On the old maps, the roads stop where the knowledge ran out. Past that point the mapmakers drew mountains, sea monsters, and very often a wolf.

Here be wolves

It was a warning and an admission at the same time. Nobody we know has been beyond this line, and if you go, you go alone. The wolf stood for everything out there that does not care about you.

We went looking for some of those edges. A valley at the end of a gravel road, a plateau with no trail, an island that only appears on the tide chart. In each place the same feeling arrived on the second or third day: very small, very awake.

Still out there

There are wolves in the north again, a few hundred of them. We did not see one. We heard one, once, far away at dusk, and that was more than enough to understand why the mapmakers drew them where they did.