Haida Wasgo, from a tattoo image.
Among the
pantheon of mythical and legendary animals that populated the belief systems of
the tribes of the Pacific Northwest was the Sea Wolf. On July 22, 2012, I
published a column titled Native American
Astronomy - The Constellation Gonakadet/Wasgo, about the beliefs of North
American northwest coast tribes in this creature and concerning a constellation
in the heavens that they identified with the sea wolf (Faris 2012). A powerful
swimming creature with the head of a wolf and the body of a sea creature, some
authors have relegated this creature to the realm of mythology, while others
have argued it represents a sea serpent or some other crypto-zoological
survivor.
Cliff at Sproat Lake, British
Columbia. Sea Wolf at lower
left of picture.
Photo Peter Faris, 1995.
Sea Wolf from Sproat Lake,
Vancouver Island, British
Columbia, petroglyph.
Photo Peter Faris, 1995.
Gonakadet/Wasgo
has the head of a wolf, and a body based upon that of the killer whale. Various
other portrayals of him combine these themes, from showing a wolf with fins, to
a sea animal with a wolf's head. The sea wolf is one image from the catalog of
creatures commonly portrayed in the various media among the tribes of the North
American Pacific Northwest. Gonakadet/Wasgo is carved on totem poles woven into
basketry and fabrics, shown as tatoos and decoration on tools and utensils, and
carved into the rocks as petroglyphs.
Swimming Sea Wolf, i.pinimg.com.
Well, it
turns out that there actually are sea wolves and that a few fortunate
zoologists (and of course the Native tribes) have always known about them.
Known as Gonakadet by the Tlingit, and Wasgo by the Haida, this coastal
sub-species of the gray wolf has adapted to a maritime lifestyle and lives
predominately on seafood. "Unlike
their inland counterparts that hunt deer and caribou, the sea wolves comb the
beaches along B.C.'s iconic Great Bear Rainforest and, by and large feed off
the ocean. They can swim for miles between coastal islands and eat whatever the
sea serves up. They are known to prey on salmon for several months out of the
year with fish making up 25 percent of their diet during the spawning season.
They hunt seals and sea lions, chew on barnacles, turn up at the herring
spawning grounds and feast on whale carcasses. Some even specialize in digging
up clams and turning over rocks to look for crabs." (Talmazan 2016)
The sea
wolves have been studied for years by British Columbian photdographer Ian
McAllister. "We know from exhaustive
DNA studies that these wolves are genetically distinct from their continental
kin," says McAllister. "They are behaviorally distinct, swimming from
island to island and preying on sea animals. They are also morphologically
distinct - they are smaller in size and physically different from their
mainland counterparts." (Talmazan 2016)
Sea Wolf petroglyphs at Nainamo
Petroglyph Park, Vancouver Island,
British Columbia.
Photo Peter Faris, 1995.
"Chris Darimont, science
director at the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, has studied the carnivores'
unusual lifestyle for nearly two decades. Coastal wolves live with two paws in
the ocean and two paws on land, Darimont says. When hunting for food, sea
wolves can swim miles between islands and rocky outcrops to feast on seals and
animal carcasses found on the rocks. "Our farthest record [of their
swimming abilities] is to an archipelago 7.5 miles [12 kilometers] from the
nearest landmass," he says. They once roamed all the way down to
California in its former temperate rain forests. Now they only go down to just
north of Vancouver", he says." (Petri 2016)
The peoples of the Pacific Coast of North America had a
maritime lifestyle, roaming the ocean in their large sea-going canoes. Many of
the tribes included whaling in their hunting/gathering inventory and they were
used to long ocean voyages. Imagine the experience of a canoe crew a few miles
off shore meeting a sea-going wolf swimming by. This story would be told and
re-told, perhaps getting embellished in the re-telling, until it became a tenet
of their rich and creative mythology.
REFERENCES:
Faris,
Peter,
2012 Native
American Astronomy - The Constellation Gonakadet/Wasgo, July 22, 2012, http://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/native-american-astronomy-constellation.html
Petri,
Alexandra E.
2016 Meet the
Rare Swimming Wolves That Eat Seafood, August 3, 2016, https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/08/sea-oceans-wolves-animals-science/
Talmazan,
Yuliya,
2016 Update:
Photo of B.C. Sea Wolf Honoured by National Geographic, Sept. 24, 2016, https://globalnews.ca/news/2239088/national-geographic-puts-spotlight-on-b-c-s-enigmatic-sea-wolves/
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