"Veasy angled away from the centre of the lake toward the west shoreline. He moved off the ice, into the timber to look at another trap set out in the spruces. In a couple of minutes he was in sight once more, again travelling the ice. But now there were others there too."

       "The five wolves trooped out onto the ice from the timber. They came noiselessly and suddenly. A second ago there might not have been a wolf within miles of the cabin as far as my hearing them or seeing their sign was concerned, but now, out of nowhere at all, there were five of them out there on the ice, within a half mile of where I was squatting."

        "They paused a moment at timber's edge, heads high, ears forward, noses measuring the air. Then, in single file and not more than a couple of hundred yards behind him, they began trailing Veasy. There were two blacks, two grays and one wolf almost as white as the snow it trod. Any one of them weighed a hundred pounds or more; any one could badly maul a fourteen-hundred-pound moose if the animal panicked at the sight of them."               

        "I started to come upright, then, shaking my head, squatted back down on the webbing. Instinctively I picked up the .22, then slowly laid it down again. Veasy was still five hundred yards away, the wolves slightly farther. The .22 was as useless as a pea shooter."

         "The gap between child and wolves was lessening; they were only a hundred yards behind him now. They travelled softly, like phantoms, without noise, the soft snow they were treading muffling their footsteps."

        "I wanted to gulp air into my lungs and let it go in one desperate explosive cry. 'Veasy, look behind you, timber wolves!'. That's what I wanted to cry out. But didn't. That would never do. It would fluster Veasy, and throw him off mental balance. And maybe he'd panic and start running as fast as his legs could carry him for me. And the wolves would know he was scared of them, and if they acted true to their species they'd probably take after him as they would after a panicky moose or deer. I could do nothing but sit and watch."

        "Then Veasy stopped. He turned around, saw the wolves and stood rooted to his tracks. And to me, watching impotently, time and most everything else was at a standstill. My lips began to move, forming soundless words - 'Don't panic. Don't run. Just keep on coming steadily up the ice. Remember what I told you about timber wolves and moose? No wolf or combination of wolves in British Columbia will tackle a moose if it turns and faces them, bluffs them out. But if it panics and runs, they'll tear it down before it's gone a mile. Don't panic, son. Just keep moving naturally up the ice as if you had the whole lake to yourself'."

        "Stout little legs moving again now, pushing the skis over the snow. Limp body of the mink swinging to and fro from a small mittened hand. Fur-lined ear flaps flopping up and down against healthy red cheeks, like ears flapping on a foxhound when it's hunting up scent. Thus, up the ice he came, steadily, with never a telltale back glance to see what was going on there."

        "And behind him, still in single file, perhaps only seventy-five yards behind now, five lusty timber wolves, any one of which could break a man's leg at a single crunch of its jaws."

        "I untied the flaps of my own fur-lined parka and tossed them away from my face. Beads of perspiration were now tickling my cheekbones. 'Keep coming, son, steady, just like that. Don't let them bluff you, don't drive those skis any faster. You're not scared of a no-account timber wolf, are you? Steady -- steady -- steady --'."

        "And at last Veasy reached me, puffing a little, eyes blinking. A couple of hundred yards off the wolves stopped and bunched. My eyes went to the .22, quickly left it again. It was too far, but if they'd just come a little closer ... Then one of the blacks trotted a few feet to one side, hunkered back on the snow and, forelegs braced, lifted its nose to the sky and howled, dismal, sad and spine-chilling. Then, sorting themselves out, and again in single file, the five wolves trotted off the ice and moved silently away through the timber."

Three Against the Wilderness: A gripping memoir of a pioneering family in the Chilcotin, British Columbia  circa 1922 --  Eric Collier

It is always amazing to me to think of the reality, that the province of British Columbia was settled within my lifetime. There are still those who pioneer life in the wilderness areas of that great province. Among them a woman who has named her isolated and starkly beautiful preserve, Nuk Tessli, where Chris Czajkowski lives year 'round and welcomes visitors to a raw, natural experience in the wild. Her books are fascinating reads.
I once read the autobiographical account of a doughty woman living in an isolated area of the province, raising her children on her own, educating them, and every summer taking them on a houseboat to spend the summer months sailing around the Queen Charlotte Islands. It takes a special kind of nature-loving, dauntless personality to choose to live as close to natural wilderness settings as humanly possible. Respect for nature looms large in these peoples' minds.