Unknown Forces
On the bank
Along the bank of a Labrador river on a late October day, the sound of a splash rose into the blue autumn sky and reached me. We were hauled out, Joe and I, our canoes resting on their sides on the bench above the beach. The stove was going, and it was teatime. Joe, ever the old Canadian trapper, was having a smoke, waiting for the water to come to temperature. I stood, binoculars in hand, crept to the water’s edge, and looked up the beach.
Barely a foot wide against the vast flow of river, the beach was a long step down from me. A tree had fallen off the bank and into the water. Just this side of the tree, ten meters from me, was a wolf casually traveling unimpeded by the dense forest above. It had walked into the water to skirt the downed snag.
It was searching the sand, sweeping its gaze from bench to water. I inhaled one very small, sharp gasp. The wolf stopped, looked up. Directly into my eyes. Gold. This is what I remember. A black wolf with gold eyes. We didn’t move. I didn’t breathe.
But holding my breath didn’t change the outcome. After a long moment, the wolf turned and bolted. I dropped to my knee, lifted my binoculars, watched the wolf retreat. Reaching the snag, it fled into the depth of the forest rather than be further exposed crossing into the water.
The wolf didn’t know we were there, having come in from the water with the wind coming downriver. Even in this remote place, it knew that humans were trouble. It knew that to be tethered to this species, the kind with two legs, was not the safest option.
Of course, I didn’t know the wolf was there either, having only mere human senses. Yet despite the opposing lore that wolves are trouble, I have been tethered these many years. It is the only option.
