I worked seasonal park service jobs around Yellowstone from 2010 to 2014. The summer of 2013 I was running a campground on the north entrance and I had to do a 4am sweep one morning. I was crossing a meadow with a flashlight on my forehead.
A gray wolf — yearling, I think — crossed in front of me at maybe forty yards, looked at me for about three seconds, and trotted on. No sound. I have been on many things since then but I have never quite stopped thinking about how absolutely my presence did not matter to that animal. It was a useful thing to learn at twenty-three.
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