{"id":1083,"date":"2008-11-09T03:15:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-09T03:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1083"},"modified":"2008-11-09T03:15:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-09T03:15:00","slug":"seeking-the-blessing-of-the-wolves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1083","title":{"rendered":"Seeking the Blessing of the Wolves"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, when I was on the board of a local environmental-education group, I helped organize a couple of presentations by the staff of Mission: Wolf<\/a>, a sanctuary located one county south of me. As part of their mission, “Socialized ambassador wolves travel nationally, offering public education while stimulating people to care about and respect nature.”<\/p>\n

Often they have the audience sit in a circle on the floor, if the group is small enough, and the leashed ambassador wolf comes around to give each a quick sniff. If you get a wolf kiss (and I have), that’s supposed to be something special.<\/p>\n

One day last summer, M. and I were at the farmers’ market in Florence, Colo., and people from a different, smaller, wolf sanctuary<\/a> were there. They seemed less focused on environmental ed. and more on magic, in the form of “Cheyenne, the Healing Wolf<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

I don’t see it on the web site, but the people from this second sanctuary insisted that their oldest wolf could diagnose cancer and other illnesses. They were less into teaching about wolves in the wild and more into presenting these predators as healing beings.<\/p>\n

Third, at the beginning of October, M. and I returned to Yellowstone National Park for the first time in some years. Our last visit, in fact, came just before the reintroduction of wolves to the park in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n

And how the northern edge of the park, in particular, had changed. There were wolf tourists<\/span>. Every pull-out between Mammoth Hot Springs and the northeast entrance contained serious-looking individuals with spotting scopes and expensive telephoto lenses, scanning the hillsides of the Lamar Valley. The nearby Slough Creek Campground, which used to be half-empty in autumn, is always full.<\/p>\n

Imagine, if you have not seen one, a full-size tour bus with wolves painted on it, picking up forty or so hikers who have been on a wildlife walk to look for . . . wolves, of course. When someone sees a wolf, the news spreads around the park by “bush telegraph.”<\/p>\n

Not everyone is keen on wolves, however. I spotted this sticker on a truck in Cooke City, Wyo., just outside the park.<\/p>\n

Cat Urbigkit’s Yellowstone Wolves: A Chronicle of the Animal, the People, and the Politics<\/a><\/em> is a definitive history of the issue.<\/p>\n

But I think that is the minority view. It is as though we have flipped 180 degrees from when Barry Lopez<\/a> wrote Of Wolves and Men<\/a>\"\"<\/em> in the 1970s. He was trying to convince readers that wolves were more than mere vermin. Now they are emissaries of nature religion, furry saints.<\/p>\n

American nature religion often has a therapeutic slant, that’s for sure. “The wolf will heal you.” It’s a change from “The wolf will eat you,” but is it any more truthful from the wolf’s point of view?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, when I was on the board of a local environmental-education group, I helped organize a couple of presentations by the staff of Mission: Wolf, a sanctuary located one county south of me. As part of their mission, “Socialized ambassador wolves travel nationally, offering public education while stimulating people to care about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[10,81],"class_list":["post-1083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-american-religion","tag-wildlife"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-ht","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1507,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1507","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":0},"title":"Biologist Wants to Ban Howling at Wolves","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 8, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A biologist and consultant to national parks is telling wolf-cultists in Canada not to howl at their four-legged gurus. Alberta carnivore expert Cam McTavish says it is animal harassment. \"When we have commercial groups or individuals or even researchers that are randomly calling wolf howls, I feel it is unwarranted,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"wildlife\"","block_context":{"text":"wildlife","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wildlife"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=816","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":1},"title":"This is going out to all my writer friends","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"True, I drink cheap wine. But I eat good meat. There is an expression for my condition: The wolf is at the door. But I want the wolf at the door. I am tired of living in a world without wolves.Charles BowdenBlood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America","rel":"","context":"In \"writing\"","block_context":{"text":"writing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=writing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":290,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=290","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":2},"title":"Wolf packs for truth The\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Wolf packs for truth The Bush campaign's latest television ad is debunked by the wolves themselves. You would not expect Karl Rove to have read Of Wolves and Men, would you?","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11657,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11657","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":3},"title":"Northern Wolves: Garb and Shiny Boots in a Polish Pagan Order","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"In his article \"Wolves among the Sheep: Looking Beyond the Aesthetics of Polish National Socialism,\" Polish cultural anthropologist Mariusz Filip examines the symbolic meanings of tattoos, re-created medieval garb, and modern paramilitary uniforms in the Polish Pagan group Zakon Zadrugi \u201cPolnocny Wilk,\" (the Order of Zadruga \"Northern Wolf\"). The artiicle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"fashion\"","block_context":{"text":"fashion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=fashion"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tattooed man holding medieval sword","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/FIg-4-tattoos-Igor.png?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":662,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=662","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":4},"title":"Waiting for Euro-porn","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Euro-porn\" is my new cinematic category, although really, it's just \"Gothic\" in the 18th-century sense dressed up.The Da Vinci Code is Euro-porn, of course. It's got ancient buildings like you won't find in strip-mall America, secret Catholic societies, and layers of corruption that Karl Rove could only dream of.Well, there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5555,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5555","url_meta":{"origin":1083,"position":5},"title":"Francis of Assisi: From Radical Monk to Garden Ornament","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 31, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The real-estate supplement of the Taos News this week carried an article titled \"Five Must-Haves for a Beautiful Backyard.\" Oddly enough, four of the five items* were available at the store owned by a person interviewed for the story. \"Saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, is one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"St. Francis as a bird bath with the wolf of Gubbio.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.catholichomeandgarden.com\/images\/Saint%20Garden%20Statues\/Saint%20Francis%20Garden%20Statue%20Birdbath.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1083\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}