The Ninemile Wolves: An Essay

by Rick Bass, Russell Chatham (Illustrator)

An essay advocating wolf reintroduction examines the fate of one small pack of wolves in northwest Montana, exploring, as well, the proper relationship between humans and nature

Genres: Nature, Nonfiction, Animals, Wolves, Natural History, Environment, Science

162 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1992

About the author

Rick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.

Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.

Reviews

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe Margaret Atwood was right: All stories are about wolves—no other decent story exists.

[CindySR · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mike Jimenez is a biologist and a wolf expert.
page 128:
"I keep wondering if Montana is big enough for wolves," Jimenez says. He sounds so mournful."I know there's enough space, enough country. The state is big enough. Can the people in the state be big enough?" he asks me, and I sure can't counsel him.

page 143:
It'll break your heart if you follow this story too closely, and for too long, with too much passion. It's never going to end. At least, I hope it doesn't ever end. But as long as there are roads, and humans moving up and down those roads, there are going to be bleak, bleak moments, again and again.

Rick Bass was, of course, correct. This book was written 30 years ago. Today one of those bleak, bleak moments has arrived.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish I could say more about this book, because it's beautiful and intelligent and the kind of book we need more of--books about real things in the real world, things that need to be changed. The Ninemile wolves are a test case for the restoration of wolves to Montana. The federal government agents (one or two for the whole state) are underfunded and underequipped, and they struggle against state politics that bend to the will of conservative anti-wolf lobbyists. So, while the feds are trying hard to reintroduce wolves to the state, the state agencies are snarling everything in red tape and working to get wolves off the endangered species list. Ranchers and hunters fall somewhere in the middle ground, some of them virulently anti-wolf and some of them intelligent, reasonable people who understand the land and care about the species.

If this were a book by another writer or on another topic, I might call it out for being self-contradictory. Bass constantly reminds us and himself not to anthropomorphize wolves, or to make them into symbols--and he constantly does both. It's forgivable, I think, because wolves, like tigers and bears and other endangered apex predators, are such charismatic, intelligent, complicated, mysterious creatures. We'll never really understand them, and to write a book about them you have to find some way to say that, through comparison or idiom or sheer emotional or moral appeal.

Bass isn't afraid to be emotional, or dramatic or sentimental--call it what you like. He's also funny and hardheaded about lots of things, mostly the right things. He's a woodsman who knows and loves the land, and a journalist who writes honestly and plainly about things that matter. He's good company on a trip like this, through the wolves' woods and out the other side.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

I imagine this guy likes to hear himself talk

[fire_on_the_mountain · Rating 4 out of 5]

I keep coming back to Rick Bass because I love his humane, humble, and inspired look at the natural world, while being clear-eyed about it's meaning, un-awed by natural poetics but also appreciative of when they appear. And whenever I need a palate cleanser to renew my own appreciation of the natural world, Bass is where I go.

The strength of this book is in weaving together 'the net,' as he calls it, all the varying factors, human and natural and unnatural, that the wolf must slip through to survive and thrive in the wild. I appreciate how he doesn't shy away from him own perspective (which, granted, I generally align with) but takes into account the other factors at play. They're present, and must be worked around, like any natural limit.

It's pretty tight on focus, which befits its origination in a magazine, but it just makes for the perfect bite-size immersion into an interesting topic. So if you're into the reality of wolves, not the magic or the panic, then read this.

[Taylor St Jacques · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time getting into this book, as Rick Bass's writing style took a little getting used to. However, I ended up really enjoying this and l definitely feel like I learned a lot.

[Johnnie]

🐺

[Briana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is also posted at Pages Unbound Book Reviews.

The Ninemile Wolves is an incredibly engaging and readable book, even for those who are not particularly zealous environmentalists or animal lovers. Bass, though a scientist who knows he is not supposed to betray too much excitement while looking for facts and solutions, allows his passion for wolves to shine through his writing, and it is contagious. Wolf-researcher Mike Jimenez, whom Bass befriends in Montana, is scarcely less in love with the wolves and plays the role of proud guardian and father as he tries to teach the pups, parentless, to live on their own. Readers will be hard-pressed to finish the book less enthralled by this animal.

The book is, in truth, a number of interconnecting stories, that come together to make the story of the Ninemile Wolves. It is Bass’s story, Jimenez’s, the Montanan ranchers’, the hunters’, the government’s—and they merge to determine the future of the once-mighty wolf. Although Bass is never condescending, insulting, or rude, there are clear good guys and clear bad guys in this book. Some of the bad ones are more ignorant than evil; Bass takes the government to task more than once, for example, for making wolves a matter of politics rather than science. They send the wolves to “neutral” land, so voters will not be upset, completely uncaring that the wolves cannot survive in the environment to which they wish to confine them. After witnessing the resulting disaster, they will make the suggestion a second time for a second group of wolves.

Bass also includes a lot of history in his book, offering readers the story of wolves on this continent from the beginning, when they were more numerous and powerful. Their history adds to the beauty of the narrative and begins another building block in Bass’s argument that wolves are worth saving. The Ninemile Wolves, though celebration and science and memoir, is also a call to actions. Bass wants readers to care about wolves and to do something about their caring. He does a marvelous job of convincing readers he is right.

[David Roark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting book. Delves a lot into the myth and mystery of wolves, and man's oftentimes struggle to understand and live with them.

[Stephany Wilkes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cannot get enough of Rick Bass's writing. He must have a photographic memory. I don't know how he can spend days in the wilderness, in the roughest of conditions, and return with the detail he does: It's as if he writes everything in real time, or records it all - and I know he doesn't. Every sentence of Rick Bass's makes you feel as if you're with the author, seeing something for the first time, as he saw it.

Be warned that this is a heartbreaking book, to be expected, since the history of wolves after humans come along is heartbreaking. To this day, we poison, trap, maim and kill them (in the past they were burned alive), and now wonder how we can bring them back having seen what happens in the wild when top-level predators are gone (sick and starving deer and elk). I kept hoping that Rick Bass would shed some light on what it is in some people that makes them want to do things like shoot wolves from low-flying planes (because they're too fat, lazy and scared to track them in the wild for days), or toss cow remains to the roadside where wolves can then develop a taste for cattle that they don't normally have (pure genius), but I expect no one, Bass included, can ever understand this kind of human, but only wonder at them.

There is a message of hope, though, in the precious few remaining wolves themselves, who seem to change and become more wild in response to human behavior, a few. You will fall in love with the Ninemile wolf pups and learn a great deal about the myths and facts of wolves in the wild, and why our world needs them so badly.

[Craig Pittman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautifully written and passionately argued book about reintroducing wild wolves into an area of the West where they once lived. Rick Bass makes no pretense of being fair and balanced -- he is pro-wolf all the way, and anti-hunter and anti-poisoner.

He is also fully invested in the viewpoint of the federal biologists tracking the wolves, letting them talk and talk, and tagging along with them once when they go out in the snow to try to track where the pack of wolves has gone and figure out what they've been eating. Even better are a pair of old cattle ranchers, brothers who live together, who like seeing wolves out their back window. They're a delight.

The greatest characters, of course, are the wolves themselves -- a pack of orphans, making their way with surreptitious help from the biologists, who have to be careful not to let the animals know that they're getting their food from humans.

What keeps this brief (162 pages) book from being a full-fledged classic is the ending. Bass ends his story, but then feels compelled to add on about 30 more pages of notes and anecdotes and observations that I guess he didn't think could fit into the main narrative. Generally a good principle is, if it doesn't fit, then leave it out! This was the one part of the book that I read a page or two at a time, each time checking how much further I had to go to get to the end.

But not the rest. The rest was like reading a great poem -- lyrical and fulfilling.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not just the story of one wolf pack and their complicated interactions with humans in Montana, but also an inspiring look at how one committed biologist, environmentalist, or activist (in this book, USF&WS scientist Mike Jimenez) can make a real difference by bridging the gap between nature and humankind that has been distorted by myths and rumors. A beautiful and sad story, but still a hopeful one.

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I’m a wildlife biologist with a background in predator ecology. My perspective this that of a wildlife professional and not a casual reader. Away we go:

I was excited to read this book however that excitement quickly evaporated and within the first 20 pages I sort of felt like I was reading a report from a hyperbolic high schooler who started their project the night before the due date. What would follow for the next 140 pages would be largely eye rolls and audible mutters mostly consisting of some variation on “oh for fuck’s sake”.

Through much of the book Bass seems to hold specific contempt for government scientists - and biologists in general - as if he’s somehow bought into the narrative that all state and federal wildlife professionals work in the field because they distain wildlife. His surprise, on pg 30, that a biologist would form an opinion based on… biology was comically off base especially considering that the person in question is Ed Bangs.

Are there bad actors in that field? Absolutely. Does predator ecology seem to have more of them than other disciplines? Ostensibly. Is it fair to assume that’s the norm? No.

Bass injects unsubstantiated anecdotes into his writing, even going so far as to begin them with the phrase “I’ve heard…” like on pg 34 when he claims, wrongly, that all cow moose in “parts of Canada” give birth within the same 48 hour period. Did Bass explicitly say this was scientific fact? No, but wouldn’t you want to delve into the literature before you go tossing in something that people are going read and assume to be true? I would.

Bass seems to hold such distain for scientific objectivity that many times throughout the text he seems to intentionally not only anthropomorphize but oversnthropomorphize these animals.

He makes certain to remind the reader, consistently, that he is not a biologist; not that there’s any danger of anyone mistaking him for one. Throughout the text Bass shows only a loose understanding of animal behavior and ecological relationships between species and among family groups. He confuses interspecific competition with evolutionary biology, and showcases his lack of understanding by referring to whatever it is he’s trying to talk about (he calls it “evolutionary stuff”) as “bullshit”. He brands pack territoriality and defense as “passion” and “revenge”. Breaking from topics addressed in freshman biology courses and rebranding them through a lens of personal assumption and rhetoric.

That being said, when talking about ESA lifting and delisting, Bass correctly asserts that straightforward enumeration is not a basis for delisting and, at a population level scale, a species needs a multitude of welfare factors working in concert to persist at a landscape and ecologically significant level. So there’s that.

On pg 66 Bass states that the culture of wolf killing is gone and been replaced with “strange hatefulness”, which is perhaps close to reality. That hatefulness has become the culture and (on pg 106) stating that the culture is exacerbated by fear (I would counter by saying one of the main drivers is willful ignorance) and that current management tools are available to curb an errant individual from depredation including, in what might be the stupidest line item in the entire book, “nuclear armaments” (a variation of “oh fuck’s sake” was mutter upon reading this, in case you were wondering).

Bass rails against telemetry collars on pg 92, stating that seeing a grizzly wearing a collar does “nothing” for him whiling seeing one without does “everything”, going further to extol mystery in favor of knowledge which seemed, unintentionally, to be allegory for much of this book.

On page 119 Bass rambles, naively, about a future when Montana ranchers accept depredation as a fact of life, here we are in 2025 and vitriol towards predators by the ranching community is palpable and violence aimed at those species is the norm. He states in the same page that Defenders of Wildlife was established to act as a reimbursement entity for ranchers, which is demonstrably false and shamefully inaccurate.

I think one of the main issues I have with this book is that Bass is not a biologist (he has a degree in geology with a “focus on wildlife”, however those 2 fields intersect, and interned for a year as a “biologist” for a timber company) but he thinks he knows better than actual biologists. As internet comment sections everywhere have shown us over the last decade plus, there exists no confidence quite as palpable as the confidence of someone that doesn’t know what they don’t know. This book highlights that.

This’ll mark my first and last read from Rick Bass. Overall I found little of value in this book and would slot it in at the bottom of the stack as far as the 20 or so books I’ve read on the species, perhaps one rung above Dutcher’s The Wisdom of Wolves; but that only puts it one up from the bottom. If you’re after spun narrative, self important rhetoric, and an odd preoccupation with fat shaming, this is your jam. If you want to actually learn about the species, pack dynamics, ecology, biology, interspecific relationships, etc; look elsewhere. There are many better options.

[Brandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last summer in Yellowstone, we stared through hi-powered binoculars at a hole on the other side of the valley for about 45 minutes, waiting for a wolf to return. When we finally left, the same 75-or-so people who were there when we pulled up were still there. The idea of wolves still holds a lot of humans.

Rick Bass' The Ninemile Wolves, originally published in 1992, is pertinent to the current debate on both factual and poetic levels. Does the pull of poetry compromise the facts, Bass seems to ask early in the book. He resists comparisons of humans to wolves, giving logos control of 99-per-cent of the book. As wolf remains at the center of western controversy, The Ninemile Wolves seems prescient.

As for the facts, Bass gets into the specifics of biologists using Telazol, a catalepoid anesthesia and of the historic killers that wolves were in early years. The big news, however, is that there are ranchers interested in modifying practices to reduce depredation so wolves do minimal damage to livestock. In fact, the ranchers cited in the book as well as several hunters hint at a fracture in the red states, such as Idaho, where the state legislature in 2021 re-opened wolf hunting. In the same year, Idaho Fish & Game director Ed Schriever noted that before the wolf hunting law went into effect, the "elk harvest was up about 12 percent from the 10-year average," that would be the decade wolf packs were making their biggest comeback in a century. Many Idaho hunters found the state legislature's law allowing the hunting of wolves from ATV or snowmobile to be against hunting ethics. Bass noted hunting ethics back in '92, writing, "Nothing is harder to stereotype than a hunter, of whom I am one." Bass goes on to note with dark humor that unskilled hunters "have sustained wolves [by] crippling deer with gut or hind shots" (72). Bass lets wolf hunters speak for themselves, quoting "Common Man rhetoric" at length as a way of explaining the case for endangering a specie. For Trump conservatives in Idaho, the willingness to kill 90% of the state's wolves has become the new conservatism at odds with the conservationist thinking of Nixon Republicans.

I remember hearing Bass speak at Writers@Work in Park City, Utah while he was finishing 'Ninemile.' He had a dozen other books in the process, all promising, but with no realistic process for finishing them in a way that made sense. Carol Houck Smith said afterward that was Bass’ “real problem”: his abilities as a writer exceed the physical ability of a human. So when I began reading "The Appendix: Wise Blood," I initially I thought its fragmented structure was just Bass lashing together good quotes, but I was wrong.

"Wise Blood" is often quotations wild in their own paragraphs. "The Appendix" works as the poem Bass had been resisting for most of the book, not wanting to anthropomorphize the wolf, but move the human into the weave with the wolf. The Ninemile Wolves was the best book about wolves of its time, and it has proven to be a book for now, as well.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate his openly subjective and sentimental approach -- he states repeatedly that he's not a biologist and he's coming at this as a writer-- but he constantly accuses biologists of being dry and unsentimental to overemphasize the contrast. He had a strawman for everyone he didn't personally speak to during the book writing process. He kept calling entire groups of people fat, as if being fat was an insult. Politicians do something stupid? They're fat. Sloppy hunters shoot from their trucks and drive off after wounding an animal? They're fat. Is Rick Bass a 13 year old?

His definition of anthropomorphism changes throughout the book, and he uses it to emphasize the contrast between himself (sentimental) and biologists (so dry that they're unwilling to talk about some biological phenomena, apparently). It starts out by saying that biologists can't talk about certain biological things ("talking about wolves as having thoughts and feelings" -- no, just because humans have thoughts and feelings doesn't mean other animals aren't allowed to have them. Nobody would call "talking about wolves as having legs" anthropomorphism just because humans also have legs) and then toward the end it does shift to a non-biological idea (talking about souls and spirits, which are in the realm of writers and not biologists).

[Robert Walkley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Originally published in 1992, this 2003 edition sports a new preface by the author. The new preface updates the progress made by the wolf recovery project. But this book is more than just about wolves. It’s about ranchers and their cattle, and about an ultimately successful federal government program. it’s also about Bass’ transformation from scientist to. . .poet?. . .human? Bass, a hunter, admires wolves for their passion. He says they have “great hearts.” But Bass doesn’t want to just admire wolves, he wants to be as passionate about living as they are. To do this, he must throw off his scientific mentality and not be afraid to say that wolves have feelings. And to have feelings for them. It’s okay to anthropomorphize them. In fact, Bass goes even further. He claims the wolf recovery project is really a human recovery project. The wolves are testing us! To see if our hearts have changed any since we hunted, poisoned, and trapped wolves to virtual extinction in the lower 48. Reintroducing wolves reintroduces us to the wild, predatory spirit of nature. Thus restoring the ecological balance between predators and prey. As Bass says, “I can say what I want. I gave up my scientific badge a long time ago.”

Recommended for anyone interested in Rick Bass, Montana, and/or wolves.

[Robert OKeefe · Rating 5 out of 5]

This beautiful essay mixes the author's deep appreciation for wolves and for the western spirit with facts about wolves in the United States (largely a story about their extermination). It's also a record of the reappearance of the wolf in Montana in the early 1990s, Montana's fight to keep them in Glacier National Park and a profile of the men and women of various federal agencies charged with protecting endangered species.
Bass's essay isn't exactly balanced--he's clearly rooting for the wolves--but it also takes into account the feelings of ranchers and sportsmen. Make no doubt, livestock is killed by wolves and the wolves pay the price pretty quickly in terms of death or relocation. Overall, the story of The Ninemile Valley pack includes much heartbreak, yet still the wolves survive.
This edition is a gorgeous, small press hardcover with charming illustrations at the start of the chapters. Bass manages to make his account of the incidents both objective and personal; the writing is beautiful and philosophical.

[Kendall · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really liked the content and learning about the different histories of packs and lone wolves in the Americas. It’s also given me a lot of good options for further readings on the subject, but the writing did leave something to be desired. It wasn’t as straightforward as I would have liked it to be, making forays into side topics and groups almost at random before returning to the main storyline. He was also very into the idea of The West and “re-colonization” of the wolves, when if anything it’s a decolonization process and return to the traditional ways of the ecosystems that have existed for centuries if not millennia. He had a romantic view of westward expansion and while he would acknowledge the harms of what the US Government did it just felt like a glancing acknowledgement and nothing more. I feel like it needed to be longer if he wanted to really get into everything and if he needed to keep it at this length it would’ve been better to focus in on the subject matter instead of this rambling story.

[Judith Shadford · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite being 20 years old, Rick Bass's account of wolves in western Montana--just north of I-90 on the way to Missoula (from the west)--is as accurate now as then. Except that the feds are now the initiators of taking wolves off the endangered list instead of their protectors. Bass's writing, as always, is wholly engaging, leaving me with images as sharp as if they were first-hand. Farley Mowat first introduced me to the mystery and delight of wolves long, long ago. Rick Bass adds his voice. And I shall never forget, driving into Yellowstone from the east in June of 2003, snowbanks 10-12 feet high along the Beartooth Pass, there, ten feet or so away, just across the opposite lane was a grey wolf, young, trotting along the road. A moment of transcendence. Hope he's still trotting along a meadow or a forest hillside in Yellowstone.

[Mark]

A collection of interlocking essays about one group of wolves, some jet black and some gray, in the Ninemile valley of Montana, close to the borders with Canada and Idaho. (I bought this book in Vermont more than a decade ago, and thought it's about time I read it). This book was first published in 1992, and Bass (who lives in Montana) does a good job of presenting a balanced portrayal of ranchers, state and Federal wildlife biologists, environmental groups. You learn that wolf pack is more than just a phrase, about how much wolves rely on their own kind, and cover vast distances. Bass indicates he is an essayist and not a biologist, but the book does portray the science and the varied concerns to safeguard this small group of wolves. (3.9-4.2/5.0 stars).

[MaryAlice Herring · Rating 5 out of 5]

I definitely should have read this book before the many wolf books I have already read. Being written before YNP reintroduction (my obsession) offers a different perspective, a wider history of "management" (very hard to read at times 😢) and a better understanding of the "bigger" picture. The preface in my edition was added in 2003 giving updates, something I always appreciate. Gaps in my knowledge base were definitely filled. And now I am on a quest to find the other related books I should have already read....

[Alicia Wallingford · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love a local wildlife story! Having tracked wolves in this very area of western MT, I enjoyed getting to read about the foundations of the Ninemile pack. As acknowledged by the author, he is no biologist and didn't intend to write a book on wolf biology. That being said, this book dipped a little too deep into the anthropomorphized wolf for me. I enjoyed the interviews with the ranchers, and I loved the pictures included!

[Michael Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy the topic of the wolf conservation efforts around the late 80s, through the 90s and early 2000's. The author takes a more emotional, he calls it "poetic," approach to the topic. This was an good read, but I prefer the more scientific approach.

Overall, well written and certainly engaging.

[Stuart Chambers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful, exhilarating and incredibly insightful, yet ultimately sad story about wolves rights to roam the earth in a pure way, whilst man seems intent on keepin wolves in man's way. One can only hope wolves find the way to endure and live the lives they were born to live in the truly pure way

[Hailey Leavitt · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to learn more about wolves and the history of wolves in America read this book!

[Peter Gooch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great observations about wolves and humans.

[Diane Burton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this guy and love this book.

[Luke Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved his voice throughout the book. Hope them Montana wolves are doing better now..

[Matt Mesa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pre-Yellowstone wolf introduction story. Wildness rules.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love me a wolf book. Love me a wolf 🐺 book set in Montana.