And the European wolf, Canis lupus lupus, has adapted to living in fairly close proximity with human beings. In the end, I think we are going to have to go back and look at the stories we made up when we had no reason to kill, and find some way to look the animal in the face again. They killed wolves with ‘ almost pathological dedication’ from the 1860s right through to the 1970s, targeting even radio-collared wolves that were part of scientific studies. One excellent example is, “Imagine that I’m a professor, you walk down, come though the doorway, sit down at a table…” (Gladwell, Primed for Action). We also maintain a nice inventory of historic and vintage ephemera including Booklets, Brochures, Magazines, Maps, Periodicals, Photographs, Posters and Print Advertisements.

In southern Canada and Minnesota the black phase is more common than the white, but grays predominate. The animals may be marking things they consider dangerous to other wolves, especially pups, for wolves also mark traps and poisoned baits by defecating on them. By placing muzzle and unprotected nose between the rear legs and overlapping the face with the thickly furred tail, wolves can turn their backs to the wind and sleep comfortably in the open at forty degrees below zero. But in terms of ways of knowing, Lopez draws a line here between ways of knowing the wolf—and having no desire to know the wolf. If that is so, I wonder what it is we know in fiction that is as true as what Lopez knows of wolves.

In the next few paragraphs, Lopez follows this ecological dynamic into the realm of play, and relates stories of how ravens and wolves have been observed to tease one another and engage in games of tag, for fun (67–68). Adolph Murie wrote that the strongest impression he was left with was of the wolves’ friendliness toward each other. By whatever standard, a significant part of the genetic reservoir that once represented one of the more adaptive mammals on the face of the earth is now gone. During the years of the Inquisition, the Church sought to smother social and political unrest and to maintain secular control by flushing out “werewolves” in the community and putting them to death.

It was not, astonishingly, until the early 1940s that anyone took a serious, scientific look at wolves, and in some parts of Eurasia (where they are still regarded as beasts of blood and darkness) specific information on their numbers, locations, and habits is lacking even now. There is a very small wolf population in Glacier National Park in Montana and a few in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The most luxuriant pelages show up among adults on the tundra, the difference between a tundra wolf pelt and a timber wolf pelt being so pronounced that the former often sells for twice as much.

If you only see the wolf as an obstacle to the American Dream, to Manifest Destiny, then it’s going to be perfectly natural to destroy it—and since it is a foe to be beaten, not even a worthy enemy, it deserves no honor in death. Toward dusk he is standing by a creek, lapping the cool water, when a wolf howls -- a long wail that quickly reaches pitch and then tapers, with several harmonics, long moments to a tremolo. Even as adults, wolves play tag with each other or romp with the pups, running about a clearing or on a snowbank with a rocking-horse gait. If someone says big males always lead the pack and do the killing, the Eskimo shrug and say, “Maybe. The first line of the first chapter is also imperative, and perhaps the most telling moment of the entire book: “Imagine a wolf moving through the northern woods” (9).

His book has a wealth of observation, mythology and mysticism about wolves that adds a colorful part to the still unfinished mosaic that defines the wolf. Wolves are incredibly friendly toward each other, something the naturalist, Adolph Murie, wrote about after years studying wolves in the 1940s. The cover may have some limited signs of wear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. The wolf's ability to regulate its body temperature no doubt helped it survive in a wide variety of climates, each with a wide range of temperature.In Alaska, where perhaps the biggest wolves are found, a wolf that weighs more than 120 pounds is uncommon. The argument in rebuttal; that wolves in captivity represent pure strains of extinct races and therefore constitute a genetic reservoir, is probably meaningless. This excerpt describes Raven Bear (a member of the Crow Nation) and his grandson's visit to the wolf park on the Olympic peninsula, where the remnants of the Great Plains wolf "Canis lupus nubilus" were said to be kept.

The social structure of a wolf pack is dynamic—subject to change, especially during the breeding season—and may be completely reversed during periods of play. With irresistible charm and elegance, Of Wolves and Men celebrates careful scientific fieldwork, dispels folklore that has enabled the Western mind to demonize wolves, explains myths, and honors indigenous traditions, allowing us to understand how this remarkable animal has become so prominent for so long in the human heart. This passage shows what the philosophical stakes are for Lopez in taking animality seriously as a subject of investigation; these sentences also demonstrate how, for Lopez, the wolf is both utterly unique and also a metonymy for life at large.

The cold sits down like iron here, and the long hours of winder darkness cause us to leave a light on most of the day. Krakauer 142) This metaphor about the author’s feelings while climbing a mountain makes the reader connect with the author by understanding the invincible feeling nature can bring a person.