The Wrangell sentinel. (Wrangell, Alaska) 1909-current, 1933-02-24
Alaskan COntradictS
Wolf and Bear Stories
By Travelling Writers
By LEE CoNSIDINE
CONTINUED from Page 0ne)


ing in this light is dangerous and
that the breaking of snowshoe has
proved fatal to many men in the
North. Such bunk The type of
snowshoe used throughout that dis
trict is the Cooks Inlet model, the
weakest, poorest snowshoe made in
the North. Any one using them
steadily has to carry some strong
cotton cord for temporary repairs
such as splicing broken bows or re-
pairing the webbing, for the darn
things are continually breaking.
Hours in Midwinter
His next description is the noon
day sun which appears a few inches
above the horizon for an hour and
fifteen minutes. That low position
and the deep snow he describes
pla es the time as midwinter. Next
Mr.. Ruggles says that the silence is
shattered by a laundering rumble
as a herd of 1000 caribou run by
pursued by a pack of 81 wolves
which just run along cutting down
with single snap of the jaws one
after another of the caribou. They
do this just for fun, apparently, as
he says they only eat one out OF
every seven killed, and the dead
caribou were strung out for two
miles until the race dwindled down
to a massive, magnificent bull and
the leader of the wolf pack. But
the wolf leader was too fast for the
bull and realizing he was being
overtaken the bull whirled and with
his huge antlers tried to gore the
enemy.
The most amazing feature of this
baloney is that the big bull still
carried his horns in midwinter. My
observation of caribou is that the
heavy horned full grown bulls are
the first to start shedding, young
bulls next and the cows with their
skinny little horns last.
After the running season caribou
start shedding horns and their sea-
son is quite a bit earlier than the
moose. The large big horned caribou
that Ruggles describes is the
mountain species-found through
out the Alaska Range in small herds,
but the barren ground species is
migratory and found in immense
herds on the interior slopes of the
Alaska Range. Herds of two thou
sand are not unusual.
Book of Etiquette
l will now pass up Ruggles' ex-
plantations of wolf bowls and wolf
fights Personally, 1 believe it is
more hooey, or perhaps a "Wolf's
Book of Etiquette" has been issued
recently and the Alaska wolf today
knows the proper howl for any and
all occasions, and has also revised
his ringside rules of fight behavior,
| wish to note here Ruggles' extra
ordinary statement that he trapped
"a wolves that winter. Keep that in
mind as I will refer to it later
In the wolf article of February
IS, 1898, Mr.. Ruggles describes
caribou coming down off the noun
tairs to seek shelter in the timber
on account of an impending bliz-
card. 1t would be very unnatural
for caribou to leave the open, bare
windswept mountains. If there is a
storm from the North they simply
walk around and stay on the south
slope of the mountain. The reason
the caribou would not seek shelter
in the timbered valleys is that their
natural food, the short caribou moss,
does not grow in timbered valleys
and the snow is deep in the timber,
not only the natural fall but the
wind driven snow from off the
mountains. Another reason why
caribou stay high in the winter is
that when the temperature is
around 40 below zero in the valleys,
it is only about zero on the high
peaks and ridges. In describing the
storm the writer says: 1.-THE bliz-
zard was upon us. The velocity of
the wind was so great that it caused
the giant spruce trees of Black
Canyon to sway, sigh and moan,
but it twisted off many of the larg-
est branches and crashed to the
ground some of the higest trees in
the forest. Many times we expected
one of the giant trees that stood in
the yard to blow over on our little
home and crush it on us.
Mystery Cabin
Now, if Mr.. Ruggles had really
been in the upper Susitna valley he
would not be likely to say that for
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