On a September day like any other, Juneau resident Harry Robinson and his dog, Brittain, left home to meet a friend for their morning stroll. But the friend, usually so dependable, never showed.
The trio-minus-one made the customary rounds, searching for signs of the third, who was nowhere to be found.
The missing friend was called Romeo. Though he may have never been aware of it, his name appeared in headlines around the world. Animal lovers everywhere wanted to hear about Juneau’s resident black wolf, a creature that seemed to bridge the gap between humanity and the wild animal kingdom. He attracted crowds to his regular hangout near the Mendenhall Glacier for years until his unexplainable disappearance last September.
Juneau resident Nick Jans, an avid naturalist and wildlife photographer, shared an abundance of experiences with Romeo over the years since they met. He last encountered Romeo a little over a year ago. It was spring but a thick layer of ice still covered Mendenhall Lake, the same location Jans first encountered the creature. But on that crisp April day, Jans gave little thought to the possibility that the encounter might be their last.
“He came over and kind of said ‘hi,’ we said ‘hi,’ and that was it,” Jans recalled.
That final encounter was much like their first, which took place about seven years prior, also on the ice. Jans had spotted wolf tracks while skiing one day and later encountered their owner, then a nameless two-year-old black wolf who was acting “goofy, gangly and clumsy like a teenager.”
“He developed a huge crush on our female lab, Dakotah, and that’s how he got his name,” Jans said. “He would hang around our back door and sometimes be waiting in our yard. My wife Sherrie said, ‘There’s that Romeo wolf again.’ The name stuck.”
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Click here for a photo of “Romeo”, on Nick Jans’ website
Teklanika Nature Photography 