Today I was biking home from work on the bike path next to the Chuck Albrecht fields (near the police station). I was surprised and disappointed to see another huge swath of trees chopped down in preparation for a new road. All the trees on the north side of the bike path are gone.
Just as I was looking at the clear-cut and bemoaning the loss of more woodlands, out of the corner of my eye I saw a creature next to the ballfield fence on the south side of the path. I only caught a glimpse of it before trees blocked my view. At first I thought it was a dog. But it was being very still, just sitting there watching me bike by. And very quiet. Very un-dog-like. And there wasn’t any dog owner within sight. I turned around and went back to get a better look. Could it be…
Sure enough it was. A wolf. And there was another. And another. Three wolves sitting there watching my every move. I suppose I should have been a bit nervous, like seeing a bear up close. But I wasn’t. I was thinking about how one second I had been lamenting the loss of more ‘wild lands’ in the city, and the next second I was looking at the animal that symbolizes wild Alaska. All within several hundred yards of the Police Station, a hospital, and a Quiznos.
In the time it took me to get out my cell phone camera, the closest wolf had ducked back into the woods. So I didn’t get him in my picture. But if you zoom in (click on it) you can see one blurry wolf next to the fence, and the rough outline of another halfway around the far side of the fence in the background. Damn, I wish I’d had a real camera.
The encounter was a nice little reward for ridding my bike to work in dark 8 degree weather this morning.
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