Sleeping with the wolves
At Parc Mahikan, guests get a chance to be part of the pack
PARC MAHIKAN, QUE.— I had no fear as I entered the wolf enclosure. I’d been waiting for this moment most of my life — was it crazy to want to kiss a wolf?
Maybe it was naïveté or because I had grown up with large dogs, but meeting a pack of five wolves didn’t scare me.
My 8-year-old son and I arrived at Parc Mahikan (Cree for “wolf”), an eco-adventure park offering unique wolf viewing and interactions in Quebec’s Saguenay—Lac-St-Jean region. Created by pack leader Gilles Granal, the park aims to reveal another side of the elusive species.
He oversees two packs of wild grey and Arctic wolves in the park and a pack of five that are accustomed to humans. “They’re used to humans but still demonstrate real pack behaviour behind the fence in their forest enclosure,” Granal explained.
As we approach the enclosure, we’re welcomed by a multi-coloured female, Blackie, who eagerly sniffs and licks our hands. Granal demonstrates the meet-and-greet as Blackie and the lone male of the group, John, run over and jump on him, kissing and tails wagging.
With his wolf tattoos and long hair, Granal looks every bit a rugged outdoorsman.
I step into the enclosure and the two wolves sniff, lick and jump on me. I grab their feet as instructed, so they don’t scratch my face. Blackie dashes to my son as John gives me my first official wolf kiss, welcoming me to the pack.
John isn’t the alpha. It’s his sister Luna, but she’s nowhere in sight. We walk along the fence, John at my side.
We get to a large hole at the base of a tree and Granal tells me to get down on my knees and look down into it. Two sets of yellow eyes peer up and, suddenly, up pop two wolves, Luna and her sister Bella.
A supreme session of wolf hugs, kisses and belly rubs ensue; the wolves love the attention and are curious, friendly and happy.
The remaining wolf, the omega named Sick, appears only after Luna dashes out of sight. It’s obvious she isn’t welcome, tail tucked between her legs; she skulks away as Luna loops back, but not before delivering a kiss.
I leave the treed area to sit in an open field and soak it all in. John follows dutifully, much like my dogs back home. And for a minute, like an old soul peering into my eyes, we sit connecting, stares locked in.
When I leave the pen, I’m covered in dirt, slobber and hair, with itching eyes and hives all over my neck, obviously allergic to wolves. But I only feel bliss. Not even the rain or raging mosquitoes mattered; I had just kissed a pack of wolves.
As we go to sleep in our cosy Mongolian yurt across from the grey wolves, an orchestra of frogs croak in unison. At about 2 a.m., a different orchestra starts playing. The packs start howling at each other and I rush out onto the deck to join in on the song, howling my heart out, and for the second time in one day, I became a pack member. Jennifer Smith Nelson was a guest of Park Mahikan/Tourisme Lac-St-Jean.