He pointed at the poo and there was a smile on his face. It was dark and hairy and smelly, the poo that is. “There is no question about it,” our guide Simon said, staring admiringly at the poo, “they were here. Time is the only difference.” The rest of the group stared at the poo in the same way, admiringly.
Normally, gazing at poo is seen as odd behaviour, and gazing at poo admiringly is seen as odder still. But we were not odd because we were collecting data.
We were tracking around the county of Västmanland just west of Stockholm Sweden, a place Simon grew up in, a place he believed where he could guide best – “Representing where you’re from is the ultimate guiding experience, I think.”
There were many data points, and the more experienced the guide, the more data they can collect from a situation. Collecting data is putting pieces together and inventing. It seems like inventing from an outside perspective, inventing a story, but Simon called it valid guessing.
Things most people miss turn out to be crucial details which could mean the difference between a sharp left turn and a sharp right.
Simon’s eyes, intense and searching yet calm and inquiring, scanned the ground and the trees and the shrub. His eyes led his body and we followed trying to emmulate his searching techniques.
My eyes were not trained like his, so I merely watched him, using his eyes and body language to determine what were hints. As he said, they were here, and time was the only different between us.
There were pieces of skull and bone along the trail now. It was getting warmer.
We were looking for them. Out in Sweden during the backend of summer, the temperatures mild and pleasent, Simon and our team of five. We were looking for wolves.
Simon has only seen wolves twice this summer season. The company were touring with is called Wild Sweden, an adventure operator running summer and winter tours.
Simon has worked with Wild Sweden for eight years and is a full time guide and educator specialising in mamals and birds.
“I like to live a sustainable life that keeps me close to nature… I have a house in the countryside with chickens and rabbits. I grow my own crops and try to live close to the seasons.”
“Working as a guide is hard and requires devotion. When you spend over 12 hours a day out with your guests in nature it becomes a lifestyle. To be led by local guides that share a close relation to nature is, in my opinion, what our guests want. The guide is just as much of a highlight as the howling wolves.”
“Just be out there. Gain knowledge. You can’t read everything from books… get your own experience, and to communicate that along with science is a very strong tool.”
“You never know what to expect from nature and that is exciting… you’re in an environment that changes and behaves in different ways… my job is to read and understand that environment, then communicate this to my guests. But it can sometimes prove challenging… the answers are not always clear, like for example when wolves are silent.”
“Your in the hands of nature… so another thing is to keep your guests comfortable – making sure they dress correctly, eat, drink and get enough hours of sleep… these are basics… if your guests are not comfortable, that becomes the focus and it becomes harder for them to really feel and experience the things around us. It’s not like that for everyone… but it’s good to make sure though people are comfortable in nature.”
As part of the tour, we camped. It was not quite glamping, but there were many comforts which made it feel so. The camp was next to a very swimmable lake and if you made the effort, you could pick berries from the abundant sources around you.
Food was prepared over an open fire and there was boiled coffee in the morning. I tentatively asked Simon if it was instant coffee, and Simon, a little known chef in his own right, got to give me the rundown on boiled coffee. It was coffee grounds mixed in a huge pot and brought to a boil, then, with a piece of burning wood, swirled, creating a sizzling sound as the crema of the coffee came to the surface.
We talked a lot about wolves. Simon’s passion made wolves seem like they were the only things to ever exist in the universe, and that passion is infectious. It was a real gift for our team to enter this Wild Sweden aurora of passion and wear it for those few days.
Wolves have always been hunted for their fur and to keep them away from livestock. In 1960 in Scandinavia, wolves were actually declared extininct, until the early 1980’s when three wolves migrated from Russia/Finland to Southern Sweden. They founded the modern wolf population of approximately 200 wolves.
At minimum, wolves will take down an animal for eating every 3 days. Simon validly guessed they would probaby eat every day however. In one sitting, a wolf can chug down up to 9kg of meat, and their jaws have a bit force of 100kg per square centimetre.
While it is important to make guesses and collect data, Simon emphasised the idea we shouldn’t give human emotions to wolves.
He went on to say quite simply, wolves are not humans, so to give them human emotions isn’t a proper or accurate fit. We should try and decipher meaning from them using hints from nature, and not what we might come to expect from other humans.
In the evening, we were taking a different approach to our daily tracking activities. We were waiting, inconspicuously. We trekked up to a high grounded rendezvous spot on sunset.
We were rugged up, ready for our posts. The mosquitoes and bugs did not bother us as we had the correct gear. We all sat ten or so metres apart and got comfortable. There were even some berries growing in the bushes next to me to snack on.
The goal was to remain as quiet and unseen as possible. The more we blended in, the more likely the wolves would come out.
We waited. I crossed my arms and sunk deep into the natural chair of rock and bush supporting my back.
Darkness came across the lovely Swedish forest. It was nice up there. We were alone on that hill but not lonely as we knew our compadres were close by, human compadres, and hopefully some furry compadres.
I was up there thinking how nice everything was. The stars were doing their thing, shining but only for the people with the time to look up. The birds were doing their thing, flying from branch to branch. Even the flies and mosquitoes were doing their thing, buzzing about with futility not being able to access flesh.
It was all so nice, and quiet, and late, in the evening. The phenomena occurring to a lot of humans late in the evening began occurring to me. I was seated down all cosy and was lost in thought, or a lack of thought, and then I realised I could no longer think, or realise anything anymore.
I was in that beautiful middle ground of asleep and awakedness, trance like. I was here for a while I think, dozing between reality and dream. And then it happened.
I did not know whether I was dreaming, so I groggily opened my eyes expecting to see my dream vision rather than awake vision. After a few seconds I found I was in fact, awake and concious, and the sounds coming from the forest in the distance were not part of my imagination.
About 200 metres away. That was the verdict. But in the quiet of night with none of the noise characterising our daily lives, it felt like you could feel the exhales with each bout.
The family band of wolves were howling. From my ear, there were about five wolves, all different pitches, tones and emotions. There was two adults, I guessed, and the rest pups. They howled for three minutes and all sang different songs.
They did not care for musicality or rhytm of timbre, only for expression. One thing which struck me however, was the smoothness. Every note was risen to in a step by step cadence, equally, nothing jagged or out of ascension.
I had expected too a synchronicity to develop, where each wolf would eventually sync up with the others to form one choir of a howl. But this didn’t happen. Each wolf to their own. Each expressing themselves.
The performance lasted a rare 3 minutes. It seemed they had a lot to say. After, Simon came up to me with a hand on my shoulder. I could not see his face but I knew he was grinning. He whispered, quivering with enthusiasm, “How about that?!”
“Yes,” was all I could say, “yes.”
The next night, we did not get so lucky and there were no howls. However, I didn’t mind. All this did was remind me how special and unique our prior night really was.
Find out more –
WildSweden is a small-group wildlife tour operator running trips in Sweden’s nature since 2003, founded by Marcus Eldh. They specialise in observing wild animals in their natural habitats, mainly moose, wolves, bears and beavers, in non-touristic areas off the beaten track.
Trips are split into three categories: summer trips, winter tours, and “Secret Adventures” (invitation-only trips not listed publicly). Their flagship summer tours are:
- Wolves, Moose & Beavers – a four-night conservation-themed trip in Central Sweden, running on set dates June to September.
- Wolf Howling Experience (Hotel Stay) – two nights, about two hours from Stockholm, with hotel accommodation, on set dates July to September.
- Wolf Howling Experience (Hammock Nights) – the same two-night wolf howling trip but with hammock camping instead of a hotel, also July to September.
To book a tour and for more information, head to https://www.wildsweden.com/.
