Katjait: Pack of hungry wolves.
Collotype printed on hand-made paper.
The wolf population in Labrador has always been a healthy one directly linked to the once huge caribou herds. Over the past few years incidents with wolves have taken place in our village. It is extremely rare that wolves enter a village but in one incident a lone wolf tore my cousins dog from her leash and killed it. It was obviously starving but why? In another incident 2 wolves were seen prowling through the village, cats disappeared. It seemed that the female was trying to feed her mate who had a broken jaw therefore unable to hunt and I suspect unable to eat. The poor beast was shot and the female disappeared into the wilderness. In the first instance my cousin waited for the wolf to come back to his kill and shot it.
There is no sure explanation for what happened. We deduced that the injured wolf had been hit by a car suffering a broken jaw and the lone wolf was probably rejected from the pack.
In either case they should have been following the caribou herds not prowling inhabited areas.
This year there are many black bears and they are wandering through the village. A girl I went to school with stopped her car to admire one whereupon he climbed onto her roof. A tense moment and again why so many and why in the village? Changes that rock our deep seated trust in the land and its wild life.