Wolves in the Yukon Arctic: Encounters with Singular Beings
Old Crow, a small Vuntut Gwich’in community in the Yukon’s far north, is situated on a vast territory shared by a diverse population. Among its inhabitants is the wolf, a ruthless strategist. Hard to track in the bush, wolves are equally elusive in the stories humans tell of them. And yet they appear in many guises, provided the researcher lets go of preconceived ideas. A flexible and open approach matters all the more since wolves, as very careful animals, do not show themselves. What is at stake, then, is an ethnography of individuals with a radical alterity and inclined to remain invisible. Working with feeling becomes necessary here, at the crossroads of the human and the animal, the tangible and the intangible. This ethnographic experience takes us into a world without words, yet rich in meaning and information.