A Wolf Passed By….©

Archer Bay, Ragged Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park, Google Satellite 

This summer I took my family to Algonquin Provincial Park and camped on Ragged Lake, on a point of land that separates South Bay from Archer Bay, for a few days.  On the evening of our second day there, my daughter and I took a walk along the sandbar that all but closes off the entrance to the swamps of Archer Bay.  We found moose tracks stomped into the peat of the swampy area nearest the headland, and on the shore of the sand bar near a grove of trees, separating Ragged Lake from Archer Bay, we found evidence that a wolf passed by¹.

Wolf scat on the shore of Ragged Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park, photograph by the Author.

An excerpt from the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide: Animal Tracks, Figure 41, Wolf Scat, p. 87

This wolf had apparently fed well in the days before it had trotted down the shore of Ragged Lake, and left behind its scat, because the scat was full of hair and chips of bone.  It had been some time since the wolf had come and gone, because the scat was mostly weathered away.

 

Unfortunately, this was the only sign of wolves that we saw during our stay in Algonquin.  As usual in the woods, the only sign you see of animals is the tracks and scat they leave behind.

 

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That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

Notes

 

¹ Later that same evening, about 10 yards from our tent, we found a second pile of scat, also weathered and old and filled with hairs and bone fragments.

 

References:

Murie, Olaus J., Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide: Animal Tracks, [The Easton Press, Norwalk, Connecticut, 1974]

 

Satellite picture of the Archer Bay area of Ragged Lake, ON https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ragged+Lake/@45.48346,-78.6306997,393m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x4cd5e8427a361175:0xc65d657f50724d6!8m2!3d45.4602896!4d-78.655622, accessed September 5, 2018