Just a Little Run Around the World: 5 Years, 3 Packs of Wolves and 53 Pairs of Shoes. Rosie Pope Swale

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       Prologue

       Siberia, January 2005

      There are a hundred different types of silence in Siberia. The atmosphere becomes part of you. You can sometimes see bare white silver birches in the depth of winter hung with stars on a clear night. In the mesmerising vast forests, dusk in January begins at 2 pm. By then everything is in its hole or nest—or nearly everything.

      On a cold, still night, I pull my cart that doubles as a sled, deep into the forest and find some smooth snow among the trees. I put up the tent, collect a bowl of fresh snow to take inside with me to melt on the tiny primus stove for drinks and cooking; it’s the nearest thing I have to a kitchen. I have even gathered some icy tree bark from the fallen branches to make tea. The Siberian people have taught me this. It’s not quite PG Tips but it’s nourishing and tastes fine. Need is a great teacher. I also boil up a few handfuls of buckwheat grain to make a kind of porridge. It’s a measure of the power of the silence that even a light footstep outside can make your heart stop. Something is out there.

      The night birds—maybe they are jays—suddenly start screeching and chattering. Alert. Out from their hiding places. Gone is their silent vigil. They are harsh calls of warning. Then I hear the howling.

      Moments later the wolf has stuck his head right into the tent. My first impression isn’t one of danger or fear but of his absolute beauty. He is a great big timber wolf. His tawny head and long front legs with giant-looking furry paws are covered with drops of half-frozen snow that gleam like diamonds on his thick fur. He has a good look around, as though I should have been expecting his visit. Maybe I am. After all, this is his world.

      My heart is thundering. Yet my strongest instinct is that he’s not going to attack me. I have learned to trust my instinct. It’s all I have. I stay quiet, but the wolf knows I’m shaken. You can’t pretend to animals. They always know how you feel. Then he backs away and he’s gone.

      I have to go out to repair the ripped tent flap with duct tape. The moon has risen, revealing a pack of wolves waiting like grey shadows among the trees.

      The next morning they have left but they come back again at the end of the day when I set up camp. I am on a desolate road that stretches for miles through the forest. I’ve only observed one or two vehicles over the last few days travelling to the mines in the far east of Russia. There are no houses for hundreds of miles and I wonder if these wolves have seen a human before. Perhaps I’m just part of the wildlife.

      Over the next few days they disappear at daylight and reappear when I stop for the night. They never come close to the tent again or harm me. It is as if they are running with me. They always gather for the night quite a distance away. I’m uneasy—yet at the same time their presence comforts me in a way I don’t quite understand. After about a week they vanish. I believe it’s because I’ve left their terrain; I have crossed an invisible border.

      These beautiful wolves with their ancient, strange ways gave me courage to think of the painful memories of why my run had begun.

      On 12 June 2002 my husband Clive died in my arms of prostate cancer. I knew with a passionate conviction that I had to do something. To tell people, to remind them to please go for health checks. If Clive and I had thought about him going to the doctor earlier—perhaps he would be with me now. I had to find a way to make others listen, especially men and women who hate going to the doctor and discussing intimate things. There is no social status with cancer. I’m only an ordinary woman, but if I just stayed home doing the weeding in my backyard, nobody would have taken any notice—that’s why I am running around the world, and sleeping in the cold in the forests with wolves.

      If my message saves even one life—it will all have been worthwhile.