The Wanderer–A Book Review

The Wanderer by Tom Walker

Over the several decades I’ve been documenting the world of nature, I’ve come to appreciate one overarching theme; virtually all wild animals have a precarious and challenging life. The Wanderer was no different. Observing the struggles of any particular species is never easy. Still, it regularly reminds me how fortunate my life is and that of most other humans. Gratefulness is a powerful emotion.

The Wanderer, written by good friend and colleague Tom Walker, is a true-life adventure about a male wolf officially known as Wolf 258. It begins in the Alaskan wilds of the Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve, where the Wanderer–as Wolf 258 came to be known–began his journey as a disperser from the Seventymile River pack. Dispersers are typically young wolves that decide to leave the pack for any number of reasons, most often due to lack of food.

Through the technology of GPS and the good old-fashioned sleuthing, Tom could guesstimate the difficulties this lone wolf encountered on his nearly 3,000-mile trek. As Tom suggests, what this wolf went through is most likely not unusual. What’s unique is having the data to reconstruct his lengthy exploit and Tom’s personal experience covering much of the Wanderer’s path himself.

Never crossing a road or private land

In six short months, The Wanderer traveled an estimated 2,960 miles. As Tom describes it, “Across all those miles, the wolf never crossed a road nor private land. He never once had to seek “permission” to continue while traversing millions of acres of public lands. Nowhere else in the United States is such a journey even remotely possible. In the lower 48, the farthest a creature can get from a road is 21 miles, in Yellowstone National Park.”

A very short love story

The saga of The Wanderer begins as a love story when he meets Wolf 227, the lone remaining member and breeding female of the Edwards Creek Pack. It ends within pages as she dies suddenly on a hillside in a dense alder thicket, leaving the Wanderer alone without a mate or a pack. Having neither reduces his chance of survival dramatically.

Wilderness Alaska

This book is as much about the wilds of Alaska as it is about this one wolf’s life. The Wanderer takes you through some of the most loved and worshiped wild lands in the United States. Much of his journey passed through the indigenous lands of the Han Gwich’in tribe–people of the river, who have roamed the landscape for thousands of years. They “shared the land with wolves, though perhaps uneasily. Wolves competed with them for food.”

Characters of the Bush

But that didn’t stop Christopher “Phonograph” Nelson, nicknamed for his nonstop chatter, from taking up residence in the wilds of Alaska. Nelson was of Norwegian descent. He moved to Alaska in the 1920s and set up traplines on the Nation River for wolves and other critters. He lived in the Eagle, Alaska, area for nearly 30 years. The end came when a river traveler found his body frozen in the bunk of his cabin. The Park Service restored the cabin, and it’s now designated for public use.

Alaska’s lust for killing wolves

It doesn’t matter how far back wolves and humans have coexisted; the wolf has always been on the short end of the stick. Tom chronicles some of the most egregious examples sharing with his audience how the state of Alaska and the National Park Service butted heads over wolf management. In 1994 the Alaska State Legislature passed the “Intensive Management Law,” a new mandate requiring the Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) to kill predators to increase game for hunters. As Tom writes, “a sharp contrast to the NPS’s policy to maintain healthy and largely undisturbed ecosystems.”

The politics of killing wolves in Alaska is well documented in the tales of The Wanderer. In 1997 state biologists proposed a nonlethal means of controlling wolves through sterilization. That lasted a decade or so; then, in 2006, aerial hunting was given the green light. Private pilots, state biologists, and sportsman’s groups joined the army to kill as many wolves as possible. Governor Sarah Palin made it official by increasing the take–though I never did read the original number–and offered a $150 bounty.

The Forty Mile Herd Recovery Effort

All of this organized wolf killing fell under the name of the Forty Mile Herd Recovery Effort. Forty Mile refers to a sizable caribou herd that had been declining, with many hunters, anti-wolf zealots, and some government officials speculating that the decline was due to an overabundance of wolves. No absolute science to back that assumption up; just gut feelings based on speculation. Imagine that. The government ignores science to ram through policies to appease a special interest group.

Alaska, the last great wilderness

Caribou are the primary food source for most wolves throughout Alaska. Understanding how caribou and wolves depend on each other was a passion for one of the most noteworthy conservationists of our time, Olaus Murie. Olaus came to Alaska in 1920. Between 1920 and 1926, he “conducted an exhaustive study of Alaskan caribou, mapping migratory routes and estimating numbers.”

Later in 1956, Olaus and his wife Margaret led a two-month-long expedition to the Sheenjek’s Lolo Lake, “a place not far from where the Wanderer rested on the divide.” Tom writes how the New York Zoological Society and the Conservation Foundation financed this expedition. The couple also worked with the Wilderness Society responsible for the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964.

Get lost in Alaska

The Wanderer is fun to read, especially if you love the great state of Alaska. Through the eyes of a wayward wolf, you come to know America’s most impressive natural landmass. In a place so large, wild, and political, nothing like this could ever happen anywhere else. Along the Wanderer’s path, you learn about wolf biology, native land rights, our parks, and wild lands, and many characters of the Alaskan bush. The theme is stitched together through the many paths The Wanderer decides to take and his tenacious desire to survive. Unfortunately, he was also very young. His detailed path suggests mistakes were made that substantially influenced the ending.

As The Wanderer’s story draws to a close, I’m reminded again of how difficult life is for a wild animal. That reality hits even harder as I finish the pages in my warm, cozy bed. Having known Tom Walker for over 30 years, I’m not surprised by this story of compassion so well told.