The other great Swedish predator, the brown bear, can be repelled in similar fashion. The day before my arrival in Dalarna county, three hours by train from Stockholm, a hunter went into a thicket in pursuit of a bear and was ambushed. In the midst of a ferocious mauling, he stuck a hand in the bear’s mouth, gripped its tongue and used his other hand to dial for help on his mobile. From his hospital bed, he told Swedish television he didn’t blame the bear for his injuries. “I was trying to kill it; it tried to kill me. Those are the rules of hunting.”
Sadly, the same respect is not accorded to wolves here. They have been badly served by folklore, which portrays them as child-eaters — even though there hasn’t been an attack for 200 years. By 1980, only one wild wolf remained. Few rural Swedes mourned.
Then, a few years back, something surprising happened. In the little Dalarna settlement of Furudal, the howling resumed. A pack had taken up residence just north of the village. Where on earth had they come from? And why?
Anders Stahl, an army officer turned wildlife guide, drove me through Furudal up a logging track to Brannvinsberget — Booze Mountain — the heart of the pack’s territory. We parked and set off into the trees, the forest floor a patchwork of blueberry and moss.
With every footfall, my boots squeezed moisture out of the spongy surface; it was like trudging over a soggy mattress. Vision was restricted by the pines; all sound was deadened. It felt strangely confining, yet in reality we were hiking into the largest contiguous habitat on earth. This is the taiga — 6,000 miles of cold, coniferous forest that stretches from Scandinavia to the Russian far east.
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The ecology here is simple to decipher. The abundant blueberries are prime bear food: we soon found fresh droppings stained red by the fruit’s flesh. Chewed pine branches were proof of moose, the main prey of the wolves.
The Furudal pack probably emigrated from Norway or Finland, looking for a territory rich in their favourite nosh. They now number more than 80, and hunters complain they are whittling down the moose population. So, although officially protected, the wolves know better than to trust humans, and flee at first scent. Realistically, tracks and droppings were the most we could hope for.
In order to view our quarry eye to eye, Anders took me to Gronklitt Predator Centre, near the town of Orsa. The keepers showed us into the lynx enclosure, where we threw meat for the magnificent collie-sized cats to catch between their front paws. Their agility was stunning; in the wild, they can capture birds in flight.
We moved on to meet a bear and her two cubs, feeding them apples through a fence. Their teeth and claws were formidable: I could see just how miraculous the tongue-grabbing hunter’s survival had been.
Finally, to the wolves. For 30 minutes, we walked the perimeter of their hilltop enclosure before at last spotting a lone animal staring at us one-eyed from behind a tree. “There!” said Anders, pointing through a gap in the trees; the rest of the pack trotted briefly into view before melting into thick cover again. I was transfixed. Perhaps some part of me was recalling that moment, thousands of years ago, when our respective ancestors chose to forge a mutually beneficial partnership and wolves became dogs.
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So why does man now harbour such antipathy towards the wild cousins of his best friend? “Ignorance,” Anders said. “Too many fairy stories, not enough understanding.”
Back in the forest, Anders led me on through the taiga. We emerged onto a logging road, where at last we found fresh prints. “Too wide for a dog,” he said. “Wolf!” We followed the trail for half a mile until it veered into the trees. “You don’t need to see the animal. The tracks tell the story.”
He didn’t need to convince me. The family adage, the folk myths, centuries of superstition and my recent staring match at Gronklitt all helped to conjure out of these tracks a perceptible presence. I was walking with a wolf. And not just in spirit, either. When I looked back, it was written on the road: our footprints, side by side.