Distinctly Montana Magazine

57 w w w. d i s t i n c t l y m o n t a n a . c o m Montana's Best Hotel in 1917 and Again Today 33 S. Idaho St., Dillon MT 406-925-5024 Whether you're staying for the week or the weekend, working or playing, The Andrus Hotel puts you in the midst of Southwest Montana with spacious and refined accommodations. A n d r u s H o t e l . c o m 24/7 Guest Only Gym Rooftop Terrace Concierge Service Pet-Friendly Private Guest Elevator Meeting Space for up to 10 12 Unique Suites Fully Equipped Kitchens back. Montana Fish & Wildlife officials were cagey on what they thought it was, but they weren't bullish for wolf. The internet, naturally, did what the internet does, declaring it a direwolf, a werewolf, a chupacabra, a demon, and just a plain old dog.* Samples were sent away for analysis. America waited with bat- ed breath to see what the monster was. Meanwhile Loren Coleman himself, decades after declaring the original beast a shunka warak'in, chimed in as well. He told the Great Falls Tribune that one of the photos of the dead animal was "a picture that's gone around the world probably five times," but when pressed, opined that "I think your canid is nothing more than a roughed up sort of wolf. It looks like a wolf; maybe a German shepherd hybrid. I don't know." Then the DNA result returned. The creature was a grey wolf, plain and simple. You've probably met some pretty strange-look- ing people in your life, but chances are that DNA testing would prove that they, too, were people. Still, Hutchins's shunka warak'in is a little weirder than its re- cent friend. More hyena-like. And that 2018 wolf that was just a wolf wasn't reported to have screamed like a person. It didn't thrash itself to death trying to kill a family. Sure, it could be an ugly wolf. Or just the result of overheat- ed imaginations and imperfect taxidermy. A simple DNA test would give us the answer. Or an answer, anyway. Luckily, no one involved wants a DNA test. Not the museum, not Hutchins's descendants. So the mystery, like the legend, lives on. *The latter, incidentally, was more likely than you'd like to think; you'll probably remember when, in 2022, a 36-year-old woman shot and killed a six-month-old husky puppy and posted pictures of it, skinned, to Facebook. In the post, she gloated that "it was a great feeling to text my man and say I smoked a wolf pup."

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