Hello, world. My name is Freya.
I’m a gray wolf, Canis lupus, if you want to get scientific about it, born and raised in the Northwoods of Minnesota. This is my first blog post, and while it’s a little unusual for a wolf to be telling her story like this, I figured it’s about time someone from my kind spoke up.
I live with my pack near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We roam far - 20, sometimes 30 miles a day, crossing rivers, weaving through the trees, and listening for the hooves of deer or the soft splash of a fish breaking water. Moose are harder to catch, but we’re up for the challenge when the time is right. Berries, fish, small game, whatever the forest offers, we take with respect. We don’t waste, and we don’t take more than we need.
Minnesota is the only place I’ve ever called home. It's the only state in the lower 48 where my kind survived the darkest times, when we were wiped from nearly every other corner of the continent. While my cousins vanished beneath bullets and poison in the West and South, here in the North, enough people still believed we had a place. I don’t take that lightly.
Some of my pups have left to make new lives in Wisconsin and Michigan. I miss them, but I understand the pull of fresh territory and unclaimed paths. As for me? I’m staying. This forest, these rocks, the snow...this is my place.
I’m starting this blog for a simple reason: too many people are still afraid of me.
They fear what they don’t know, and for centuries, they’ve been told the wrong story. That we’re monsters. That we’re ruthless. That we kill for fun. None of it is true. We hunt to live. We raise our young. We mourn our dead. We form families just like you do.
So I want to set the record straight.
In the coming weeks, I’ll write about our history here, what happened during the wolf slaughters of 2012 to 2014, what federal protection means for us, and what it feels like to have your life debated in courtrooms and headlines. I’ll share facts, real ones, about how we live, what we need, and what role we play in keeping ecosystems healthy.
And I’ll talk about the myths. The tall tales. The fear. The way some humans see us not as neighbors, but as nuisances.
But this won’t just be about wolves. I’ll speak about the black bears, the moose, the lynx, the deer - our forest kin. This land belongs to all of us, not just those who pave roads or post signs.
So if you’re curious, if you care, or even if you’re unsure what to think about wolves, I invite you to follow along. I’ll be here every week, writing from the treeline.
From one wild heart to another
~Freya
