53 pages • 1 hour read
Jean Craighead GeorgeJulie Of The Wolves
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1972A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Amaroq, The Wolf”
Part 1, Pages 5-25 Summary
Miyax, also known as Julie, is a 13-year-old girl living in Alaska. She ran away from home a week ago, leaving behind her teenage husband, Daniel, who frightens Miyax. She is determined to walk to Point Hope, board the ship the North Star, and go to San Francisco to live with her pen pal, Amy. Miyax is now lost and alone somewhere deep in the wilderness of the North Slope of Alaska. She has set up a camp in a frost heave but is scared “because of her desperate predicament” (6) and worried that she will not find her way before running out of food. It is summertime, and the Arctic is enjoying round-the-clock sunshine, but colder weather and constant darkness will arrive soon.
A pack of wolves is near Miyax’s camp, and she observes them closely. She hopes to get the wolves to help her by bringing her food. Miyax’s father, Kapugen, told her that it was possible for wolves to bring humans food when they were desperate. He said that it happened to him but never explained how. Kapugen is presumed dead after he never returned from a seal hunt. Later in the novel, Kapugen will prove to be very much alive.
Miyax quietly watches the wolves for days, patiently beckoning them to come to her. Finally, she succeeds in attracting the attention of the leader of the wolf pack: a large, black, male wolf she calls Amaroq, which means “wolf” (8). Amaroq goes back to ignoring her, but Miyax continues to observe the wolves. There is a mother wolf that Miyax calls Silver, who has several pups including one Miyax names Kapu after her father, as well as Zing, Zat, and Zit. Nails and Jello make up the other members of the wolf pack. Miyax watches the wolves interact with each other and learns to mimic their signals and whines. She builds a connection with Kapu by playing with him at a distance. Amaroq notices Miyax, and she boldly walks up to the pack leader. Miyax pats Amaroq under his chin, forging a bond with him.
Part 1, Pages 25-37 Summary
Having been accepted by the wolves, Miyax hopes they will bring her food, but she has no luck. She eats moss, grasses, flowers, and other items she can scavenge while she waits. She notices that the wolves are well fed, but she never sees them eating and is mystified about how they stay full. She spies some scavenging birds she believes might be after a carcass left behind by the wolves, but she nearly gets lost trying to track it down.
Finally, Miyax sees Silver regurgitate food “from the belly-basket” (32) for Kapu to eat. She realizes she will have to coax Silver or one of the other wolves into regurgitating food for her to eat. She gets on her hands and knees and attempts to dominate him by biting his nose, but this fails to result in food. Miyax then sees Kapu gently nuzzle Jello’s mouth and receive regurgitated food. Miyax picks up some of the food and makes a stew out of it. She eats some and saves the rest for later. Miyax bonds with Kapu by giving him one of her mittens to play with and by giving him some of her stew. Now that she has had something to eat, Miyax takes her mind off her hunger and begins to plan about how to find her way again.
Part 1, Pages 37-49 Summary
Miyax continues to worry about the approaching colder weather and finding enough food while trying to find her way to Point Hope. She relies on the wolves, hoping they will provide her with more food, like “a whole shank of caribou” (37). A herd of caribou passes through the area, and Miyax watches as Amaroq and the rest of the pack bring down one of the caribou. There are signs that the wolves are preparing to leave the area, however, which further adds to Miyax’s worries.
Miyax tries her hand at making a noose to trap birds to eat. She sees an owl prey on a bunting and follows it back to its nest. She takes the bunting and an owlet and stews them back at her camp. Meanwhile, she thinks about Jello and how he seems to be treated differently than the rest of the pack. Miyax guesses that there was some issue in the past that has caused him to act more submissively.
Part 1, Pages 49-61 Summary
Waking up to find Kapu nuzzled against her leg, Miyax is startled. She looks around and realizes the wolves are probably sleeping because there are signs that a fog is rolling in. Sister, one of the pups, snuggles up to Silver and suckles. Miyax takes a chance and gets a few drops for herself, comparing its “richness” to “butter” (51).
Still hungry, Miyax sneaks through the fog to the nearby pond to gather whatever she can find that is edible, including seeds and fly larvae. She is stricken by boredom and sings to entertain herself. A plane flying overhead provides a distraction, but its flight path across the sky also helps orient Miyax because she correctly assumes that it is flying toward Fairbanks, Alaska.
The fog finally clears, and the wolves go after another herd of caribou coming through. The pack successfully takes down a large caribou, and Miyax is excited at the prospect of food. She waits until the pack has eaten its fill and left before she goes for her share. Jello also arrives late, leaving Miyax to wonder, “Why had he not eaten with the others?” (59). Miyax takes both meat and the useful caribou skin and enjoys eating the caribou liver raw.
Part 1, Pages 61-70 Summary
Some time passes. Miyax has dried the caribou meat so that it will be preserved for her long journey toward Point Hope. She realizes that “Autumn was almost here” (62) and is worried. One evening, the sun finally sets, ending the Arctic summer of round-the-clock sunshine. Miyax knows this means the date is August 24th.
Jello’s presence also concerns Miyax. She digs three feet down through the permafrost under her camp to fashion a traditional cellar for storing her meat. She also attempts to make a mitten to replace the one she gave to Kapu. One day, Miyax finds Jello going through her cellar and chases him off. When Kapu visits, however, Miyax shares some meat with him. She realizes that Jello is a lone wolf who is being punished.
Watching the wolves playing, Miyax realizes that lemmings are beginning to appear. She is excited because they are a potential source of food. The wolves disappear not long afterwards, however. Miyax takes out a letter from Amy and thinks about what life in San Francisco must be like, and sites like the Golden Gate Bridge, theaters, etc.
Part 1 Analysis
Part 1 provides strong descriptions of the harsh environment Miyax finds herself in. The tundra is a “barren slope” that is “crackling cold,” the sun is just a pale “yellow disc in a lime green sky” (6, 5). A limited number of species can be found among the frozen ground: some moss and other sparse plants, a few birds, the wolves, and caribou. The North Slope of Alaska is vast, as the narrator conveys by calling it a “cosmos” (6). Miyax knows that winter is coming, making the environment even more brutal.
Miyax’s predicament is compounded by the fact that she is lost and struggling to take care of her basic needs. The narrator notes, “her stomach ached” (8) with hunger, stressing how desperately she is searching for food. Being lost, Miyax can neither simply turn back nor head toward her intended destination. Moreover, because of her lack of food, she cannot afford to simply continue wandering. Later in the novel, the condition of being lost will also take on a metaphorical significance. Miyax is not only disoriented on the North Slope but also unsure of where to lead her life: back home with her alcoholic father-in-law and disturbed husband, in San Francisco with a pen pal she has never met in person, with her father in a modernized village, or on her own on the tundra.
The novel quickly explains the importance of the nearby wolf pack. Miyax is counting on the wolves to bring her food, knowing that “the very life in her body, its spark and warmth” (6) depends on the animals. At the same time, she is driven by her independence, ingenuity, and willingness to face challenges. These qualities are just as important as the wolves in ensuring Miyax’s survival. The wolves provide her with food, for instance, but only after she figures out that she must coax them into regurgitating it from the “belly-basket” (32). It takes bravery for her to nuzzle Jello’s mouth and convince him to give up food, as well as a strong will and stomach to pick up “every morsel” of the half-digested wolf food and find it “delicious” (34, 35). The same can be said when Miyax gets a few drops of milk from Silver.
Part 1’s detailed descriptions of the wolves playing and interacting with each other give insights on wolf behavior and show that the pack has a highly developed, structured, and enforced society of mutual care. As Miyax recalls Kapugen saying, “the birds and animals all had languages” (63), and learning them can teach humans their ways. Miyax pays tribute to the nobleness of the wolves by naming the pack leader Amaroq, which means “wolf” (8). Believing herself to be orphaned, Miyax deepens her appreciation of the wolves by calling Amaroq her “adopted father” (60).
A strong contrast is drawn between the noble Amaroq and the conniving, suspicious Jello. While the other wolves provide companionship, protection, and a sense of care, Jello seems untrustworthy and aloof. With her sharp perception, Miyax early on figures out that something is amiss with Jello. Although it is Jello who initially provides Miyax with food and thus helps ensure her survival, he later undoes the action by raiding her camp and stealing her food and other items. That moment not only provides a climax within Part 1 but also foreshadows her later conflict with her father Kapugen. Miyax originally considered her father to be a great hunter, full of wisdom, but this reverent image is torn apart when she later discovers that he has abandoned his cultural home to become a member of modernized society.
While Part 1 is focused on Miyax’s struggles within the stark wilderness, the ending of the section also sheds light on her motivations. Having never lived anywhere other than rural Alaska, Miyax is nevertheless compelled toward San Francisco. As soon as she determines which way is south from watching Arctic terns flying, she is no longer lost and prepares to continue her journey. She rereads a letter from her pen pal Amy, falling asleep that night “with the letter under her cheek” (70) and dreaming of the big city’s sights like the Golden Gate Bridge. She is drawn to the city in a naïve way, not considering at first that living there would not correspond to her love of the wilderness. Yet the act of rereading the letter from Amy, which Miyax probably received months before, creates a bridge between Part 1, which is focused on Miyax living alone in the present on the North Slope, and Part 2, which provides flashbacks into her former life among others in the Alaskan villages.
Related Titles
By Jean Craighead George
