I think i saw a wolf the other day, here in town. It's funny, because the conditions were just like when people claim to have seen bigfoot. The light was terrible, it was at a distance, there was nothing for scale. I can say it was definitely bigger than a fox, but smaller than something like a volcano. It was brown, or maybe black. It's possible it could have been a large coyote, but i didn't think they had coyotes up here. Maree says they do. It could have been slightly small lone wolf. It could also have been a ferrel dog/wolf hybrid, which they also have up here.
I was walking fisher down in the ghost forest on the frozen mudflats. It's a very large area, and not many people go down there, so it's perfect for wandering around in the winter. In the summer it's inaccessible because the whole place is like a stinky saltwater marsh, and the mudflats can suck you in and kill you when the tide comes back in. The "ghost forest" was killed in the '64 earthquake when the whole area slipped and sunk down to sea level, destroying the water table. The trees roots soaked up salt water until they kind of petrified themselves, dead but preserved, as far as i can tell. I mean, they've been standing there for 50 years and the wood is still very strong and stiff if you try to break it.
It's also fun to go down there because it always looks different. Sometimes the wind blows all the snow off and you walk across huge areas of strangely colored ice and frozen springs. Sometimes there's freezing fog that coats everything in frost. Sometimes it's remarkable sunny and warm, like it was the other day.
We had walked a long way and were turning back on an adjoining ski trail. I turned to look back and saw what i thought was a big dog trotting along the shoreline, but i couldn't see any sign of it's owner. I told Fisher about it and he took off after it. That was when i realized it wasn't just a domestic animal. It wouldn't let Fisher get closer than 50 yards, and it could run very quickly and lightly across the snow. It was however, very curious. The two canines stared at each other for quite some time. Fisher would run a little closer and the other would run a little farther, always maintaining the same distance. It was also interesting that regardless of it's position relative to Fisher, whenever it stopped it always faced me head on, minimizing it's profile like a predator, even though i was never closer than 100 yards. It became evident that it was not going to let it's guard down, even though it seemed interested in my dog, so we turned around and went back to the car. If it was a wolf, here in town, that's pretty cool. It's still cool if it was a coyote, because i haven't seen a coyote at all up here. Whatever it was, that adds one more creature onto the list of animals that fisher has chased.
This was a really weird stump, even close up, that looked like a seal or otter from a distance. All the trails converged here. It's like a magnet. Even the dog was stopping from a distance to make sure it wasn't something that should be worried about.
