The Corten family legacy began on Vargas Island in the Clayoquot Sound — an idyllic ocean inlet tucked along the Pacific Rim of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Riptide, a beachcombing coastal wolf, entered into a courtship with an “uptown girl” named Kirynnae from further inland. For several arduous months, Kirynnae’s natal pack took in the young male who had never hunted the ungulates they were accustomed to and taught him how to thrive in the lush, forested inland terrain. Then, when Riptide’s father Corten passed the mantle of leadership to his firstborn, Riptide took Kirynnae to wife and brought her back to his seaside territory to be his queen. She, in turn, learned the scavenging and oceanbound ways of the coastal wolves. Both packs remained close allies until the birth of Riptide and Kirynnae’s first litter, after which the packs merged under Riptide’s leadership and expanded their newly united kingdom from the shoreline to the heart of the forest.

Upon the death of his father, Riptide adopted the patronymic “Corten” and bestowed it upon his pack members in a gesture of solidarity and trust. It bears mentioning that not all wolves with this surname are related by blood or even by marriage.

On April 24th, 2010, Riptide and Kirynnae brought five healthy puppies into the world: identical twins Crosscurrent and Undertow, the spitting image of their cinnamon agouti, orange-eyed father, and three females as vividly dissimilar as their brothers were alike — Whitecap, a cream-colored, chocolate-eyed beauty resembling her pallid mother; Breaker, a strikingly feminine black phase agouti she-wolf with bright copper eyes; and Kailani, a pitch black female with startling silvery-blue eyes and mercury-tipped guard hairs. Of the five, only three made it to adulthood — devastatingly, Whitecap and Breaker succumbed to misadventure, turning the quintet into a trio. In the wake of this tragedy, Kailani exchanged grief for wanderlust and struck out for foreign shores, finding love in a debonair male named Romeo Endore. The twins, on the other hand, cut from the same cloth as their father in steadfastness as well as appearance, remained on Vargas Island. Undertow was the first of the two to settle down, taking to wife a melanistic female named Kamala whose natal pack was a band of nomads that passed through Riptide’s territory shortly after Crosscurrent and Undertow reached their majority.

Over the next three years, Riptide and Kirynnae welcomed the arrival of seven more children, all of whom survived: Spindrift, Backrush, and Tidewater, born on June 20th, 2012; and Moonglade, Brontide, and identical twins Serein and Sirimiri, born on April 16th, 2013. Spindrift, Backrush, Tidewater, and Moonglade remained on Vargas Island under their father’s — and later, their eldest brother’s — rule; but Serein, Sirimiri, and Brontide inherited their mother’s love for legends and lore and chose to travel the world together, collecting whatever stories and songs they could and bringing them home.

Shortly after the birth of Undertow and Kamala’s first litter on June 6th, 2014 — a tawny male named Chelan and a female named Catori whose pale coloration mimicked the spirit bears of the Great Bear Rainforest — Crosscurrent found himself gripped by the same wanderlust that had swallowed up his youngest littermate. He wandered east until eventually he found himself in the vicinity of an isolated Nanaimo sheep farm — and within striking range of an incensed Belgian Groenendael’s flashing fangs. She was, Crosscurrent decided as she ripped a new notch in his ear, one of the fiercest, most beautiful creatures he’d ever seen — and he set out to woo and win her. For nearly a year the seaside king’s wayward son remained in Nanaimo, watching the ebb and flow of white wool and black-speckled faces pour in and out of a battered redwood barn, guided by the inky wraith. Though she was loathe to acknowledge her growing affection, the faithful shepherd came to enjoy the notch-eared wolf’s love songs and to depend upon the sense of security brought about by his vigilant eye. And when biology overruled her good sense and she allowed the coastal wolf to cover her smaller body with his, something clicked for the silent sheepdog. She nuzzled — she groveled — wordlessly she hoped he would never leave her.

She loved him.

On June 26th, 2015, Coelacanth and her brother Amoxtli were born — an unwelcome surprise to the nameless Groenendael’s owner — and for three long months, the sheepdog Crosscurrent had begun to know fondly as “Selkie” was locked indoors with their puppies. Crosscurrent remained steadfast, relishing the muted echo of piping whimpers that eventually evolved into warbling baby howls, and was overjoyed when his wife and children were finally released. Puzzlement wrung his great heart as he took stock of his little family; both babies had vertical rectangles of missing fur on their throats and the slender sheepdog had a similarly shaven abdomen. Each hairless swatch was marked by a neat, precise wound — and not one of them could explain why. Crosscurrent never heard the voices of his progeny again.

Coelacanth and Amoxtli were six months old when Undertow arrived with an urgent message for his errant brother: Riptide had been injured and planned to step down. After assuring Undertow of his imminent return, Crosscurrent rounded up his mate and children and began to lead his tiny family west. Duty won over love, however, for the voice of the woman and the bleating cries of the sheep drew Selkie to a hesitant stop. She could no more leave home and flock than Crosscurrent could abandon his responsibilities as Riptide’s heir. With her luminous brown eyes full of tears, Selkie nudged both puppies after their father, nipping sharply at their feathered heels to drive them westward and away. With one last affectionate embrace, despite the bloodied splintering of their hearts, Crosscurrent and Selkie parted ways for good. Knowing he would hear no response, Crosscurrent howled one last love song for Selkie and led their children west with a heavy heart.

About two weeks later, Crosscurrent, Amoxtli, and Coelacanth reached the inland border of Riptide’s territory. The challenge for leadership was immediate; Crosscurrent was swiftly set upon by Kirynnae’s brother Tarnish. Weary from travel and heartache, still Crosscurrent emerged as the victor — and Tarnish, along with Riptide’s sister and several other young wolves outside of Crosscurrent’s immediate family set out for Meares Island to start a new branch of the Corten family tree. Crosscurrent himself refused to take another mate, designating Undertow and Kamala’s offspring as his heirs.