Leader of the pack

I never much knew my grandfather. He was an ocean away, an urban kid from the mean streets of London’s East End. So he wouldn’t have had woodsy tales to tell.

But reading Rick McIntyre’s memoir My Life With Wolves feels exactly like I imagine it would be to sit at Granddad’s knee and hear tales of watching, studying and caring about the wolves of Yellowstone Park for more than 25 years. McIntyre’s voice is warm and gentle, the humble voice of a man who likely had to be convinced to write about his own life rather than his beloved wolves. Memoir this may be, but it is far more about the wolves than about McIntyre.

He is the author of the award-winning Alpha Wolves of Yellowstone book series for adults and the Chronicles of the Yellowstone Wolves book series for children (with co- author David A. Poulsen).

My Life With Wolves starts with sweet stories of his childhood in small-town Massachusetts, where he spent his time wandering the local woods, catching turtles to study and reading Jack London’s The Call of the Wild — clearly a naturalist in the making.

His father had trouble showing emotion, but always found time to play catch with young Ricky and let him win their wrestling matches. Later in the book, McIntyre likens those experiences to adult wolves playing gently with the pack’s puppies, an important experience for the pups’ development.

McIntyre studied forestry in university, but when it dawned on him that industry is about managing a forest like a farm crop, planting the most commercially beneficial trees for future generations to harvest, he decided park ranger work, which preserves nature, was for him.

McIntyre bounced around national park jobs — in the north for the summer, in the south for the winter — for years, living a transient life. On more than one occasion he turned down work that would have had him put down roots at a desk. “I am proud to say that during my 44 years of working in the National Parks system, I never had a government office, a government desk, a government computer or a government phone,” McIntyre boasts when he writes of his 2018 retirement.

He does, however, still have the clip-on tie he was issued once he started working year-round for the National Parks’ wolf project, believing himself to be the only wolf researcher who wore a tie to work. He keeps it in case he is ever invited to speak at a formal affair, an example of the Granddad-style jokes he tells here and there.

McIntyre retired from his work at a National Park ranger after more than 40 years, 25 of those at Yellowstone National Park. He worked on the Yellowstone Wolf Reintroduction Project, which brought wolves from Canada to the park in 1995. He estimates he has witnessed 126,372 wolf sightings. Mcintyre now lives in Silver Gate, Mont., on the edge of Yellowstone, from whence he heads out daily at dawn to watch wolves.

Every few chapters, there is a small story called “Life Lessons From Wolves.” There’s “Perseverance,” “Finding Your Place,” “Redemption,” each one a story of how wolves in the wild conduct themselves nobly and can inspire people.

The life lesson of “Empathy” is the story of Wolf 21, who was a good big brother to an ailing puppy, paying him extra attention. Wolf 21 is on McIntyre’s mind whenever he takes Make-A-Wish kids from Texas Children’s Hospital out to see the Yellowstone wolves. Texas Children’s Hospital is among the charities to which McIntyre donates all the proceeds from his book sales.

The guy is a mensch.

Julie Carl is a freelance journalist living in Toronto, near a ravine where coywolves live.