salaries, not really incentivized to cheat, they were a lot more effective at actually bringing wolf numbers, you know, throughout most of the country to zero. And, of course, you know that the National Park Service had its own predator control.

Daniel: The National Park Service was deadly serious about killing off wolves and other predators.

Gaby: Yeah, I found some letters about this in the archives written by the park superintendent in 1913. It all started when [chuckling] a nearby liquor store, for unknown reasons, had a coyote, and they start writing to the park superintendent asking if he wants it.

Daniel: These letters are amazing. So I think we should have Michael and Peri read a simplified version of them.

Gaby: Yeah. Here's the first one from Glacier superintendent asking for coyotes infected with mange.

[a drumbeat begins, setting off the letter readings]

Michael Faist (as park superintendent, reading letter): I am desirous of inoculating with mange some coyotes to turn loose here in the park with the idea that I may eventually kill off all the coyotes in the park in that manner. Will you advise me as to where I can get preparation of this disease?

[drumbeat ends]

Gaby: So they write back and say, Sure, we have mangy coyotes for you. No charge.

[drumbeat begins]

Peri Sasnett (reading letter): I got your letter and beg to advise you that there's a good supply of mangy coyotes. We will furnish you with the number of coyotes you desire free of charge.

[drumbeat ends]

Daniel: So mange, this is a parasitic skin disease and it's often lethal for wolves and coyotes. I think it's the same as scabies in people, but it is highly contagious, especially for social animals like wolves. And by all accounts, it seems like a really horrible way to die.

Gaby: Exactly. And the dark idea here, pushed by the park superintendent, was to intentionally spread this disease through the local populations.

Daniel: So it seems to me like his—his thinking was that shooting and trapping these predators, that's fine. But maybe there's a more effective way to wage war.

Gaby: Right. And at this point, already most of the wolves have been killed off. So now enemy number two becomes coyotes, and the park wants to get rid of them in the same way.

Daniel: Yeah. And there were all kinds of programs and laws laid out to specifically try out this kind of biological warfare against wolves. In 1905, Montana passed a law even, requiring the state vet to infect wolves with mange to try and increase its spread.

Gaby: Here's some more letters back and forth from the superintendent asking people to send him mangy coyotes.

[drumbeat begins again]

Michael (as park superintendent): I'd be glad to have you send me to mangy coyotes. I believe this will be enough, as I already have four which I can infect from the ones that you send.

Peri (reading letter): Am shipping to coyotes today. Please distribute as far as possible from habitation.

[drumbeat ends]

Gaby: And then the park superintendent starts hitting some red tape.

Daniel: The Department of Interior writes to the park superintendent and says, “stop doing this because there's not strong enough evidence as to whether or not it's effective.”

Gaby: There ends up being dozens of letters back and forth where the park superintendent is trying to get permission to spread mange through Glacier. In the end, it doesn't work out—not because of the cruelty of it, but just because his bosses aren't convinced it'll work.

Daniel: So now the superintendent is embarrassed that his plan has fallen apart and he has half a dozen coyotes in a cage, and he has to mail them back to where he got them.

[drumbeat begins again]

Michael (as park superintendent, reading letter): I assure you, I have no doubt in the efficacy and safety of your method for exterminating the coyote by the inoculation of wolf mange. But for now, I have to postpone my plan. I hope to take it up later, proceeding with the inoculation next spring. But I have decided to return the coyotes. I appreciate the interest and trouble you've taken. P.S. I'm sorry to inform you, one of the mangy coyotes died last night.

[drumbeat finishes]

Gaby: Then the superintendent shoots off one more letter.

[drumbeat begins again]

Michael (as park superintendent, reading letter): The department has refused to allow me to exterminate the coyotes by mange. Instead, I must resort to poison. Can you advise me where you get your strychnine and possibly send me a pound?

Narrator from an old timey film: [flutes and other instruments layer in over the beat] Even in Glacier National Park, Predator Control Rangers shot and trapped so-called “bad animals” like the wolf and grizzly bear because they posed a threat to visitors. Even in Glacier National Park, Predator Control Rangers shot and trapped so-called bad animals like the wolves and grizzly bear because they posed a threat to visitors.

[music finishes and fades out]

Daniel: So the National Park Service has a different approach to wolves now.

Gaby: And really, all apex predators. We understand them to be essential parts of the ecosystem.

Daniel: As early as the 1920s and the 1930s, park naturalists and scientists were questioning the idea that predator control was necessary at all.

Gaby: George Melendez Wright was one of the first to set up studies that systematically gathered data on wildlife in a lot of national parks.

Daniel: A few decades later, in 1963, the Leopold Report came out and that pushed everything even further.

Gaby: It found that in the absence of natural predators, populations of prey animals like deer and elk were getting out of hand in some parks.

Daniel: And instead of humans culling or hunting excess animals, the Leopold report advocated for natural predation as the best way to keep ecosystems in balance. For example, let the wolves hunt the deer or the elk and keep populations in check like that.

Gaby: It was a really big step at the time, but it's hard to imagine anything different now, some 60 years later.

[wistful music begins]

Gaby: Conservationist Aldo Leopold described the loss of wolves as the snuffing of a fierce green flame. Another writer, Barry Lopez, simply said that dead wolves were what Manifest Destiny cost.

Michael Wise: What wolf eradication really accomplished was that it was a way of laying title to the American West, as a way of laying—laying title to the Northern Rockies. So killing wolves, above all, is a ceremonial possession of taking over this space. It was, it was central to the colonial process, if one of these central American historical narratives is the winning of the West and the sort of conquest of man over nature. But the reality is nature never got conquered.

Gaby: A few decades into the 1900s, wolves have pretty much disappeared from the landscape, including Glacier National Park. The park was still a beautiful place, full of wildlife. But there were no wolves here anymore. Gone were the tracks in soft snow, the kills that provided food for scavengers…. the howls in the early morning light.

Michael: Yeah like everybody—everybody who says they love wolves, I love wolves but I don't really know why. [subtle drumbeat begins] I'm working to be a wolf lover is maybe a better and more honest description. And what I mean by that is that I don't just love the idea of wolves, you know, I want to be able to love wolves for who they are, even when they do stuff you don't like. Not just love wolves, because I think it's cool that they howl or, or because they make me feel like there's still wildness that's present. Ultimately, rather than vilifying wolves, that lets us off the hook too much. It’s probably just better for us to acknowledge our human footprints on the world, and acknowledge that in order to sustain ourselves, we have to incur a certain amount of violence and destruction upon the world that we inhabit. And it's not possible to live otherwise. But maybe, you know, by thinking of ourselves more like wolves and less like the things that are better than wolves, we can come up with a more honest accounting of our actual impacts.

[pensive music continues]

Diane: Wolves live in the old world, the new world. They live from the Arctic to the desert. They live in every biome. And I find it interesting that we as a species can't respect that. There's many parallels between wolves and humans in terms of a social structure. And sometimes I wonder if that if that bothers people. And that is part of the cultural misunderstanding, that we're too much alike.

Gaby: Diane gives me a tour of her cabin and pulls out photos of when she and her friends were building it.

Gaby: [to Diane] Is this you?

Diane: Yeah! [laughing] When I was… ahem… 40 years younger than I am now, though.

Gaby: [to Diane] Is that your little outhouse?

Diane: Yeah! That was my first thing I ever built in my life, was my outhouse. And I thought, “yeah, I built an outhouse. I can build a cabin!” [both laugh]

Gaby: In her small cabin, she has more art of wolves than I have seen in my life. Cast irons hanging from the ceiling, a bathtub is next to the front door, and there are three very conveniently placed dog beds for Benny. My favorite thing about her cabin, though, are the skeletons in her closet.

Diane: All of these shelves were full of skulls. Wolf skulls, bear skulls, lion skulls. And I put them away because I had to put my stuff somewhere. Me and my all my thirty dead friends. [both laughing]

Gaby: We sat down and talked about wolves all afternoon over several cups of tea.

Diane: My job, my role is to be in the middle and try and do what I can to promote the conservation through good science. That's how I feel. Sorry it's get me all choked up.

Gaby: [to Diane] You spend so much time with them, I mean.

Diane: Lot of years, and I'm not done yet either.

Gaby: But after studying them and talking to people about wolves and wolf policy for the last 40 years, Diane still wonders what exactly it is about wolves that brings this out in people. What made early park rangers want to wage biological warfare against them?

Diane: So it's not just it's kind of a pathological hatred. It goes way beyond way beyond any rational realm of dealing with a livestock depredation issue. They just killed every one. So I think there's just a cultural fear. Just get rid of the get rid of the wolves. Get rid of the buffalo. Get rid of the Indians. I just think “clean out the West, make it safe for us white folks to bring in our domestic livestock and our families.” It's a terrible paradigm. It's—it's a terrible thing we've done. It's a just a tragedy. But that's how it was.

Gaby: Those early rangers who shot and poisoned predators probably thought they were doing the right thing, trying to bend the arc of the universe in a better direction. But the universe had its own plans.

Diane: So I have gone from that culture where being when I was young, all the wolves would kill off. Then when I got here, there were so few of them.

Gaby: By the time Diane arrived in the late seventies, wolves had been gone for about 50 years. But something changed in 1979. A single secretive wolf arrived. [subtle music begins playing, adding a sense of wonder] This was not a reintroduction. This was a natural recolonization. This wolf became known as Kishinena.

Diane: When I came along in 79, we had one wolf that had made it down from Canada--

Gaby: [to Diane] Kishinena.

Diane: Yes, Kishenina. And we put a radio collar on her. Yeah. And that was kind of my beginnings. We caught her in April 4th, 1979, put a radio collar on her just north of Glacier Park. She had to walk quite a ways, and I'm betting the wolves were killed out of Banff, Waterton, all of that area. I'm betting she came from probably Jasper, which is quite a long hike down here by foot without having been killed enroute. She, she successfully traversed that gauntlet without being seen or eating poison. It was pretty amazing.

Gaby: [to Diane] She was amazing from the start. She beat all the odds.

Diane: I know.

Gaby: Despite a century of persecution, despite all the killing, one wolf was able to bend history.

Diane: But she was really a different wolf, than the other wolves, in terms of being afraid—and not afraid, but smart and cautious. Clever and cautious. And that's why she lived. So she kind of was the first. And then she eventually ended up tiptoeing down into the park a little bit. She eventually she found a mate, and Jerry DeSanto and Steve Frey of Glacier Park—historical rangers—found tracks in 1981 of a female wolf in heat, which I'm sure was Kishenina, you know, with a three toed male who is missing one toe. And actually, I have a plaster cast of his track upstairs. And that spring, a female wolf down right near where we had caught Kishenina. The male died right away in June. And so she had to raise these seven pups by herself. I didn't think she'd be able to do it. You know, if you've ever raised a puppy, they’re constant care! And thinking about having seven little fuzzy meatballs, running around in there, [laughing] they’re looking at all kinds of dangers every day, and you have to leave them! To go hunt. There's nobody to babysit them. They all survived. It was a miracle. It's just magical.

[a subtle beat plays]

Gaby: These eight wolves became Glacier's dream team, and soon enough, one of those pups became a star player, a breeding female named Phyllis.

Diane: So now we've got two breedings, and just in Canada. But these wolves came down into Kintla Lake in the northwest corner of the park quite a bit, and eventually they moved down into the park. In 86, Phyllis denned in the park—first time documented wolves breeding in the park in 50 years. That was 1986. We started calling them the Magic Park because it was magical that they had survived, its magic that they were there, it was kind of magic that they just showed up and claimed their territory and stayed.

Gaby: [to Diane] I love that they're called the Magic Pack. [both laugh] I think that is such a great name for, for what they represent. But what are they what do they mean to wolf recolonization in Montana and Glacier? I mean, they are this like hopeful story to me. What was that like?

Diane: It was amazing, especially when they moved south into the park. And that's where they started denning, they denned there that year and the next year and almost every year since. And out of that, from that pack butted many dispersers, and more wolves made that hike down from Canada. And suddenly we had packs all over, and they were the source. They were the beginning, the the springboard to that launched recovery. I mean, I never in my deepest dreams would have fathomed that it would be this successful. So that's amazing to me. Still is. And still it excites me just as much as seeing them out there.

Peri: [to Diane] Was there a moment when you, like, realized they were kind of here for good?

Diane: When we started going from one pack to four packs and then two more in Canada, and then pretty soon we're monitoring seven packs and it’s like, “Oh, this thing's catching on.” [laughing]

Gaby: [to Diane] This is a lot more than one wolf!

Diane: Yeah. And then they were kept going further and further, and then they'd find other wolves in these distant places. It's like, “Yeah, now we're here to stay.” Yeah.

Gaby: [to Diane] What do you see coming?

Diane: The future for wolves?

Gaby: [to Diane] Yeah.

Diane: If we will tolerate them, they will always be here. It's strictly about us. They live in Saudi Arabia. They live in the Canadian Arctic. Only thing that stops them is humans. It's just really simple.

Gaby: [to Diane] So do you think our relationship with wolves will change?

Diane: Hmm. I was kinda hoping it’d change in my lifetime, but it hasn't. So that's been really disappointing. That's the hardest thing. Yeah. Wolves are survivors. I don’t know about us.

[a pause, and a short, joyful snippet of music starts to play]

Gaby: And then, just as I'm about to ask Diane another question, her eyes go wide. Her mouth drops open and her arm shoots up, pointing out the window. I look down the driveway past the outhouse, and I see two eyes looking back.

Gaby: [to Diane] It was right there walking

Diane: There was a black wolf walking through my yard! I’m not kidding you. Let’s try not to scare it

[rustling of furniture moving]

Gaby: My heart is pounding.

Diane: [with a sense of wonder] Wow. Oh, my God. You guys are good charms.

Gaby: [slowly, emotionally] It's a magical moment. And for a few seconds, I'm under its spell. Our arcs bending together.

Peri: Is that the first wolf you've ever seen Gaby?

Gaby: [to Peri] Yeah.

Diane: Right at my house?! [laughing]

Gaby: [to Diane and Peri] Yeah. How special is that?

Diane: My heart is still pounding.

Gaby: [to Diane] Yeah, me too. I haven't totally processed that. [all laughing in disbelief] First time I see a wolf.

Diane: At Diane Boyd’s house!

Gaby: [to Diane] With Diane Boyd!

Peri: I know! [all laugh]

Diane: How fun is that? He was walking right down the driveway and then cut over. You saw—did you see him in the driveway?

Gaby: [to Diane] Mmhmm.

Diane: Yeah you got a good view of him then. I was just so shocked to see that.

Gaby: [to Diane] I love that we went on a wolf course with the Glacier Institute and hiked and looked and all that. And here we are, just in your house, just talking and—and we get a sighting.

Diane: It's amazing. It's just—that was one of the biggest joys of the year. Maybe the biggest joy in several years is to just see a wolf in the wild and just doing his thing, walking through the forest on my land. And anyway—oh, sorry. I'm just. I'm still high from seeing that wolf. Like, after all these years. Can you believe that?! My God. Wow. [all laughing]

Gaby: [to Diane] I love that. Every sighting is just as exciting as the first time.

[subtle, sparse music begins to play]

Gaby: It's tempting to credit fate for seeing it here, of all places, with Diane, of all people. But I suppose I'll never know what brought it here. What arc it's on that crossed with my own.

[wolves howl in the background]

Lora Funk (reading as Kishinena): Since ancient times, my kind has shared the northern world with humans—sometimes as friends, other times as rivals. Our relationship a long pendulum swinging in an arc from peace to war. I was born into a time of war. This is well known. But what force of gravity pulls the swing from one direction to the other? This is less known, but they say it can be sensed in the wind. [winter wind howling] I sniff the air. Under a winter moon, a new smell blows from the south. So I follow it. I was born in the time of war, but perhaps I can live to see a time of friendship. [more energetic electronic music begins to play] For nine days and nine nights I trot south alone, following my nose. It leads me to a land of icy mountains. At night I howl below glaciers and only my echo calls back. [a quiet howl] I'm alone here except for the humans. They follow my tracks and I follow theirs. We inspect each other from a distance in an uneasy peace. [a Wilson’s snipe winnowing] The night I'm captured, I realize the war is not over. Not at all. I expect they will kill me. Surviving an encounter with their kind is unknown. Instead, the humans are gentle. They fit me with a collar and let me go. Then one night, my howls are answered, and I'm no longer alone. Before long. I'm tending a den of pups, and then I'm really not alone. I teach my pups to be wary, to stay hidden, but also that they are born into an era of change. [music resumes] The war is not over and they are not our friends, yet. But the arc is bending once again. [wolves howl as the music fades out]

Daniel: Headwaters is a production of Glacier National Park, with support from our partner, the Glacier National Park Conservancy. This season of Headwaters was made by me, Daniel Lombardi, along with Peri Sasnett, Michael Faist, and Gaby Eseverri. Frank Waln wrote and performed our music. Eric Carlson created this season's cover art. Special thanks this episode to Emma Hilliard and Eric Goodin, and of course Lora Funk. We couldn't have made this episode without Dr. Diane Boyd and Dr. Michael Wise. Thank you to all the wolves. And also a special shout out to the Glacier Institute, the park's official education partner. Check them out at GlacierInstitute.org. This season also depended on a lot of hard work from Darren Lewis and Lacy Kowalski. And we always depend on help and support from Melissa Sladek, Sierra Mandelko, Brent Rowley, and the whole team at the Glacier National Park Archives. I also want to shout out the Conservancy's Virtual Book Club. We got a lot of great ideas from them. Thanks for listening.

Peri: So Andrew, Headwaters couldn't happen without the Glacier National Park Conservancy. Hmm. But you guys also support so many other amazing projects in the park.

Andrew Smith: Yeah, one we're excited about that's coming up this summer is the nocturnal pollinator BioBlitz.

Peri: What's a nocturnal pollinator?

Andrew: A nocturnal pollinator is like a moth or something—an insect that pollinates plants at night. So we know how important pollinators are, and a lot of the concerns that scientists have about the loss of pollinators. But the nocturnal pollinators in Glacier are not super well understood. So next summer, there's going to be three nights where people will be out observing pollinators. And we're going to try to get as big a list as possible of all these pollinators so we can understand how they're affected by climate change and changes in the night sky and can help direct policy here in Glacier National Park.

Peri: Sounds like something worth staying up for.

Andrew: Absolutely.

Peri: And if people want to learn more?

Andrew: They can check out our website. It's really easy to remember, you just go to Glacier.org.

Peri: Thanks, Andrew.

Andrew: You're welcome.