The Wolves Relay Distant News of Prey and Human Movements

The Wolves Relay Distant News of Prey and Human Movements describes a series of episodes in which Ootek interprets wolves’ calls as information passed between territories. The reports concern both essential resources and approaching people: a distant message leads Mike to caribou, while later interpretations appear to account for George’s return and Ootek’s foreknowledge of visitors. For Farley Mowat, the sequence tests the boundary between what an observer can directly hear, what local knowledge can interpret, and what subsequent events can confirm.

Listening Across Distance

Mowat’s interest in wolf communication precedes Ootek’s arrival. While watching George, Angeline, and Uncle Albert, he has recorded howls, wails, quavers, whines, grunts, growls, yips, and barks, with many variations he cannot adequately describe. He has noticed that individual wolves seem to respond intelligently to one another’s sounds, but has not established whether they convey anything beyond simple signals. He also recognizes that canines can hear sounds outside the range of human hearing. These observations leave communication an open question rather than a conclusion.

The first striking episode occurs on a still day at the den. Angeline and the pups have withdrawn inside to avoid the flies; George and Uncle Albert, tired after a hunt that lasted into the morning, are asleep nearby. Mowat is also growing drowsy when Ootek cups his hands to his ears and listens. Mowat hears nothing but the mosquitoes. Ootek points toward hills about five miles to the north and says the wolves are talking. Soon afterward, George sits up on the crest of the esker, turns his ears north, and howls. The long, wavering call rises from a low note to the highest pitch Mowat can hear. Ootek responds with delight and interprets the exchange as news that caribou are coming.

The difference between the two men’s perceptions is central to the scene. Ootek identifies a message before George answers; Mowat hears no initial call at all. What he can record directly is the sequence of Ootek listening, George orienting north, and George howling. The claim about the message’s meaning reaches him through Ootek and, later, through Mike as interpreter. The episode therefore makes the observer’s limits part of the evidence: the absence of a sound for Mowat does not establish that no sound was heard by the wolf or by Ootek.

The Caribou Report and Its Test

When Mowat later learns the account in fuller detail, Ootek’s interpretation is more specific than a general warning that caribou are moving. A wolf in the territory to the north has reportedly told the local wolves that the herd has begun moving south and where it is at that moment. That northern wolf, in turn, has not seen the caribou itself; it is passing on a report from a still more distant wolf. George receives the news and relays it onward. The account describes communication not as one animal’s direct observation but as a chain of information crossing several territories.

Mowat is incredulous and openly amused by what he considers Ootek’s improbable tale. Mike reacts differently: he begins packing for a hunt. Mowat understands why Mike wants caribou, since people on the Barrens depend heavily on it when it is available, but is astonished that he will undertake a two- or three-day journey across the tundra on Ootek’s report. Mike leaves without further discussion. His decision supplies the first practical test of the story, though it does not, by itself, establish how the information was transmitted.

Three days later Mike returns with a haunch of venison and a pot of caribou tongues. He says that he found the herd where Ootek had predicted: on the shore of Kooiak, about forty miles northeast of the cabin. Mowat calls the match a coincidence, but it unsettles his confidence enough that he pretends to accept the account and asks Mike to say more. Mike maintains that wolves can communicate over great distances and can talk almost as well as people. He also acknowledges limits to his own access: he cannot hear all the sounds wolves make or understand most of them. In his account, some local people, and Ootek in particular, can hear and interpret much more.

The result changes Mowat’s method more than it changes his stated belief. He concludes that later claims should be recorded with abundant question marks, yet the possibility continues to trouble his skepticism. Instead of dismissing the subject, he asks Mike to have Ootek keep track of what the wolves say and report it to him. The episode thus establishes a provisional procedure: listen, record the interpretation, and compare it with events that can be checked.

A Report About George’s Return

The next morning provides a second, smaller test. The male wolves are absent from the den, while Angeline and the pups are outside. Angeline seems unsettled; she repeatedly climbs to the ridge, pauses as if listening, and returns to the pups. On her fifth visit, Ootek also hears something and tries to explain what is happening. At this stage Mowat and Ootek have not developed enough shared language for him to understand the explanation.

Mowat returns to observing and records the wolves’ eventual arrival in his log: George and Uncle Albert come back together, exhausted, at 12:17 in the afternoon. Ootek has meanwhile fallen asleep inside the tent, so Mowat notes that he could not have watched the males come home. When Mike later reminds Ootek of his promise to report wolf messages, Ootek’s interpretation, conveyed through Mike, is that George told Angeline the hunting was poor and that he would remain out longer, perhaps until the middle of the day. The recorded return at 12:17 is close to that estimate.

The correspondence is suggestive but limited. The reported message does not give an exact arrival time, and Mowat himself describes noon as close enough for practical purposes. Nor does the passage show him hearing the call or understanding it independently. It presents a comparison between Ootek’s account and Mowat’s logged observation, while retaining the uncertainty that runs through the larger inquiry. For Mowat, the coincidence does not settle the question; it adds another reason to keep watching.

Visitors Expected

A later episode extends the reported messages beyond prey and the movements of the wolf family. On an afternoon when George turns his ears toward the north but does not howl, Ootek becomes visibly excited. Mowat catches only fragments of what he says, including repeated words he cannot fully understand. When Mowat fails to grasp the message, Ootek leaves across the tundra, heading in a direction that would take him northwest of Mike’s cabin. Mowat is briefly annoyed by the unexplained departure, then returns his attention to the wolves as they prepare for their evening hunt.

That night George and Uncle Albert depart east rather than taking their usual trails north or northwest. Later, a shout draws Mowat’s attention: Ootek has returned with three friends, all shy and grinning at their first meeting with the stranger interested in wolves. Mowat goes with them to the cabin, where Mike greets them as old friends. Asked whether Ootek knew they were coming, Mike says that he did. His explanation is that a wolf on the Five Mile Hills had reported the men passing through its territory; Ootek had tried to tell Mowat, then left to intercept and greet them when he could not make himself understood.

The visitors’ arrival gives the sequence a human counterpart to the caribou report. In both cases, information is said to have travelled from an animal that encountered something to wolves farther away, and from a wolf message to Ootek’s interpretation. Here, however, Ootek’s departure and the visitors’ appearance are observed, while the content and route of the supposed message remain available to Mowat only through interpretation. The episode closes without an independent demonstration of the call’s meaning. Its force lies instead in the recurrence of the claim, the practical decisions made in response to it, and Mowat’s gradual willingness to continue collecting evidence rather than dismiss what he cannot hear.