If you look up “mystery” in the dictionary, it should just say “wolverine,” based on how hard it is to find one. Nadine finally got lucky last summer and saw a trio of wolverines near Moraine Lake, but I (Joel) am still waiting for my first sighting after 26 years in the Rockies. One day I hope to be close enough to get a photo like this (thanks, Wikipedia!).
But that doesn’t mean I’m striking out completely. Every year or two, I see tracks, and some of them are so fresh that you wonder if you’ve missed the mythical beast by hours, or only minutes…
Two weeks ago, on a backcountry ski trip just outside of Banff park’s western boundary, we got up early to ski over to the Campbell Icefield, and in the beautiful low-angle morning sunshine, there were fresh wolverine tracks. Based on the snow we’d been getting, they were hours old, tops. But what was really impressive is where they had come from, and where they were headed: this wolverine had climbed up out of the Valenciennes drainage, made treeline, crossed about 4 km of the Campbell Icefield (at 2500 metres above sea level!), and then headed due south down towards Waitabit Creek.
There was no break in the tracks — it didn’t look like the animal had even stopped for a rest! But that’s all part of being a wolverine. Here in the Rockies, a male can have a home range of over 1500 km2, so being a travelling wolverine is the norm.
We should soon be finding out more about wolverines here in the park. PhD student Mijam Barrueto is about to begin a multi-year study, using automated cameras and barbed wire hair traps to capture both pictures and DNA from these enigmatic animals. Stay tuned!
