American Hunting: Starting with Solitary Life in the Wilderness

Chapter 241 Potential Threat!
December 26, local time in Wisman.

The storm that swept across the global internet overnight seems to have had no effect whatsoever on this land at the ends of the earth.

The sun still hung lazily in the sky, the snowfield was still vast and boundless, and the air was still cold and pure.

Life, after all, must return to its most basic essence. While rapidly fluctuating numbers and astronomical profits may bring a great sense of security and endless possibilities for the future, they are ultimately just that.

But nothing can replace the fire burning in the fireplace, the warm embrace of family, and the sense of security of creating a new life with your own hands on this land.

At nine o'clock in the morning, Lin Yu'an made the fire in the fireplace burn even brighter, added a few pieces of dry birch wood, and then put on his thickest winter coat.

It was a military green two-piece cold-weather work suit with a Gore-Tex coating, filled with thick Primaloft insulation, enough to withstand temperatures as low as minus forty degrees Celsius.

“I’m going to Uncle Stan’s to get our chickens back,” he said to Arya and Emily, who were playing with the children on the living room carpet.

"Get the chickens? Take that big vehicle?" Arya looked up. Twenty adult chickens was no small number, and the agile snowmobile was clearly not up to the task.

“Of course.” Lin Yu’an smiled and put on his heavy Sorel winter boots. “Only these can hold it all. I’ll also check if there’s any new snow on the main road; the wind was a bit strong last night.”

"Be careful on the road, darling," Emily said gently as she handed a teething biscuit to Olivia, who was trying to stand up. "Take care."

Lin Yu'an nodded, gave them a reassuring look, picked up a pair of thick leather gloves, and walked out of the wooden house.

The outdoor air instantly enveloped him; it was dry and cold, a chill that stung his nostrils. His exhaled breath condensed into a wisp of mist that lingered in front of him.

He walked straight toward the XCMG XC760K loader, which looked like a yellow steel beast.

After a brief warm-up, accompanied by a deep and powerful roar, this reliable partner was successfully awakened in the freezing cold.

The driver's cab's heating system started working, quickly blowing away the thin frost on the glass and revealing the pure white world outside, like an ice sculpture.

Lin Yu'an placed several large plastic transport cages, which had been prepared in advance specifically for transporting live poultry, into the huge bucket, and then nimbly climbed into the warm and spacious cab.

Before starting the engine, he skillfully pressed the button on the DJI Osmo Action 4 action camera on the side of the dashboard, and began to silently record his work for the day.

"Om - hum -"

The loader slowly drove towards Stan's house along the main road it had cleared. The cab offered a wide field of vision and excellent sound insulation, keeping out the cold and noise from the outside.

This gave him a rare moment of quiet reflection, and his thoughts gradually returned to the steady rhythm that Alaska should have in front of this vast snowfield.

As he drove, he kept an eye on the treeline on both sides of the road, looking for any new animal tracks.

This was a solitary journey. As far as the eye could see, there was no other color but black coniferous forests and white snow.

The sky was a vast, pale blue, and the sun, like a cold silver coin, hung listlessly on the horizon, casting a long, blue shadow.

The forest was exceptionally quiet after the snow, so quiet that you could almost hear the passage of time. Occasionally, a gust of wind would blow, and the snow on the pine branches would fall with a soft rustling sound, like a silent waterfall.

Apart from that, the only sounds in the world were the crunching of the loader's tire chains as they rolled over the snow and the deep rumble of the Cummins engine.

This extreme solitude was the reason why many gold prospectors and explorers eventually went mad, but for Lin Yu'an, it was a rare luxury.

It's like a giant filter, filtering out all the noise, restlessness, and anxiety of modern civilization, leaving only the purest reflections on survival and freedom.

However, just as he was about to reach an open area near Stan's house, he caught a glimpse of something unusual out of the corner of his eye, something that seemed out of place with the tranquility.

He subconsciously released the accelerator, smoothly brought the loader to a stop, and then pressed the red parking brake button on the dashboard.

With a soft hissing sound, the steel behemoth came to a complete stop.

He squinted and looked at a clearing about fifty meters to his right. There, on the snow, was a large patch of dark blood, which stood out starkly against the pure white world.

The snow around the bloodstains was trampled into a mess, with countless animal footprints crisscrossing and stretching deep into the forest.

Lin Yu'an frowned deeply; he didn't get out of the vehicle. On this land, sitting in the heavy cab of the loader was far safer than standing in the snow.

He observed carefully for a moment and quickly identified two main types of tracks from the footprints, one belonging to a large adult reindeer.

Another type of wolf activity involved a pack of at least ten gray wolves, and this was a hunting scene. The local wolves of Wiesman were hunting a caribou here.

This is a perfectly normal law of nature that plays out every day in the Alaskan wilderness.

However, two things set off alarm bells in Lin Yu'an's mind! Because this place was less than a kilometer away from Stan's cabin and only three kilometers away from his own home.

For a wolf pack with a strong sense of territory, this is an extremely dangerous distance.

They typically try to stay as far away from the scents and traces of human activity as possible, choosing to hunt and feed deeper into their territory.

Hunting and eating so openly near human settlements is itself an extremely abnormal behavior.

He saw a series of unusually large wolf footprints, nearly a third larger than the footprints of the other wolves around. Judging from the depth of the footprints, the wolf must have been incredibly heavy.

This was undoubtedly the alpha wolf of the pack. It was this series of huge footprints that gave him the initial impression that this was not an animal he was familiar with.

More importantly, although the scene was bloody, there were not many carcasses of reindeer, which indicates that the wolf pack did not finish off the prey on the spot.

Instead, they dragged most of the meat deep into the forest. It seemed they were merely making a "declaration" of their meal there.

Lin Yu'an's expression became extremely serious.

He immediately ruled out "coincidence," the most naive option. Animal behavior is always driven by the most primal and direct motives.

Is this... a test? Or a provocation?
He recalled various descriptions of wolf pack intelligence, how they would assert dominance over intruders or other predators by leaving the remains of prey at the edge of their territory.

And now, they've chosen a location so close to humans for this demonstration. What are they trying to do?
Could it be that... for some reason, they have begun to regard this human settlement, with its warm wooden houses and flocks of chickens, as a potential "food storehouse"?
Either way, this is by no means a good sign.

This undisguised aggression goes beyond the needs of survival and is more like a provocation.

He silently noted down the location, marked it with his phone's GPS, and then restarted the loader.

This time, however, his eyes were more vigilant, his gaze like radar, scanning for any suspicious movement on either side of the road.

A few minutes later, Stan's familiar wooden house finally came into view, allowing Lin Yu'an's tense nerves to relax a little.

Stan's home was a more traditional-style wooden house, also built by himself. When Lin Yu'an arrived, Stan was wearing a woolen hat and clearing snow from the roof.

"Hey, Lin! You're here!" Stan greeted him with a hearty smile, a warm and rugged smile.

He pointed to the big yellow machine behind Lin Yu'an, "Looks like today's project is going to be a big one."

"Good morning, Stan." Lin Yu'an jumped out of the driver's seat and replied with a smile, "I've come to pick up our little chicks and take them home."

Stan climbed down the ladder, brushed the snow off his hands, and said, "Come on, your little ones can't wait." He led Lin Yu'an into the warm and clean shed behind the house.

A scent of hay and poultry wafted through the air. Inside the shed, dozens of plump Chantilly chickens strolled leisurely in their respective enclosures.

Their bodies are covered with thick, black and white feathers, forming a beautiful "barred" pattern. Their combs and wattles are very small and lie close to their heads to prevent frostbite in extremely low temperatures.

Compared to ordinary chickens, they are more sturdy and have thicker legs, looking like little tanks wearing thick sweaters, with bright eyes and a very energetic appearance.

“Look at these guys, how beautiful they are.” Stan’s face was full of pride, like an artist showing off his masterpiece. He picked one up at random, and the chicken didn’t panic, just stayed obediently in his rough, big hand. “Chandickrere chickens, they’ve grown up now. These aren’t the breeds you can buy in stores.”

"This is a treasure that a guy named Brother Wilfrid Chatran bred in Quebec, Canada, decades ago. He spent more than ten years crossbreeding it little by little."

"First, he selected the Black Cornish chicken, which is known for its high meat production. Then, he introduced the high-yielding White Leghorn chicken. To make the chicken both docile and strong and adaptable to various environments, he also added the White Plymouth Rock bloodline."

"Finally, he found the White Wynn Dort chicken. This chicken has a valuable feature: its comb and wattles are so small that they are almost negligible, lying close to its head. This is the ultimate weapon against the severe cold!"

"He was like a patient alchemist, spending more than a decade carefully extracting and fusing these 'golden genes' from different varieties, and after countless generations of breeding, he finally created this treasure."

He pointed to the chicken's almost invisible comb: "See that? The almost invisible crest. This is one of the most crucial characteristics for cold resistance. Chickens with huge combs would have the flesh on their heads frozen off in less than one night in the Alaskan winter."

"Their feathers are also particularly thick, with a double layer of down feathers, like wearing two down jackets. They have fully adapted to the climate here, and they are docile and not prone to fighting, making them very suitable for captivity."

Stan put the chicken back in the cubicle and continued, "Most importantly, they are a double-superior breed. The hens have a very stable egg production rate, and even in the polar night winter, as long as you provide enough light and protein, they can still guarantee a good yield."

"Did you see those particularly robust roosters? Their meat is of excellent quality, and their growth cycle is not slow, providing the highest quality protein for your table."

"They look fantastic," Lin Yu'an exclaimed sincerely. This was also why he chose this type of chicken to raise in the first place. Together with Stan, he skillfully caught these clucking creatures one by one and put them into transport cages.

As they placed the last cage, Stan leaned against the doorframe, lit a pipe, took a deep drag, and exhaled smoke that condensed into a cloud of white mist in the cold air.

Lin Yu'an looked at Stan and said, "Stan, lately... have you felt that something's not quite right about the things in the forest?"

Stan paused in his smoking motion. "You felt it too?"

“I just saw it. On my way here, about a kilometer away from here, I discovered a hunting site.”

“Oh?” Stan frowned immediately and turned to look at him. “Tell me about it.”

“A pack of wolves preyed on a reindeer,” Lin Yu’an said in a deep voice. “Judging from the size, there were at least a dozen wolves. The alpha wolf was very large, and its footprints were a size larger than those of a gray wolf.”

Stan's expression turned serious, and he exhaled a puff of smoke: "That's not surprising. There are always a few wolves in the Brooks Mountains that look like monsters."

“That’s right.” Lin Yu’an nodded.

Then he voiced his biggest concern: "But it was too close to us. They didn't even finish eating their prey, as if they were deliberately leaving the scene for us to see."

Upon hearing this, a cold glint flashed in Stan's cloudy but unusually sharp eyes. He shifted his gaze to the cages containing chickens.

“Chicken.” He slowly squeezed out the word through clenched teeth.

Lin Yu'an instantly understood what Stan meant.

Stan tapped the ash from his pipe against the doorframe, his tone becoming incredibly serious: "You know better than I how keen a wolf's sense of smell and hearing are. A cabin smelling of poultry is like a lighthouse in the night to them."

However, Lin Yu'an frowned even more deeply, as he was thinking about more than just the safety of his own family.

“Stan,” Lin Yu’an’s tone also became serious, “you still have at least forty chickens here, right? And you’re closer to their hunting grounds. If they’ve really become this bold because of food shortages, then this place is their primary target.”

Stan understood Lin Yu'an's concerns, and a relieved smile appeared on his weathered face, but his eyes became even more resolute, like the unyielding rocks of the Brooks Mountains.

"Young man, are you worried about this old man?" He grinned. "Don't worry. I've lived on this land for thirty years and dealt with wolves for half my life."

He pointed to a row of huge moose skulls hanging under the eaves of his cabin, and then to an old but well-maintained Remington 700 rifle leaning against the corner of the wall.

“They’re cunning; they know this place is dangerous, but it’s different where you are.” Stan’s gaze turned serious again. “You’re new here, the house is new, the smell is new. They’ll test you first, to see if you’re tough or a pushover who can easily take advantage of you.”

Lin Yu'an said in a deep voice, "I will be extra careful."

“Being careful isn’t enough,” Stan shook his head. “Your cabin is beautifully built, very sturdy, and can keep out the wind and snow. But remember, a house can only be called a home when its male owner can protect it at all times.”

"You can't let the wolves think your chicken coop is just an open lunchbox. You have to show them what's what before they even make a move."

“I understand, Stan.” Lin Yu’an nodded solemnly, a chilling glint in his eyes.

"You can't be too careful around people, and you can be just as careful around wolves." Stan's tone softened, carrying a hint of advice from someone with experience.

"This is when they are hungriest and boldest. You need to be on guard and not let them get any advantage."

As he spoke, he didn't rush Lin Yu'an to leave, but instead led him around his wooden house and shed.

“Kid, come with me, I’ll teach you a few old Alaskan tricks.” He pointed to the ground around his cabin, where faint traces could be seen beneath the seemingly random snow.

"Wolves have a nose even more sensitive than dogs, and they use scent to mark their territory. They dislike the scent of other large canids, especially the threatening scent of males."

He looked up at Lin Yu'an and asked, "Your big dog is called Whiskey, right? Is it a male dog?"

“Yes, Bernese Mountain Dog,” Lin Yu’an replied immediately.

“That’s right.” Stan nodded. “Bern Mountain Dog, big enough and with a strong enough scent.”

"You can lead it around your house and chicken coop, carefully making sure it leaves its 'mark' in all the key corners."

Stan's eyes turned serious: "This is a strategic scent patrol. You're using your dogs to announce to the wolf pack that this place has been taken over by a powerful adversary."

Lin Yu'an nodded seriously.

Then Stan pointed to a corner of the shed, where some rags stained with black oil were piled up.

He continued, "The smell of dogs alone isn't enough to be safe. Every ten meters around your chicken coop, put up a one-meter-high wooden pole."

"Then tie these rag strips, soaked in a mixture of engine oil and diesel, to the top of the wooden pole."

"Wolves hate this pungent industrial smell, which creates a second scent barrier that they are reluctant to approach."

Lin Yu'an memorized these simple yet extremely effective methods one by one.

Stan stopped in his tracks, his gaze turning incredibly serious. "The last point, and the most important one, is that you will show absolutely no mercy."

He looked at Lin Yu'an and said, word by word, "If, just if, you find that wolves are ignoring these warnings and are constantly lurking and probing around your house."

"That means they've already seen you and your family as prey. At that point, don't wait any longer."

“Lin, you must fire before they launch their first attack. Kill or wound the leader, let them know you're not to be trifled with, let them know there's a death threat here. Only blood and death can truly teach these beasts a lesson.”

Stan's words are full of the cold and direct survival rules of the Alaskan frontier.

He squinted, gazing at the distant mountains, a cold, hunter-like smile playing on his lips. "In another month or two, when the days are longer and the weather is more stable..."

"Then it will be our turn. The community will organize a wolf hunt to teach these arrogant beasts a lesson."

"Go back quickly, it gets dark early." Stan's face regained its cheerful smile, as if his murderous plan had never happened.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

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(End of this chapter)