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My Wolfy Weekend Post
Oct. 14th, 2014 10:37 amPics will follow, as we got some very good ones. Okay, Jana got some very good ones. :-)
We left from the Twin Cities International Wolf Center offices at 8AM on Saturday on a tour bus with about 50 other folks on Wolf Trek II. While en route to Tobie's in scenic Hinckley, Center co-founder and international expert on wolves and conservation Nancy Gibson talked to us about the Center's history and showed a video about the "ambassador wolves." The Ambassador Pack are a group of wolves that have been raised from cubs by the Center staff and volunteers or by wolf refuge staff elsewhere. They're not tame by any means but are more able to put up with lots of people around watching them and a more limited number engaged in hand-s on work with them.
So, interesting and educational ride up in pleasant company. Our trip mates were quite pleasant and very engaged; many of them had volunteered with the Center and had made multiple trips up there. Several had "adopted" the recently deceased former Pack Alpha, Shadow, and were coming up to participate in the remembrance ceremony for him and his brother, Mailk, as well as for the rest of the trip. The Center itself is gorgeous and full of well-laid out exhibits. There's a viewing window into the wolf enclosure (they also have dens and a few acres of woods to hide in, though not out of camera range). We split into two groups and got to work with radio tracking equipment and learning about scent marking, which wolves do to mark their proverbial turf. Then we got to follow the Wolf Curator, Lori Schmidt, out to the fenced enclosure and get nose to nose with the wolves (literally, in some cases. One wolf stuck his paw through the fence and into someone's purse because it smelled yummy). We all checked each other out while Lori talked to us about their eating habits, showed us the roadkill deer that she'd picked up for them and told us about the individual pack members.
Then the Pack Alpha, Aidan, begged her for a tummy rub, which was pretty cool to watch. She was quite careful to point out that she'd helped raise him and interacted with him daily, lest we all go forth looking for 135 lb Great Plains wolves with bone-crushing jaws to give tummy rubs to. Currently, she and the other staff are trying to get Aidan to pair-bond with Luna, the female Alpha (both spayed/fixed, since they don't breed cubs there). with mixed success. Then it was back inside for our dinner, followed by the wolf feeding - we'd all been promised that Luna would do something possessive of the meet and she did not disappoint. I think it's easy to assume that Alpha status is based on size, but watching Luna, who's much smaller than the 3 males wolves in the enclosure, defend her dinner drove the point across that attitude counts for a lot more.
After the wolf feeding, we were driven to the Fortune Bay Resort, where we were spending the night. Fortune Bay is owned and operated by the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.and are some nice digs, though one's mileage may vary closer to the casino part. We took hot baths, then got up early and went to go watch sunrise over the lake the next morning. After breakfast, we headed back to Ely to go to the North American Bear Center. We found it a tad less glamorous than the Wolf Center (I suspect less substantial funding is one issue, coupled with DNR troubles and study subjects who sleep all winter and don't look like our household pets) - displays are quite wordy and rather redundant and it generally feels less current. That said, we got to meet the Center founder and director, Dr. Lynn Rogers, and listen to a brief talk about bear stereotypes and black bear ecology, as well his troubles with the Department of Natural Resources. Dr. Rogers had his permits pulled last year and lost the opportunity to continue the Center's research efforts via den cams, which were then fed on to the Web. One of his study bears, Hope, was killed last year and there was substantial public outcry against bear hunting, as many people had watched her birth and life via the den cams. The DNR was eager to salvage the bear hunt and went so far as to place a bounty on collared bears, as well to pull his research permits. While Dr. Rogers has his critics, this seems wildly uncalled for and messed up, and is now under appeal, along with the rest of his case.
At any rate, we did get to go and look at the bears up close, too. The youngest one, Honey, was still pretty lively despite the cold, and checked us out with great interest. Both Centers were well worth the trip, regardless of glamor, so highly recommended when you're up that way (Ely, MN is at the entrance to the Boundary Waters, for those of you who don't live here). I should also mention that after the Bear Center, we went off eat at A Taste of Ely, which was grand, and stopped by the Jim Brandenburg Gallery (acclaimed wildlife photographer), where I got some lovely cards and a poster. The trip back was on the slow side, due to lumber trucks and the roughness of the road which gave a few folks motion sickness, but the stop at Betty's Pies in Two Harbors was yummy.
The Wolf Center will be doing Wolf Trek III next year and I highly recommend checking it out. I am bursting with ideas for my werewolf series, so time to knuckle down and get back to work on it. :-)
We left from the Twin Cities International Wolf Center offices at 8AM on Saturday on a tour bus with about 50 other folks on Wolf Trek II. While en route to Tobie's in scenic Hinckley, Center co-founder and international expert on wolves and conservation Nancy Gibson talked to us about the Center's history and showed a video about the "ambassador wolves." The Ambassador Pack are a group of wolves that have been raised from cubs by the Center staff and volunteers or by wolf refuge staff elsewhere. They're not tame by any means but are more able to put up with lots of people around watching them and a more limited number engaged in hand-s on work with them.
So, interesting and educational ride up in pleasant company. Our trip mates were quite pleasant and very engaged; many of them had volunteered with the Center and had made multiple trips up there. Several had "adopted" the recently deceased former Pack Alpha, Shadow, and were coming up to participate in the remembrance ceremony for him and his brother, Mailk, as well as for the rest of the trip. The Center itself is gorgeous and full of well-laid out exhibits. There's a viewing window into the wolf enclosure (they also have dens and a few acres of woods to hide in, though not out of camera range). We split into two groups and got to work with radio tracking equipment and learning about scent marking, which wolves do to mark their proverbial turf. Then we got to follow the Wolf Curator, Lori Schmidt, out to the fenced enclosure and get nose to nose with the wolves (literally, in some cases. One wolf stuck his paw through the fence and into someone's purse because it smelled yummy). We all checked each other out while Lori talked to us about their eating habits, showed us the roadkill deer that she'd picked up for them and told us about the individual pack members.
Then the Pack Alpha, Aidan, begged her for a tummy rub, which was pretty cool to watch. She was quite careful to point out that she'd helped raise him and interacted with him daily, lest we all go forth looking for 135 lb Great Plains wolves with bone-crushing jaws to give tummy rubs to. Currently, she and the other staff are trying to get Aidan to pair-bond with Luna, the female Alpha (both spayed/fixed, since they don't breed cubs there). with mixed success. Then it was back inside for our dinner, followed by the wolf feeding - we'd all been promised that Luna would do something possessive of the meet and she did not disappoint. I think it's easy to assume that Alpha status is based on size, but watching Luna, who's much smaller than the 3 males wolves in the enclosure, defend her dinner drove the point across that attitude counts for a lot more.
After the wolf feeding, we were driven to the Fortune Bay Resort, where we were spending the night. Fortune Bay is owned and operated by the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.and are some nice digs, though one's mileage may vary closer to the casino part. We took hot baths, then got up early and went to go watch sunrise over the lake the next morning. After breakfast, we headed back to Ely to go to the North American Bear Center. We found it a tad less glamorous than the Wolf Center (I suspect less substantial funding is one issue, coupled with DNR troubles and study subjects who sleep all winter and don't look like our household pets) - displays are quite wordy and rather redundant and it generally feels less current. That said, we got to meet the Center founder and director, Dr. Lynn Rogers, and listen to a brief talk about bear stereotypes and black bear ecology, as well his troubles with the Department of Natural Resources. Dr. Rogers had his permits pulled last year and lost the opportunity to continue the Center's research efforts via den cams, which were then fed on to the Web. One of his study bears, Hope, was killed last year and there was substantial public outcry against bear hunting, as many people had watched her birth and life via the den cams. The DNR was eager to salvage the bear hunt and went so far as to place a bounty on collared bears, as well to pull his research permits. While Dr. Rogers has his critics, this seems wildly uncalled for and messed up, and is now under appeal, along with the rest of his case.
At any rate, we did get to go and look at the bears up close, too. The youngest one, Honey, was still pretty lively despite the cold, and checked us out with great interest. Both Centers were well worth the trip, regardless of glamor, so highly recommended when you're up that way (Ely, MN is at the entrance to the Boundary Waters, for those of you who don't live here). I should also mention that after the Bear Center, we went off eat at A Taste of Ely, which was grand, and stopped by the Jim Brandenburg Gallery (acclaimed wildlife photographer), where I got some lovely cards and a poster. The trip back was on the slow side, due to lumber trucks and the roughness of the road which gave a few folks motion sickness, but the stop at Betty's Pies in Two Harbors was yummy.
The Wolf Center will be doing Wolf Trek III next year and I highly recommend checking it out. I am bursting with ideas for my werewolf series, so time to knuckle down and get back to work on it. :-)