Where The Wild Ones Dwell:

"Up in the deep woods" Grandmother said, "Up in the deep woods!"

Intro:

1989…

We had left, on my instigation from Los Angeles the year before (1988). After arriving back from London, Los Angeles after the 1984 Olympics had changed. (Truth be told, I had changed as well of course) Our band, Grey Pavilion then collapsed under my crushing depression after I developed writers’ block. What had been the easiest thing in the world for me, composing a song and lyrics dried up, never to return. Luckily, Mary, and our dear friend Michael were able to help me surface from the depths of my darkness. Looking back, what I needed was a vacation, I got it into my head that leaving L.A. was a solution. We made the move north, up to Washington State. (Lots of good came out of it of course!) We moved first to Tacoma, then to Olympia Washington, and when work didn’t pan out, we moved to deep Northern California…

This is a tale from years back (1989) the year before our son Rowan was born. We found ourselves living in Northern California, somewhat remotely 3.5 miles outside of a town on a country lane abutting the foothills of the Siskiyous. Behind us heading to the west was pretty much wilderness until you hit the coast. To the east was what some would call wastelands, but I still think of it as absolute beauty.

It was early winter. We were staying at the house of my stepfather and my mother. We had moved down from Olympia Washington (as mentioned above) to take care of them, though we came to realize that they were very capable of taking care of themselves. (Ah, the follies of what passes as late youth.) Mary and I threw ourselves into maintaining and fixing up the old homestead (my stepfather had pretty much built it from scratch along with my help in the late 60’s along with various volunteers), I cut firewood and did much needed maintenance around the house and Mary cooked and maintained the interior of the home and in general we got on. We worked in town as well, and started a serigraph business during these times…

We lived on 3 acres. 1 acre of old orchard. The house/cabin was a big drafty challenging hulk of a building. It incorporated Japanese motifs, and my stepfather’s eccentric ideas of construction and carpentry. Still, it was a lovely place. Filled with books, art and much more.

Where we were living was about a half a mile from an old quarry that had a road meandering around it. We would often take the old resident dog Jupiter out for walks, and this was his favorite path to go on. He enjoyed the smells, and the terrain. Jupiter was a fairly massive dog, a mixture of Newfoundlander and Golden Retriever. He had a lovely temperament and was a sterling companion.

It was late fall and as we were up in a fairly high elevation (3600ft), and it was starting to snow that night, but we thought that a good walk would do us all well and Jupiter seemed enthused to go. It was just before midnight when we left. At that time, we kept a lot of late hours working on projects and art.

We headed out towards the quarry enjoying the evening with brief glimpses of the moon viewed from underneath a scattering of snow clouds. The wind was blowing from the north as we walked along eventually arriving at the entrance to the quarry, we headed north into the wind along the winding service road with Jupiter happily leading the way.

There was a mist hugging the ground as we walked along, being driven in rivulets by the wind mixed with snow flurries. Jupiter was excited, he was loping along wagging his tail for the sheer joy of being out and having a good time. He loved the winter, with that great shaggy coat of his.

We were walking through the scrub following the road about a quarter of a mile in. All of a sudden, Jupiter put on the brakes, and wouldn’t step further. “Come on Jupiter” I said. Nope. He would not budge until I really tugged on his leash. He was trying to back pedal but went along with my direction. “Come on ya big scaredy cat!” Jupiter was certainly unhappy with it all. We rounded a corner about 50 yards along, and came face to face with a wolf, standing there. Its head would have been about the height of my stomach. Truly massive. Variegated brown/tan in color, with huge paws. (more on them later) Jupiter took one look and proceeded to urinate and defecate simultaneously.

The wolf looked at us, we looked at him. Obviously, he hadn’t smelled us as the wind was blowing at his back. Jupiter had picked up his scent, and me being a human had ignored his instinctive reactions. Mary & I stood frozen staring at this fantastic creature. He looked directly into our eyes, and slowly backed up. As a common courtesy, we did the same. Jupiter was only too happy to go along with the decision, after all I had overridden his earlier take on the situation. The wolf backed up until he turned around, looking at us over his shoulder as we disappeared around the corner behind a scrub pine. We headed home post haste with many a glance over our shoulders to see if said wolf was stalking us and Jupiter. Obviously, the wolf wasn’t, having been surprised by our sudden appearance earlier.

We made it home, cleaned poor Jupiter up, and took him inside so he would be warm and safe. The next day we related the story to several people. “Oh no, no wolves in California” was the usual response. I went back to the quarry road later in the day. There was still a paw print that I could find. It was very, very large.

Earlier in the year, we had witnessed an otter at the bottom of the quarry, swimming around in the ground water pond, happy as can be. The nearest real body of water/river was 5-6 miles away. We told people about the otter then, and the response was, “Oh, you must be mistaken, no otters around here.” I detect a pattern.

25 or so years later and the news announces that a pack of wolves from Oregon have merged/interbred with a pack of wolves from Northern California. For over 100 years, the existence of wolves had been denied in California. Curious.

I feel that wolves had never left California, they went deeper into the woods, the hills and became increasingly wary of humans. It hadn’t been a problem with the older indigenous inhabitants, but the new folk were murderous concerning wolves. It was a pattern repeated across the country in the 18th & 19th centuries. I take it that there is an atavistic fear in some for the wolf. We still see it in Eastern Oregon and Washington, Idaho and other places.

It makes me wonder how much we actually miss in the day to day around us, often in plain sight.

I recently saw a video set in Africa where they had audio speakers set at the normal human voice level that would broadcast a spoken statement when an animal approached. Time and again the various animals fled from the sound of a human voice, from giraffes to hyenas. Truly humans are feared as a top predator.

I have been on a trail deep in the woods and I've heard people coming towards me talking at least a quarter mile away. Usually when I'm in the woods I try to talk as quietly as possible, just a whisper and hand gestures. We as humans tend to announce our presence to everyone, everything all around us. Therefore, it is no surprise that we rarely see other inhabitants of the woods and wilderness.

Go lightly into the deep woods! Silence is your friend.

Blessings,

Gwyllm

I used to visit here over the years. Swam in it more than a few times as a young man.

This song has nothing to do with the above post. I just like it. I hope you do as well.