Once There Were Wolves.
Charlotte McConaghy.
Hamish Hamilton. 2021. 272 pp.
ISBN 978 1 104 322 2.
When I was eight, Dad cut me open from throat to stomach.
Inti, who speaks this line, is a young biologist who specializes in the behavior of wolves. She has had experience of re-wilding in Utah and Yellowstone National Park. Now, she is Head of the Cairngorms National Park's Wolf Project, which will see 14 wolves released "to live freely in the Scottish Highlands."
"I am a bad-tempered Australian who finds it hard to hide contempt and sucks at public speaking," she tells us when, with her colleagues, she is preparing facing a public meeting where there will be many people, especially the local sheep-farmers, who oppose the introduction of wolves. As the novel progresses, however, we come to know her better and learn what has made her so angry, but we also learn of her compassion and deep love of wolves.
For the first 16 years of her life, she and her twin sister Aggie spent "a couple of months each year" visiting their father in his forest home in Vancouver. She describes it as "our true home, the place we belonged. The place which made sense to me." There, her father taught them to hunt and track, to kill only what they would eat, and to live self-sufficiently. It was there—on the day her father showed them how to skin a rabbit—that Inti felt every part of that process and passed out. And it was there, on that day, when she saw her first wolf.
"I am unlike other people," she tells us:
I move through life in a different way, with an entirely unique understanding of touch... it is called Mirror-touch synaesthesia. My brain reacts to the sensory experiences of living creatures, of all people and even sometimes animals. If I see it, I feel it.
For Inti, this condition is both a delight and a curse. Her "city-bound-gritty-crime-detective mother" in Sydney tries to inure her to the pains she will inevitably feel and have to live with by giving her a rational way of distancing herself from others. Sometimes this works, and she can tell herself she is separate from what she sees and feels. At other times what she sees—and therefore feels—is physically overwhelming.
All of this becomes part of Inti's story, but above all, Inti's closeness to the wolves is clear whenever she is near them, and they become a beautiful, living presence in the book:
Not long ago, not in the grand scheme of things, this forest was not small and sparse but strong and bursting with life. Lush with rowan trees, aspen, birch, juniper and oak, it stretched itself across a vast swathe of land, colouring Scotland's now-bare hills, providing food and shelter to all manner of things.
And within these roots and trunks and canopies, there ran wolves.
Now, the wolves are being re-introduced in the hope of restoring the natural order, destroyed by the unhindered proliferation of deer, which eat the green shoots of new growth. When we first meet them, the wolves are caged and being carried into pens from which they will eventually be released into the wild. There, it is hoped, they will "move the deer along" as they hunt.
...the dark is heavy and their breathing is all around. The scent has changed. Still warm, earthy, but muskier now, which means there's fear in it, which means one of them is awake.
Her golden eyes find just enough light to reflect.
Easy, I bid her without words.
She is wolf Number Six, the mother, and she watches me from her metal crate. Her pelt is pale as a winter sky. Her paws haven't known the feel of steel until now. I'd take the knowledge from her if I could. It's a cold knowing. Instinct tells me to try and soothe her with soft words or a tender touch but it's my presence that scares her most, so I leave her be.
Throughout the book, we follow the release and the progress of the three packs of wolves as they establish their territories, make dens, and begin to hunt. Inti and others track their movements through the signals from their collars, but the signals are only there when a wolf is close, so knowing their habits is essential. Eventually, the scientists construct a hide so they can watch one den where cubs are born. Inevitably, once the wolves start hunting, a sheep is killed and the farmer wants revenge. Another farmer, a man whose violence to his wife is clear to Inti, but which others choose to ignore, suddenly disappears, and no one except Inti (who finds and buries his body) and some other unknown person knows anything about it. Inti is sure if his body is found, the wolves will be blamed, but she is also sure it was not a wolf-kill. She has become friendly with Duncan, the local police chief, and they have slept together, but on the night the farmer was killed, Duncan had left the house just after midnight, and she begins to suspect him of being the murderer.
"There are languages without words and violence is one of them," Inti says at one point. She knows wordless language well, because from childhood she and her twin have used a sign language as their secret way of communicating with each other. She also knows the language of violence well, and she and Aggie have such a close connection to each other, a trauma that has left Aggie silent, fearful, and unable to leave the house, has made Inti her caregiver. The love between them is fierce. Inti cannot ever imagine them being apart, and few people know Aggie lives in the rather isolated, rented Scottish cottage with Inti.
Fear and human violence are everywhere in this book, and sometimes the tension created is so strong, I found it almost overwhelming, but always the wolves and Inti's interaction with them provided the balance to keep me reading. There are passages of natural beauty, too. Visiting the hide, Inti feels what she sees:
Dawn peeks over the horizon as we arrive at the edge of the Glenshee Pack's territory...The sun turns the white ground sparkling and its warmth fills my muscles with energy....From the hide I watch the pups enjoy the morning light, and my chest aches to see them playing so joyously. I feel their teeth graze my skin, their tongues lick my face, their paws batting me to the snow. I feel their pelts pressed to me, their warmth, their strength, their certainty mine. To be so at home in your body. To be so at ease, and powerful.
I have to leave here. The pull to stay is strong, the feel of them too visceral. I feel wolf; I am forgetting myself.
There are flashes of humor, too, and a birth which brings Inti such deep feelings of tenderness, it is one of the most emotionally powerful passages in the book.
Charlotte McConaghy draws the readers into the lives of her characters and realistically coveys the closeness, secrets, fears, and mutual support of a small community, where people have grown up together and know each other well. Inti, as an outsider, does not always understand this, and she is an easy target for those who oppose the re-wilding project, but she finds grudging acceptance and even tentative friendship and approval, often in unexpected places. Her complex character, her outspokenness and determination to hide traumas of her own, mean sometimes she is her own worst enemy, but her energies drive this book, and her voice as she tells the story is compelling. Ecology, climate change, and self-sufficiency are casually woven in as an underlying theme, but the creatures—humans and wolves—are the heart of the story.
Editor Note: Thinking about buying Once There Were Wolves or another book today? Please click the book cover link above. As an Amazon Associate, Eclectica Magazine earns a small percentage of qualifying purchases made after a reader clicks through to Amazon using any of our book cover links. It's a painless way to contribute to our growth and success. Thanks for the help!
