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Without hesitation the wolf sailed off the spur, fell the three hundred feet into a snowbank, and came up running in an explosion of powder.
My Antonia has these descriptive passages throughout it, which enables the reader to feel part of the book. This is a common tactic throughout Of Wolves and Men, by which Lopez reminds his readers that, finally, the real environment of this text is not the behaviors and habitats of wolves, but rather the (un)knowing human mind in relation to all things wolves. The production of harmonics (see chart, page 42) may create the impression of fifteen or twenty wolves where there are in fact only three or four.
The wolves that remain in North America today are often distinguished simply as tundra or timber (or gray) wolves, according to where they live.
But as it turns real—real skin, real cleavage, perhaps not-so-real blond hair—their faces slowly light up. Wolves have a very universal quality about them, no matter where they find themselves in contact with humans. A smart snowshoe hare that eluded the wolf and left him exhausted when he was a pup has been dead a year now, food for an owl.To fit into the universe, the Indian had to do two things simultaneously: be strong as an individual, and submerge his personal feelings for the good of the tribe. They were found throughout Europe, from the Zezere River Valley of Portugal north to Finland and south to the Mediterranean. There are a few wolves left in northern Spain, some in the Apennines in Italy, and a few in Germany and eastern Europe.