"When a wolf wears his short summer coat, a radio collar is quite visible. In winter, the collar is largely hidden under the thick neck ruff." Photo by Tom Walker and used in the book, "The Wanderer," used with permission from Mountaineer Books
Walker, Tom “The Wanderer: An Alaska Wolf’s Final Journey.” Mountaineers Books, 2023
176 pages, 1680516132 $18.95 paperback 978-1680516135
I chose to review “The Wanderer: An Alaska Wolf’s Final Journey,” by Tom Walker, because of its cover. The photo of the wolf walking in what appeared to be a blizzard appealed to me because it was getting hot outside and I already longed for cool weather.
The book is a modern adventure that took me around Alaska. It gave me a glimpse into an entire ecosystem while sharing the details of a collared wolf who is numbered 258.
In his introduction, Walker introduces readers to the terrain and history of the Yukon-Charley Rivers area, describing the Yukon River and its tributaries: “mountain ramparts that scribe the horizons” and “the ancient, dry cold steppe.”
He writes that it was here a plethora of large animals — including wooly mammoths, rhinos, bison, lions and musk ox — once reigned and that some of their descendents still live there.
This introduction sets the reader up for realizing that the history of the area is older than human records and that the wolf whose life we will witness is but a part of a longer story. Throughout the book, he shares more of this historical past as it becomes pertinent to the bigger picture.
The first chapter begins with describing how wolves are spotted in the air by a biologist, collared, released and monitored. In the book, Wolf 227, a female, is spotted running with a wolf that they want to dart and collar, which they do. Wolf 258 — often referred to as “The Wanderer” — becomes the star of the book.
The biologist catches up with 227 later that afternoon, and replaces her failing collar. We learn how the pair of wolves meet up again a few days later and where they go. The biologists and pilots follow them from the air to learn about their lives.
Walker does a great job explaining the place and the flora and fauna as his story flows.
For instance, instead of saying that on June 13 The Wanderer entered the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and found little to eat except bird nests and small rodents, he paints a bigger picture. He notes that it isn’t quite summer here yet because “spring had hardly begun.”
He describes the vigorous plant life and landscape: “[the] blackish oxytrope and purple mountain saxifrage, the first in a sequence of blooming Arctic plants, grew in low, dense mats that absorb and hold in warmth.”
As The Wanderer moved deeper, there were less caribou.The wolf was seeing others enter the habitat to feed, along with “millions of birds.”
Because of the description, one can imagine what it looks like with all the birds nesting in the tundra, “pocketed with countless ponds and lakes.” He explains how such a wet place might contradict the lack of precipitation in the region.
“[It is] a dry desert with fewer than five inches of precipitation, yet it has widespread standing water due to permafrost terrain.”
Throughout the book, he touches on details of different indigenous groups that have lived in the regions and their beliefs.
At one point he describes a dance, The Wolf Dance, which is “part of a revival of Kivgiq, the Messenger Feast” that “tells a traditional story of swallows turning into wolves.”
As I read the book, I was frequently looking up photos of animals, insects, plants and geographical details on my phone.
I was impressed to see that “The Wanderer” has elements of being a braided narrative where Walker continually wove in Alaska history, ecology, human interaction, and the wolf’s journey, with each chapter sharing details to give what feels like a new kind of 3-D feel that conveys time and the surrounding events.
I enjoyed “The Wanderer” because of the amount of information in this book. If you flip to any random page, you’ll find some cool factoid about Alaska, or learn about the geography, Arctic animals, or Indigenous people who have lived in the region for generations. Wolf 258 is the star of the book, but the story is about the wolf in his environment.
In a Youtube video with the same title as his book, you can hear Walker talk about his work.
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