Listen To The Wolves

A tense and at times painful and graphic story of a man alone in the wilderness with nothing but his past - and his future - to get him through his present, each successive day, the endurance and will to survive when he barely exists. John has just earned his Ph. D. in Canadian Aboriginal Studies. He's off on a summer of study in the bush he so loves when he get caught in a sudden storm. He manages to put his bush plane down in a river; it crashes and sinks in the turbulent waters. He finds that he must use the lessons he has learned from the First Nations Tribes he has just been studying. He uses their knowledge of the vastness of the bush… Canada's dangerous, unforgiving, and unrelenting forests. He must quickly concede that it is the wolf and not man that is at the apex of the wilderness environment in which he has been thrown. The Aborigines – the Cree, Ojibwa and the Inuits - who have survived have told John to 'listen to the wolves' as the only way to survive. When John learns the language of the wolves he too learns to survive as the wolves have for many a millennium. Still, how does a virtually naked man face the rigors of a journey through hundreds of miles of empty wilderness; frozen lakes; temperatures often at twenty below zero; and only a few hours each day of sunlight? It is a gripping story of unfailing courage, hope, and love of life that John finds in so many places; how a man finds his way by listening to the wolves. Could anyone survive one hundred winter days alone in Canada's bush country surrounded by several feet of snow, howling winds; limited daylight; temperatures so cold that your spi; and packs of hungry wolves? Not many could, however, those are the circumstances John finds facing him. Ultimately, John will only make it out of the wilderness if he can use the ancient wisdom of Aborigines. Sheltered only by hope and love John must find protection and sustenance from the very nature that is seeking to destroy him every day.

John grew up in Sioux Lookout, Ontario. He is raised in his first years by a legendary bush pilot grandfather and an elderly great-grandmother must take over and finish preparing the young boy for a life on his own.  By the luck of his Grandfather Johnny's connections, John learns to fly the bush plane.  Through the grit and determination to make something of his life, John excels in school and running and earns a ticket via a scholarship to Ottawa University. John has also gained his grandfather Johnny's appreciation for the Aborigines of central Canada, the Cree, Ojibwa, and Inuit.  He makes these cultures the subject of his studies and after eight years is on the cusp of a Ph.D. in those cultures.  A research project is approved that will send John on a tour of the northern reaches of Manitoba and Nanuvat for the summer. His mission also includes work for the Interior Ministries delivering medical supplies and transporting a doctor who volunteers her summers to treat her native people, for this young doctor is a Cree.  An exciting summer of treating patients of these remote areas, learning more about their unique but changing cultures, and a few adventures with the wildlife comes to a premature ending when they are called upon to rescue a fisherman mauled by a grizzly. Dr. Sky Bird chooses to stay with her patient as he is flown to a trauma center.  John continues determined to complete the mission alone. It's a life-altering choice as John gets caught in a premature Arctic Clipper that forces him to crash land John the teacher must learn to quickly transform into a student of the wilderness. John is scheduled to become a Professor of Aboriginal Studies at his prestigious University, but only if he can survive the lessons only found in the Canadian bush. When his summer of study amongst the First Nations Tribes of Manitoba and Nunavut ends in a plane crash, he finds himself in a unique dilemma. He must choose to turn his back on conventional advice… to stay at the crash site when you are in the wilderness… or to walk out of the bush. In the greatest test of his life, John must take what he has learned in college, research, life, and from the Aborigines… and translate it into food, shelter, and clothing in one of the harshest environments on earth… where the only grading system is a pass or fail. These rigors will not be survived by knowledge alone. John must rely upon the intangibles… his undying hopes; the many loves of his life; his relationships with his earth, the wisdom of the people he has met in his life's journey, and the wolves of the untamed bush. If he is to survive the present… it will be things of his past giving knowledge and wisdom, and the hope for his future that will sustain him.

Born and raised in rural Woodstock, in northern Illinois, Steve became a teacher and later with a Master's Degree in Public Administration became an executive director of a municipal association of thirty-five communities. He now works on multiple writing projects in screenplays and novels and enjoys being a professional storyteller. Humble beginnings meant family vacations consisted of piling into a station wagon for a twenty-hour drive to Sioux Lookout, Ontario, Canada to visit members of his mother's family. Steve grew to love the town in the bush, its local characters, and its wildlife. He became enamored with his Uncle Johnny whose life and adventures as a bush pilot and the bush he loved so much were the inspiration for this book. Those vacations and a father who took Steve into the woods and fields to hunt and fish also created an appreciation, respect, and knowledge of our precious ecosystems and a diet that was more wild game than domestic meat. Steve knew, as Aldo Leopold proclaimed, food did not come from the grocery store. Many nights of camping in tents and cabins made him aware that heat did not come from a thermostat. His involvement in environmental areas led to his being selected as a Conservation Teacher of the Year in Illinois and a Midwest Region Environmental Quality Award recipient. This sensitivity to the environment is reflected in the storyline as the First Nation People deal with the impacts of global warming. The author's interest in drawing provided another challenge as the sketches for the book and cover were purposefully done to both provide useful illustrations for the reader and to give a bit of the author's interest to his protagonist, John who is shown to be sketching in the book. Fulfilling a dream of owning a farm enables Steve to grow foods such as hazelnuts and chestnuts, beautify lives with lavender and sunflowers, contribute to the ag-economy with corn, soybeans, and wheat, warm homes with firewood, and provide many acres of wildflowers/pollinators for both honey and a source of wildlife feed. Soon solar fields will be providing clean renewable sources of electricity for hundreds of homes, decreasing global warming by taking tons of carbon from the atmosphere returning them to the ground, and improving the groundwater with purifying vegetation.