We just got back from a four day tour of great fun and hard work on skis tracking and calling for both Wolf and Lynx. We had fresh new Wolf tracks every day to follow.

With a waist high 80-90 cm of snow in the forest we had to rely on our skis to take us forward. And because of the unusually deep cover of snow the Wolves were happy to walk on the few roads in the area and also across the lakes. We traveled around in the territory by car, on foot and on skis and although we were never far behind them we did not get any sightings. At one night we tried hard to call in a Lynx with the aid of luring pipes, incense cat nip, but no luck there either.

We traveled in a small group of mainly British participants who came through our British partner Steppes Discovery and accompanied by a Swedish couple. We stayed at Udden Guesthouse where Eva and Allan treated us with their home cooked locally produced foods each day, well needed between our cold and sometimes very demanding cross country skiing excursions. One of the most popular meals was surely Udden’s own smoked lamb with fried potato.

It was a full on active weekend with lots of tracking in the great outdoors. Lots of evidence of Wolves and although we had no sightings it was a truly thrilling winter adventure for all of us to remember.

Per Ahlqvist, field technician in the Scandinavian Wolf Project joined us for some tracking on skis one afternoon.