A Wolf in Wolf's Clothing

Sometime this winter, once the tourist season winds down, the owners of Morell’s Chippewa Trading Post in Bemidji will remove a giant taxidermied wolf from the glass case out front, say a few solemn words, and send it off to be destroyed. It’s likely the end will come by fire, though the store’s assistant manager, Julie Petersen, doesn’t know for sure and, frankly, doesn’t even seem to want to think about it. You see, this animal—which has been on display in one location or another for more than sixty years—wasn’t just any ordinary wolf. The dusty, cracking pelt with the broken leg and refashioned nose is all that remains of Lobo, perhaps the most notorious and bloodthirsty creature ever to cast its dark shadow over the northwoods.

Legend has it that in the winter of 1926, hunters in and around Itasca State Park began noticing wolf tracks larger than any they’d previously encountered. Alarmingly, they also noticed that wherever this wolf traveled, he left a gruesome and bloody trail. Locals took to calling the predator Lobo, which means wolf in Spanish and also sounded pretty bad-ass to hunters back then.

The wolf seemed to possess an insatiable hunger; it was estimated that he killed a deer every three days. He also apparently never returned for a second feeding, preferring fresh meat to that which had been sitting around. The average pack of wolves, according to Andrea Lorek Strauss, information and education director at the International Wolf Center in Ely, kills approximately eighteen deer in an entire year. Clearly, it was determined, Lobo had to be stopped or there would be no deer left for hunters to shoot. The authorities called in professional game wardens, with all their expertise and experience, to find and kill the marauding wolf.

Ah, but it would not be so easy! Lobo, people said, was crafty, seldom traveled on trails, and hunted exclusively at night. It was almost as though he knew where the traps were and tiptoed around them. Also, it’s alleged that Lobo never had a mate, more evidence of, and possibly even a contributor to, his ornery disposition. For years, the wardens tried to catch Lobo, but finally conceded defeat. A reward was eventually put on the wolf’s head, and every fool with a gun, a snare, or a bottle of poison could be found skulking around in the woods at all hours. One of these entrepreneurs was Algot Wicken, who was clearly no fool. Wicken closely studied Lobo’s tracks for weeks and discovered that he favored a particular clump of spruce trees. Wicken set a snare between two of the trees and Lobo walked right into it.

Yet still, the mighty wolf was not to be stopped. Lobo broke free and roamed the forest for two more years with a snare around his neck, barely able to swallow and surviving solely on blood and soft tissue.

In 1938, Wicken finally caught Lobo in a steel trap. He approached the wolf, shot him dead, and that was that. People came from all over the area to view the vanquished Lobo, who was said to weigh 140 pounds, an unheard of size for a wolf in Minnesota. In fact, Lorek Strauss sounded rather doubtful about the figure. “My God,” she said, and pointed out that the largest wolf ever documented in the state weighed 112 pounds, while the average wolf weighs closer to ninety. She did allow that perhaps Lobo had been killed in the winter, when his fur was at its thickest, making him look as though he weighed 140 pounds. But then, of course, she wasn’t around in 1938.

Gid Graham wrote of Lobo in his 1939 book, Animal Outlaws. He explained what hunters of the era could not, or chose not to, understand. “The career of this renowned animal hero cannot be measured alone by man’s standard and viewpoint,” Graham wrote. “Man condemned him because he killed deer and wild creatures. According to the standard of the wolf, he did no wrong.” Lorek Strauss agrees with that assessment. And so does Julie Petersen. “The poor thing,” Petersen said. “He was so misunderstood. He did what he had to do to survive. We have little tear sessions for him every once in a while.” That’s why, after Lobo’s pelt is destroyed, a new one will take its place, so his legend might live on and future generations will have the honor of admiring him (or at least his understudy).

Roxi Mann, Julie Petersen’s sister, who recently bought Morell’s from their parents, had to send all the way to Alaska for a wolf pelt large enough to do justice to the original. Lobo’s skull will be set inside the case with the new Lobo, in dedication. And this time, the taxidermied wolf will be kept inside the store, safe from the cold, the sun, and those mice and bats, which Petersen said manage to “sneak in” to the outdoor case. Sounding a bit morose, she added, “This is very sentimental for us. The first summer I worked here, I painted his cage, so we became good friends. I call him ‘Bobo’ sometimes. It’s sad to see him go.”

—Jennifer Vogel


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