This month’s featured writing is from Linda Mazzu: Close Encounter With Silver Beauty.
Linda’s career path as a federal employee took her throughout the country working for the National Park Service in Washington DC, six national parks (Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Bryce Canyon), the Bureau of Land Management in Oregon, and the U.S. Forest Service in the Pacific Northwest. Her positions included biologist, botanist, plant ecologist, outdoor recreation planner, environmental quality specialist, and park manager, always with a focus on protecting natural and cultural lands and the ecosystems that support them. She holds a Master of Science degree in Natural Resources from Humboldt State University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Recreation and Parks from Penn State University. Linda and her husband, Erik Christiansen, reside in Boise where they enjoy hiking, biking, camping, and backpacking the Idaho wildlands.
Close Encounter with Silver Beauty
I loved working in national parks. The wildlife observations were astounding. From turning a corner in Grand Canyon National Park where bighorn sheep would greet us from a ledge above or realizing the mountain lion pawprints found followed in our tracks, to more numerous than can count black bear encounters in Sequoia or Yosemite, to elk circling my house in Yellowstone during the rut. And of course, in Yellowstone, gangs of young bison roaming the roads right after spring opening. Or river otters that once shared Boiling River hot springs with me – all of these remind us of why one worked in national parks, to constantly expand our sense of wonder in so many ways.
But the one encounter I will never forget was the day I came face to face with the most beautiful wolf I have ever seen. One day, while in the Tower-Roosevelt area in northern Yellowstone National Park, my husband and I came upon a situation. We inadvertently became a part of a hoard of people in their cars following a pack of wolves as it pursued a herd of mule deer – we were caught in a dreaded wildlife jam! Admittedly, seeing such a spectacle from afar was amazing. But quickly, I felt we should break away from the mob. We were disrupting the ancient ritual of predator/prey and our human antics could bring detrimental cascading effects to either side of the struggle. We pulled into a parking area and let it all go by us. It felt like the right thing to do.
How fortunate for us, though, that we decided to break away. As we stood in the quiet and watched the line of cars and craziness fade further away, a deer suddenly came bounding towards us in the opposite direction of the rest of the pursuit. I knew in an instant what was likely occurring. I remember thinking to myself, “This deer is being chased; the wolf pack has split”.
Not seconds after that thought, a beautiful silver wolf, one we’d been watching moments ago from a distance through a long line of traffic, came heading straight past the parking area.
I tried to find my voice to alert my husband, who was on the other side of the parking lot, but words escaped me. My camera hung useless in my hand. I had no time to think, but definitely had time to absorb what was happening.
The wolf came within twenty feet of me in full stride. She passed by me in silence, but not before she turned her head to look at me; and I can say ‘she’ since her identity was confirmed to me later as the most photographed wolf at that time. We locked eyes momentarily.
When a wild animal exchanges glances with you, when two species acknowledge each other’s presence through their eyes, it is truly something (at least for us humans) that we never forget. When humans pass on the street, we sometimes lock eyes with strangers and nod, smile, maybe say hello to acknowledge this; these everyday courtesies are typical. How atypical though, to be acknowledged by a wolf.
And in a flash, she was gone, leaving me behind in stunned silence.
Because there was snow in places, we immediately walked to where this great silver beauty had passed. The tracks left behind were huge and unworldly in their size. We took photos, but somehow the context was lost within the greater moment.
When I left my job at Yellowstone, I was given a plaster cast of a wolf track to thank me for my work in protecting the park’s resources. To this day, I keep this wolf track close by as a reminder. It is a reminder of a magical moment that can only come from extended time in the wild. It is a reminder of why I spent my career in the National Park Service. It inspires me to hold the course, to continue to support the national parks and all public lands any way I can in my retirement. And to continue to work to create opportunities for others to build their own moments of transformation and inspiration, even in these days of immoral chaos recklessly driven by those in DC who haven’t a clue how they are tied to the workings of ecology.
All I know for sure is this: every time I look at that plaster cast, I am transported back to the day when a silver beauty of a wolf looked me in the eyes and burned her image forever in my memory.