I am, according to all evidence, a boring man. I read about the many pitfalls people must endure in the world of dating these days, and I cringe for a version of me that doesn’t even currently exist. I can’t help but think I’d come off laughably plain. I’m just not all that much fun. I don’t dance (I tell myself I can, but–God willing and the creek don’t rise–we’ll never find out), and the word “Karaoke” leaves me feeling embarrassed to even say aloud. My idea of a rock-solid night involves a book and sweatpants. I make a lot of rice.

There is one thing about me that is a little weird. Statistically unique. Something of a curious outlier.

I was, as of the last time I checked, involved in the only documented wolf attack in Parks Canada history.

Now, wolves do attack people sometimes. It’s generally hunters out in the middle of nowhere, soaked to the gills in deer piss (or whatever they use to arouse woodland creatures these days). Within a national park, though, things get a little different.

There’s lots of people in national parks, which produces a situation that doesn’t rank highly on the bucket list of most wolves. I’ve been an avid camper for the better part of three decades, and I’ve only ever seen one. But boy, did I see the hell out of it.

This piece isn’t really about the attack, though. It’s more about a curiosity I run into almost daily: I can’t seem to write about it. What you’re currently experiencing is me in an active session of exposure therapy. In fact, if you’re reading this at all, we’ll know the answer to the question that is currently screaming in my head: “hold up, we aren’t seriously posting this shit, right?”

The backstory because you probably need the backstory

So in 2019, while camping with my family in Banff National Park, our soon-to-be friends and camp neighbours experienced one of the most pant-shittingly terrifying evenings imaginable. A lone wolf, starving and desperate, bit its way into their tent. Seeing a wolf is rare. Getting attacked by that wolf is rarer still. Having it enter your tent with you in it doesn’t even make sense.

Sometimes things don’t make sense.

To make the scenario all the more disarming, it was a family with two boys aged about five and seven. So within this nylon shop of horrors are two children protected by a mother who is also trying to keep her husband from being hauled out of the tent by a wolf.

My role to play in this madness came once I realized they were in trouble and needed some help. Now, before we get too impressed, please keep in mind I didn’t have a lot of backstory as to what they needed help with. Turns out when you’re in the jaws of an animal, the words “excuse me, can someone please assist? We are currently embattled with a predator and it’s not going well” don’t exactly flow naturally. If you’re curious, it’s more just staccato shouting and profanity.

I jogged over, perhaps a bit too nonchalantly. Armed with a plastic lantern and a pair of Crocs, I was about to learn I had just brought piss to a shit fight. Once I realized there was half an animal sticking out of their tent, my brain more or less went offline. My frontal lobe, usually so careful to help me overthink and underperform, casually handed all bodily function off to my muscles. They were pretty excited; I don’t use them often.

To this day I’m quite certain the only reason I did anything at all was because I was already locked into a light jog. I remain unconvinced that I would have done a single thing if I wasn’t moving. But I was. And so I kicked it.

Have you ever kicked in a door? I haven’t. You’ll recall, I’m boring. I think men who kick doors in are a lot cooler than me. I’ve simply never gotten myself in such a predicament that required much in the way of door-kicking. One time in the dark I walked into a bathroom door that was unexpectedly closed, but I don’t think the skills garnered on that evening translated well to this one.

So I did my best impression of a man and kicked this wolf. Remember: Crocs. I did not hurt this animal. If anything, I startled it and perhaps confused it by providing a mid-attack ass massage with my foot. Maybe he was into feet stuff. I don’t know. It popped out of the tent, and to this day I can’t decide if I was looking at a wolf displaying confusion or disappointment. It’s like it knew if I bested it in combat, the rest of the pack would make fun of it. They wouldn’t be wrong.

I continued to cosplay as a man of action. We engaged in a short battle with rocks, which sounds cooler than it was (it mostly paced back and forth waiting for me to overexert myself so it could kill me).

There’s more to the story, but you’re now caught up. Everybody lived, my new friend got a rabies shot (unnecessary as it turns out), and I now exchange Christmas cards with a family in New Jersey.

Why can’t I write about this?

If there’s something that’s stuck with me over the years–even more so than the PTSD–it’s that I can’t seem to write about it. I love writing. Everything I write is generally related to a wolf attack, but I almost never acknowledge that.

Many close to me assume it’s because of the trauma of the event, but it’s more discomfort than anything.

Look, I get it. It’s objectively kinda bad-ass and makes for a hell of a story, but I seem to hate telling it for whatever reason. At the same time, it informs everything I do. It changed me on philosophical levels. It allowed me to enjoy life, I became a better father, husband, and worker. I even grew to sorta like myself (still working on that one). So it’s a story worth telling, and I should probably work on that.

The entire experience took me down paths of meditation, mindfulness, and therapy. A massive breakthrough after spending some time on those paths was that there’s incredible freedom on the other side of caring what people think of you (it’s okay to be confused by that statement; the paths are not straight and they make no sense).

And of course, this awkward, rambling post is precisely that. A performative dance (told you I could do it!) whereby I display that I am still rather concerned about what people think of me.

What if someone points out that the wolf is the only one who died in the story? Or that I jumped over an axe on my way to the site, showing up woefully unprepared? What if someone asks if I ever called out to my wife to, ya know, bring bear spray or something?

Or here’s a fun one: what if someone has gone down those same paths as me and knows what I ultimately learned, which is that what I did was effectively the culmination of sparks in brain and muscle, and I didn’t “choose” to do anything that night?

I’ve since become obsessed with the internal stories we tell that shape who we are to ourselves and others. A single event can dislocate your narrative by trying to make you someone you're not sure you want to be.

There now exists a tension between the comfortable, reliable boredom I see for myself, and a symbolic story that leaves others questioning if I might be more. It’s the imposter syndrome felt in a job I never applied for.

When you’re a guy who lives dangerously by jazzing up his rice with a whisper of garlic, suddenly having a story of fighting a wolf lit by moonlight and a plastic lantern sorta hijacks your identity. It becomes The Story. Being Jazzy Rice Guy is quite easy. That guy sucks. It’s awesome. Being Hero Wolf Guy is somewhat more weighty. He can let you down. Unless you really like rice, in which case have I ever got exciting news for you.