On the long drive to his home on the Seagull River, Dewey Pihlman of Grand Marais encountered a group of at least five wolves. Above: Two wolves on one side of the road. Left: A howling wolf on the other side of the Gunflint Trail. Pihlman stopped and watched them and heard their eerie calls to one another.
Dewey Pihlman, who lives on Seagull River near the end of the Gunflint Trail, shared this late evening photo of a wolf in his neighborhood. Pihlman has seen several deer near Gunflint Lake since last November, so when he first spotted animals along the road, he thought it was the deer. As he slowed down, he was surprised to see two wolves, one on each side of the road. “Thinking they would run away, I slowly drove closer to get a better look,” wrote Pihlman in an e-mail.
The wolves stopped as he did, pausing right next to Pihlman’s car. “The animal on the right turned into the woods as the one on my left watched it and began to howl very loudly. I looked again to my right and to my surprise there were three more in a small field watching the wooded area.”
Pihlman said he could hear other wolves beyond the line of trees. “It became very clear to me that they were involved in the serious business of chasing a deer out of the woods into the field. They all accepted the fact I was there, but basically ignored me and remained focused on driving a deer much the same as some hunting parties do.”
Pihlman, a longtime Gunflint Trail resident, has never encountered such a situation before. “Being within 10 feet of a wolf that howled a number of times— what an experience!”
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