April 2, 2024

Hi Everyone,

The above image marks the beginning of a new photo project. Up until I leave Homer for Anchorage (April 20th) and then Denali, I will be scanning and preparing older, Denali wolf film images for the website. 

Four years ago during Covid, Nancy Bale asked me if I thought that the heyday of wolf viewing in Denali was over? I responded that I hoped not.

She also gave me a new perspective that I hadn't had before: she thought of my wolf images (and Tom Walker's, Alissa Crandall's Kennan Ward and other photographers) as time capsules of the past.

Well, that stayed with me and with the Alaska Board of Game's recent actions to "not" protect Denali's wolves in The Wolf Townships the odds of seeing wolves may be significantly reduced, until if and when this changes.

That being the case, I have decided to go through my Denali wolf images (all are film) do high resolution scans of those selected, crop them when needed, and upload them onto my Conservation/Photography website. 

This will allow me to present them in a far superior way than on FB.

I had a number of unedited images, the above image being one of them, and with today's photo software, I can make whatever adjustments (cropping, sharpening, color enhancements, etc) that are needed to better present them - while still being true to the image.

I won't be adding elements or making any fundamental changes to any of the images.

Each image will be captioned with the family group that was photographed. This includes: East Fork, Headquarters, Grant Creek, and Mt. Margaret.

East Fork was certainly my favorite as they were the earliest of the wolf family groups I had observed and photographed. Plus, they were involved in the most dynamic interaction between wolves and grizzlies that I have ever seen: The Tek Event of 2001. I haven't made a decision on how to present Tek, but that may receive its own gallery and it does have an accompanying article that decribes the event as well.

Keep in mind, my primary method of photographing wolves was to photograph them either on or traveling to and from kills. This enabled predictability to their movements, making it much easier to photograph them, although there were times I had to wait up to twelve hours for them to return to a kill.

Unfortunately, I had always wanted to photograph softer, family type scenes (adults and pups together, pups playing, rendezvous sites, etc) and while I do have a few pup images, I was never satisfied with the results.

So, if the wolf viewing is bleak this year, at least I can try to make up for the slack with this Lupine Time Capsule from the Past.

Photo:

Gray Wolf 3720 - Cropped

Breeding male and female of the East Fork family group feed on a caribou carcass/East Fork River/Denali National Park/Interior Alaska/Summer 2004/Film 

All the best. 

Bill