by Tim Lydon
I paddle to a favorite meadow with my friend, Solan. It’s late summer in southeast Alaska, when the tall grasses are turning yellow and the mountaintops are lost in clouds. Coming ashore, we step over dead salmon dragged from the stream by bears.
Walking toward the stream, I talk about the time I watched a wolf fishing here, knee-deep in the estuary. But Solan stops me. “I just saw a wolf,” he says, pointing a hundred yards ahead. “It ran into the tall grass.”
We take a few steps. I don’t know what makes us turn, but there is another wolf only 50 feet behind us. She is gray with tawny legs and skinny, with an adolescent’s long limbs and big paws. We stare at each other, and then she cautiously walks toward us, her tail low.
Teklanika Nature Photography 