The title to the new book from the University of Iowa Press intrigued me: "Of Wilderness and Wolves."

I've enjoyed many days in wildernesses in the U.S. and Canada and many more days in wild places. I am intrigued by the mystique around wolves.

Then I was taken aback when I learned the book was written before Paul L. Errington died in 1962. Why would I want to read a book that old when there are so many much newer books about the animal that is the icon for wild places in the Upper Midwest, an animal loved, feared, managed and hunted?

Lessons relearned

As it turns out, the book was a great read because it not only talks about the wolf but also lets Errington delve into the mystique behind the wolf, how we treat wolves and in the end, how we treat our wild places. In that, his book rings out as something that we need to learn, or relearn today. The controversy over wild places is as much a topic of today as more than a half century ago.

Errington is listed among the giants in ecological/naturalist circles, right up there with Aldo Leopold and Rachel Carson, who are much better known. The book tells the story of how Errington had so many problems trying to the get the book published. He kept coming close, but eventually was rebuffed by a major New York publisher.

I just wonder what impact the book would have had back then, when wolves and managing wolves were so little understood. I think it would have had a big impact.

Errington grew up in the Dakotas and yearned for wild places. He spent part of a winter trapping in the Big Bog of northern Minnesota. He was clearly a man who wanted to learn more firsthand. I liked that about him, plus I have walked on the Big Bog in early spring and have seen how barrenly beautiful it is.

Ahead of his time

Errington takes us along as he learns about the outdoors, then about wolves and finally, lays out wilderness values.

It was a fun lesson about how wolves, and our view of them, were back then. For younger readers, it's a great reminder of how things once were. That was not a big surprise to me.

When I came to the final chapter, "Of Man and Maturity," I realized Errington was ahead of many people. He echoes Leopold's famous call for a land ethic.

His final chapter connects wolf and man. He leads with: "Man, like the wolf, is an animal doing what he does with what he has. Man's natural endowments differ from those of the wolf in degree; both man and wolf are highly gifted as living things go."

He calls on people to rethink their prejudices about wolves and other wildlife. "It might be wholesome, if nothing more, for man to reflect critically upon his own relation to the modern world and upon his relations with the so-called lower animals, including some that he professes to despise."

He admits it's hard to easily define wilderness values, something that is still a problem today for those who are trying to protect wildness when others are proffering dollars and jobs. Errington offers this more than five decades ago, something still ringing true today: "Wilderness and what it stands for could mean still more in terms of human tranquility and reflection in an era of artificiality and unrest," he writes.

I particularly liked his final sentence, one that hinted as optimism: "There he is, far from being mature enough to toss thunderbolts in every direction; needing more than anything else to learn to live, with intelligence, dignity, restraint, and goodness that he somewhere has in him."