I think of wolves as Buddhists. It’s reported that Buddha said: “The key to existence is no fear.” Wolves behave like they agree with him. It’s what makes them so authentic. Wolves don’t try to sneak their way out of a bad deed. “Yup, I ate your car. But you’re late and I had to do, uh, something to let you know I was displeased.” Wolves never contemplate pinning their crimes on someone else. Why perhaps they are like this depends on whom you talk to. Many of us, though, writers all, directly or indirectly explore this subject and our theories with fascination.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this subject recently. For one thing, Freehand Books and I have been putting the finishing touches to my memoir, Every Wolf’s Howl. It’s about a wolf-German shepherd hybrid named Lupus—he was heavier on the wolf than on the dog—who accompanied me through life for three years or so when I needed his uniquely special kind of friendship most. The book looks at human and lupine authenticity and how it can be shared one to the other, with patience, good nature, and trust.

I encountered writers writing about wolves long before I met Lupus. I read my Jack London when I was a teenager. White Fang, Call of The Wild. I read Farley Mowat’s Never Cry Wolf. All heartily recommended, of course.

In recent months and weeks, though, I have encountered more autobiographical material written about wolves and these have tended to verify the conclusions I reached in my own book. These recent books have come to me too in weirdly unexpected ways, which enhances their providential purpose, as far as I can see.

One book is Of Wolves And Men, written by Barry Lopez a number of years ago. I happened on it in my public library while looking for something else. This book is the best examination of the relationship between wolves and men I have so far read, incorporating history, anthropology and the author’s own experiences. The fact this book is wonderful is hardly surprising: I think Barry Lopez is a brilliant writer.

While travelling out west much more recently, I accidently came across a book called The Philosopher and The Wolf by Mark Rowlands. As the title implies—it bills itself on the cover as: “Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness”—Rowlands delves deeply into the philosophical contrasts between wolves and simians, including human beings, using his decade or so experience with his own domesticated wolf. I enjoyed this book a great deal too.

The most extraordinary aspect of these books, new to my reading experience, is how they reinforce the conspicuously lupine behaviours of Lupus as I remember him. They reinforce part of the purpose of my writing about Lupus in the first place: because he was so extraordinary and because  he seemed to understand the key to existence, at least as defined by Buddha.

As a man who explores the wilderness only on occasion and for only short periods of time, my encounters with wolves have been surprisingly frequent. I met a wolf on the highway between Banff and Jasper, Alberta, one day quite a few years ago. I pulled over, got out of my car, and addressed him with a greeting. Trotting up the highway, he ignored me resoundingly and continued on his way.

Another time in Algonquin Park, again by the side of the highway, I met another wolf. I also played once with a five-week old wolf puppy that made it plain he was having none of me as a friend and especially as a master.

There have been other encounters with wolves as well. Only a few weeks ago I saw a wolf in a car in northwestern Ontario. He was leaning out the driver’s window of a SUV parked in a grocery store parking lot. He was a big wolf. Handsome. He gazed back at me when I stopped my car to look him over. He had that look—that key-to-existence-is-no-fear look.

Lupus had that look. I learned from it in much the same way as other authors who knew and wrote about wolves before me have. The key to existence is no fear—something writers seem willing to learn when they get to know a wolf.

Barry Grills was born in Belleville, Ontario, where he began his writing career as a journalist at The Intelligencer when he was eighteen. He has been publishing short fiction in Canada since 1973, and his stories have appeared in numerous literary journals and magazines, including Quarry, Grain, and the University of Windsor Review, as well as various anthologies, including Best Canadian Stories. He is also the author of three cultural biographies from Quarry Press on the lives of Anne Murray, Alanis Morissette, and Celine Dion, as well as an updated Celine Dion biography, co-authored with Jim Brown. He is a past chair of The Writers’ Union of Canada and the Book and Periodical Council, and he has been both a federal election candidate and a municipal councillor. He currently lives in North Bay.