23 Jan

Wind and clouds prevented starting any earlier than 1030.  By 1100am, Don had dropped me off at Feldtmann Lake from where I snowshoed to the south shore to collect some data and bones from the moose Middle Pack had killed several days earlier.  It was a prime-aged cow.  

    I didn’t return to my pick-up point on Feldtmann until 1700.  The hike was tiring (too much office work of recent) and cold (stupidly, I wore a cotton, rather than wool, shirt). I’ll be a little stiff in the morning.

    After dropping me at Feldtmann, Don Pick up Rolf up from our base camp at Windigo.  After landing at Crescent Lake, they snowshoed to Siskiwit Bay’s north shore.  They set out to investigate the radio collar that had been transmitting in mortality mode since the day we first flew.  After three hours of careful ax work, Rolf and Don extracted the wolf carcass that had frozen into a block of ice.  It seems to have either been killed or perhaps fell through the ice.  We’ll refurbish the collar for future use on another Isle Royale wolf.  We’ll carefully thaw the wolf remains and extract the bones.  From the bones, we’ll look for signs of injury and birth defects - which are common among Isle Royale wolves.

 

24 Jan

It’s -8F.  Night is just ending.  We stand in dawn’s twilight and warm the plane’s engine.  We took off at 0830.  The view is breathtaking -- light of the rising sun dances with the fine layer of ice crystals that top the dormant maple trees.  

    Don and I found Middle Pack just south of Lake Desor.  We saw six - curled into tight little balls, sleeping.  From the distance of the plane, they look harmless, and perhaps seem peaceful.  

      How do they sleep?  It’s not the cold - wolves aren’t bothered by near-zero temperatures.  But they are hungry - always hungry.  And at this moment, just 50 yards southwest is a moose standing.  Even from the plane, the moose stares like a zombie in the direction of the wolves.  Its rear end is firmly planted against a spruce tree to protect its back side.  Almost certainly, MP wounded this moose last evening.  Likely too dangerous to kill at this moment, MP thinks its wounds are mortal.  With every passing hour, the moose will weaken, eventually the wolves will kill it.  How do they sleep?

    After less than an hour of flying, the weather began to turn.  Frigid air carried by a light NW wind began to turn Lake Superior into what appeared a steaming cauldron.  The lake is about 35 degrees warmer than the dry air we we’d been breathing this morning.  Mighty Lake Superior was losing portions of itself to the sky.  As the lake surface transforms into cloud, there is little basis for separating one from the other.  Beautiful to look at, but not so beautiful for flying through.  As the low clouds gradually formed, we gradually made our way westward and landed in Windigo.

    We made hot cocoa and did a few chores.  By 1400, sun overpowered the clouds and cleared the sky.  Don and Rolf flew for the rest of the afternoon.  By the end of the day Middle Pack still had not killed the moose it tended, Chippewa Harbor Pack had just wounded a moose just North of Lake Richie, East Pack was still hunting, and Paduka Pack was not accounted for.