This morning Pearl tugged off the last of the frayed lining of a seat cushion that several dogs before her have torn, so my husband, the helpful Ace Hardware man repaired it with an old stained piece of Tyvek he found in the garage. (“No one will look under the chair,” he said.) The damage to the chair was minimal, and it was kind of my fault since I was making coffee rather than paying attention to what Pearl was chewing on. I had been thinking my puppy vigil was all consuming, until we began watching Chasing the Phantom, a terrific documentary on PBS about wolverines, featuring Steve Kroschel and his trained wolverines. As he said last night, in the greatest understatement of the week, sharing his cabin with a wolverine is sometimes a challenge. And I was fretting about a golden retriever puppy? Honestly. If you haven’t seen Chasing the Phantom, look for it. There are many scenes filmed by Steve with his wolverines in the snowy mountains and river flats around Haines. I enjoyed the footage of him interacting with the wolverines as much or more as I did the wild shots. Steve Kroschel is a real live Alaskan Dr. Doolittle who talks to wolves, bears, moose, wolverines, lynx, martins– and even cuddles with porcupines. It’s true. I’ve seen him do it. You can too, if you take a visit out to his place at 26 mile in Haines.
