The Howls of August: Encounters with Algonquin Wolves

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

With seven books to his credit, Michael Runtz is rapidly gaining fame as
a naturalist and photographer. Not as showy as his coffee-table photo
books, Howls earns its place in Canadian natural- history collections by
its detailed research and numerous personal accounts.

Wolves embody much that intrigues us about the wilderness. We fear
them; yet we are drawn to their mysterious and elusive ways. They
symbolize the primeval, the essence of terror. At a subconscious level,
we sense that to howl with the wolves is to flirt with the devil. Yet
imitating a wolf’s howl and receiving a reply has become a passion for
the author and for the thousands who take part in public wolf howls at
wilderness parks.

Sitting perfectly still in a bog for hours, while bugs mistake you for
an all-you-can-eat buffet, is not everyone’s idea of a great pastime.
For Runtz, it is an acceptable price to pay for the privilege of
sighting wolves in the wild.

The work is a catalogue of such wolf-sighting experiences, from his
unplanned first encounter to the many public howls he has helped stage.
These personal accounts are accompanied by numerous black-and-while and
a few color photos of wolves and their habitat, shot on location in
Algonquin Park.

Although Runtz’s prose style is a bit flat, the text is packed with
facts that are never dull. The photos are less than great (Runtz warns
us that photographing wolves is very difficult and that any in-focus
shots are to be prized); there are much better wolf shots to be had from
other photographers. But Runtz gets full marks for serving up a genuine
in-the-field experience.