The wolverine, or carcajou of the Canadian voyageurs, is a circumpolar
species belonging to the northern forested areas of both continents. In
North America it formerly ranged from the northern limit of trees south
to New England and New York, and down the Rocky Mountains to Colorado,
and down the Sierra Nevada to near Mount Whitney, California. It is
a low, squat, heavy-bodied animal, with strong legs and feet armed
with sharp claws, and is the largest and most formidable of the weasel
family.
The wolverine is extraordinarily powerful and possesses what at times
appears to be a diabolical cunning and persistence. It frequently
trails trappers along their trap lines, eating or destroying their
catches and at times hiding their traps. It is a tireless wanderer, and
the hunter or traveler in the northern wilds always has this marauder
in mind and is put to the limit of his wits to provide caches for his
provisions or other supplies which it can not despoil.
What it can not eat it is likely to carry away and hide. A wolverine
has often been known to expend a surprising amount of labor in
apparently deliberate mischief, even carrying numerous articles away
from camps and hiding them in different places. It sometimes trails a
traveler for many miles through winter snow, always out of sight, but
alert to take advantage of any carelessness in leaving game or other
food unguarded.
Mingled with these mischievous traits the wolverine possesses a savage
ferocity combined with a muscular power which renders it a dreaded foe
of all but the largest animals of its domain. When guarding her young,
the female is no mean foe, even for a man.
As a consequence of its mental and physical character, the wolverine,
more than any other animal of the north, has impressed itself on the
imagination of both native and white hunters and travelers. A vast
amount of folk-lore has grown up about it and both Indians and Eskimos
make offerings to propitiate its malignant spirit. The Alaskan Eskimos
trim the hoods of their fur garments with a strip of wolverine fur, and
Eskimo hunters wear belts and hunting bags made of the skin of the legs
and head, that they may acquire some of the power of the animal from
which these came.
The value of the handsome brown fur of the wolverine, as well as the
enmity the animal earns among hunters and trappers, has resulted in its
being so persistently hunted that it has become extinct over much of
its former territory, and wherever still found it is much reduced in
numbers.