Wolf encounter adds fear to simple walk in the woods
BY SAM COOK
Knight Ridder Newspapers
DULUTH, Minn. – (KRT) – Not long ago, on a January morning, Beryl Novak put the leash on his 60-pound pup, Bucky, and went up the road for a walk.
Novak, 52, lives in the quiet country near Greaney in a cabin he fixed up in the late 1970s. I’ve hunted with Novak and know him to be a good woodsman and a person not given to exaggeration. He called the other day to tell me about his walk with the dog. He said I might want to grab a pen and some paper.
Novak and Bucky were walking east down the road when they saw a deer bolt out of the woods.
“That’s nothing unusual,” Novak said.
Then, two more deer bounded out, moving north to south. Then a fawn almost ran over Novak and his pup. The deer were on the run for a reason.
“Up ahead about 100 yards,” Novak said, “a great big timber wolf came out of the woods.”
Novak has seen wolves before. He got a good look at this one because it stopped in the road. Novak could see its creamy underbelly and its “black, mottled color” on top.
“I’m waiting for him to move. I thought he’d head south,” Novak said. “But here he’s coming right down the road at me. I’m thinking, `Something’s not right here.”‘
This encounter with the wolf seemed like forever, Novak said, but he estimated it lasted 15 seconds at most.
At 70 yards, the wolf laid its ears back and dropped into a crouch. But it kept approaching Novak and Bucky.
“I’m looking right in his eyes,” Novak recalled, “thinking, `What am I going to do?”‘
Novak knows a healthy wolf isn’t likely to attack a human being, but he was still uncomfortable. He could find no stick to brandish, no rock big enough to throw. Bucky barked. Novak yelled repeatedly.
When the wolf crouch-crept to within 30 feet of Novak, he shouted again and pretended to throw a rock.
“The wolf jumped sideways and stopped, broadside, in the middle of the road,” Novak said.
That’s when Novak noticed, about 100 yards away, a second wolf come out of the woods where the first one had emerged. The closer wolf looked back at the other wolf, then looked at Novak again.
“Then he turned off and trotted down the road to team up with the other one,” Novak said.
Novak backpedaled over to a neighbor’s house to tell him of the encounter. Though not one to fear wolves, Novak found this meeting more than he wanted.
“I’ve never been frightened of any animal up here,” he said. “But this really puts the fear in you, I tell you. It gives me the shivers talking about it.”
If you spend time in the woods, you’re likely to see a wolf now and then. But I’ve talked to only a few people in the past 20 years or so who have had interactions with wolves similar to Novak’s. Though most of them knew that wolves do not attack humans, all of them said they felt the way Novak felt that day on the road. Uncomfortable. Vulnerable. Frightened. Since that day, Novak has seen lots of wolf tracks. Along the road. Near his mailbox.
An avid deer hunter, Novak isn’t looking to shoot a wolf. He knows that’s against federal law and punishable by a sizeable fine. But now when he takes Bucky for his walks, Novak takes along a pistol.
“I don’t want to become the first confirmed casualty in Minnesota,” he said.