Loner: Spirit of Odell Lake

By Trula Kielblock

Should you be afraid of a lone, injured wolf?

Trula Kielblock didn’t think so. With one look into the wolf ’s eyes, Trula realized she had made a connection with this animal that she’d never had with any creature before.
The wolf, emaciated and afraid, first appeared from the forest in September 1997. With a daily offering of food mixed with medicine, Trula gained the trust of this magnificent animal and brought him back to health. After several months, he had gained the name Loner and was hanging around on the fringes of the resort. He showed a kind, caring nature, playing gently with guests’ dogs and only approaching people who seemed comfortable around him. He seemed to have found a pack.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jul 2, 2012
• ISBN: 9781483507606

Book preview

LONER

Spirit of Odell Lake

Trula Kielblock

COPYRIGHT © 2012 by Trula Kielblock

All rights reserved.

Cover Photographer: Ray Carrow

Cover Photography Editor: Deena Nunn

Blurb

San Francisco, California

www.blurb.com

Copies of this book may be obtained from Shelter Cove Resort and Marina.

For information, please call 541-433-2548 (in Oregon) or 1-800-647-2729 (outside of Oregon).

This book is written in LONER’S honor

and is dedicated to all who knew him and loved him.

CONTENTS

Introduction

ONE

Loner Arrives at Shelter Cove

TWO

Loner Picks His Pack

THREE

Loner Finds a Job: Wolf Resort Guide

FOUR

Expert Consensus: Shoot Him!

FIVE

Protecting Ms. Daisy and Others

SIX

He’s Still a Wolf

SEVEN

An Endangered Species and an Endangered Resort

EPILOGUE

The Spirit of Odell Lake

APPENDIX

Letters and Pictures From Friends of Loner

Acknowledgments

Loner howling

INTRODUCTION

AMONG THE VISITORS and residents around Odell Lake, rumors were flying about a wolf living in the woods. Some nights, a howl would pierce the midnight sky and raise hairs on the necks of campers and fishermen alike. A few individuals reported sightings of a wolf-dog appearing suddenly in the forest and vanishing just as quickly.

And then there were the wolf-like paw prints on the trails.

More than a century ago, wolves flourished in packs in the Pacific Northwest and much of North America. In the early 1900s, people capitalizing on wolf bounties could collect $5 from the State of Oregon and $20 from the Oregon State Game Commission for every wolf they killed. Through such wolf extermination programs, populations dwindled until they were almost extinct in Oregon by the 1940s.

Yet, here was a lone set of wolf prints in the snow near Odell Lake, Oregon, in 1997. Was it an endangered gray wolf or was it a massive dog? Or was it partly both?

One day a hiker encountered a man who said he knew the answer to those questions. While staying at Shelter Cove Resort on Odell Lake, the hiker himself had come face to face with the wolf in a snowstorm before it quickly vanished. Three days after that sighting, the hiker met a man on the trail with a strange-looking backpack that contained an electronic howler to attract wolves. The man said that he had been raising wolves to sell to the government for a possible wolf reintroduction program. But the wolves he had raised were one-eighth-part dog—one of their great-grandparents was a domestic dog. The government wanted pure wolves, so the man had released his wolves into the forest. Now he had brought a howler device to the woods to find them again.

Shelter Cove Resort and Odell Lake are nestled at 4,800 feet altitude near the base of the Cascade Mountain Range in Central Oregon. Odell Lake is a seven-mile-wide natural glacier lake, filled with freshwater kokanee salmon and surrounded by evergreen trees that reach up to two hundred feet high. Odell Lake is the home of Shelter Cove Resort, sixty miles southeast of Eugene, Oregon. The lake hosts campers, fishermen, and others who come for the spectacular wildlife, such as great blue heron, osprey, owl, rabbit, otter, raccoon, deer, and elk. The fall spawning of the land-locked salmon draws as many as three hundred bald eagles for all the fish they can eat.

Odell Lake provided perfect surroundings and ample food sources for a lone wolf. All that was missing was a pack to run with. Maybe that’s why Loner, as we came to call him, was drawn to Shelter Cove. Perhaps he was looking for a pack of his own. Through the years that he lived at Odell Lake, Loner proved many times that he would do anything to protect us and help us. As you’ll discover in these pages, he touched many people when they were in need, and he even worked for us.

Before we begin the story of Loner, it’s important for me to acknowledge that every person remembers stories differently. I’ve done my best to gather the most accurate information from the people who knew and loved Loner most. It is funny to me that my husband and I remember some details so differently. For instance, Jim remembers seeing the wolf first, even before our employee Luke saw him, even though Luke came to us with the news. But we women all know that men are from Mars and we are from Venus. I felt that it is only fair to say, everyone sees things their own way.

So from my best memories and the memories of many treasured guests at Shelter Cove, here is our story of this magnificent animal.

Loner being his regal self

One

LONER ARRIVES AT SHELTER COVE

I’LL NEVER FORGET the first day I heard about Loner, the big bad wolf. My husband Jim and I had been the owners of Shelter Cove Resort for a little over a year when our employee, Luke Bergerson, came to Jim and told him he had spotted a wolf back in the trees behind his house. The animal was emaciated and limping. Luke felt it could be dangerous to leave the creature there with all of the guests around, in case he was aggressive.

I was listening to the two men talking, but being the animal person that I am, I had to see this wolf for myself. Guessing that the way to any wolf’s heart is through his stomach, I mixed up a huge pan of dog food mixed with roast beef and gravy. I made it steamy hot so he would smell it better, hoping he would come in close enough to eat it. I took the food to where the wolf had been spotted and then walked away. Standing on the porch of Luke’s house, I watched and waited.

In about five minutes the wolf came to the pan of food. This animal was very large. He was scraggly and mangy looking. His coat was dull, and I could see thin patches. But it was his eyes that captivated me. There was an intelligence and spirit in those eyes that I’d never seen in an animal before. The wolf had a haunted and sorrowful look, and I felt he was in pain as well. The oval-shaped, wolf-like eyes were a beautiful brown with a yellow ring around the outside. When he looked at me, he literally reached to the center of my soul with a sad look that seemed to beg me for help.

The wolf looked very thin, and he ate all of the food as though he hadn’t eaten in several days. Then he slowly ambled back into the woods. I was so excited I could hardly stand it. I retrieved the pan and noticed a little bit of blood on the ground. I knew he was hurt.

I hurried back to the store and called Dr. Pickering, our veterinarian in LaPine, Oregon. Describing