Lone Wolf

An illuminating account of one wolf's journey across the Alps into Italy, and what the resurgence of wolves says about our connection to nature, immigration, and one another--from an award-winning journalist.

In 2011, a wolf named Slavc left his home territory of Slovenia for a wide-ranging journey across the Alps. Tracked by a GPS collar, he traveled over 1,200 miles, where he would mate with a female wolf on a walkabout of her own--the only two wolves for hundreds of square miles--and start the first pack to call the Italian Alps home in more than a century. A decade later and there are more than a hundred wolves in the area, the result of their remarkable meeting. Now, journalist Adam Weymouth follows Slavc's path on foot, and in doing so, interrogates the fears and realities of those living on land that is being repopulated by wolves; a metaphor for economic, political, and climate upheaval in a region that is seeing a centuries-old way of life being upended.

Weymouth journeys to understand how wolves--vilified throughout history in literature, art, and folklore--are slowly creeping back into our forests, woods, and sometimes even our towns, and what that deep-rooted terror at the back of our minds really means. Slavc serves as the ultimate symbol for the outsider, journeying through places that are now wrestling with an influx of immigration, a resurgence of the far-right wing, and the steady decline of the environment due to the rapid advance of climate change; the question of how we see the other and treat the earth becomes paramount in everyday lives. Examining the political dimensions that this individual animal's trek brings to light, Lone Wolf tells a newly resonant story--one less about fear and more about the courage required to seek out a new life, as well as the challenge of accepting the changing world around us.

Sharply observed, searching, and written in poetic and precise prose, Lone Wolf explores the thorny connection between humans and nature, and indeed between borders themselves, and presses us to consider this much-discussed creature anew.