Close Encounter with a Gray Wolf, Katmai National Park, Alaska

I enjoy hearing wolf song at night during my backcountry adventures, but in my experience direct encounters with wild wolves are uncommon.  I’d only ever seen one wolf in the wild before our trip to Katmai National Park.

We saw 5 wolves in our week at Katmai, and the following was the most memorable interaction:

While our group was observing an Alaska brown bear, a gray wolf suddenly appeared and wandered between us and the bear (see photo below).

The wolf was very curious and spent a lot of time studying our group.  I think we were likely the first humans she’d ever seen and the 12 of us with our cameras, tripods, strange smells and colorful outdoor clothes must have been quite an interesting site.

She came to within about 25 feet of our group and then wandered off, finding a large stick and like a big dog started playing with it.

The following video shares some details of this close encounter.