Anna Pigeon Episode 1 Recap: ‘Track of the Cat’

Tracy Spiridakos stars as National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon in USA Network's Anna Pigeon.

Photo credit: Michelle Faye/USA Network

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I went into Anna Pigeon with absolutely zero expectations other than seeing some of my Canadian favourites.

I'd never read the Anna Pigeon books. I'd never even heard of them. There are 19 of them, and while I typically like to read a book before I watch the TV show or movie, that just felt like too much homework.

The cast was enough to get me interested. Manitoba’s Tracy Spiridakos — I remember her most from the short-lived Revolutions — plays Anna, while Tricia Helfer plays her sister Molly. Helfer is from Donalda, a tiny community in central Alberta, about 35 kilometres northeast of Stettler, with a 2025 population of 239.

I was particularly happy to see Kim Coates as Jeremiah Paulson. His character in Sons of Anarchy, Tig Trager, was one of the best characters in that show. So far, though, Coates has had a much smaller role in Anna Pigeon than I was hoping for.

There are several other Canadian actors in the first episode, including Paulina Alexis, Crystle Lightning, Ronnie Rowe Jr. and Melanie Scrofano. Paulina Alexis and Crystle Lightning bring even more Alberta to the cast: Alexis is from Alexis Nakota Sioux Nation and Lightning is from Enoch Cree Nation.

The story itself takes us south of the border. Anna is a National Park Service law-enforcement ranger working in Montana's Glacier National Park, although the series was filmed in Alberta, including in Kananaskis. Being Alberta-raised, I was looking forward to seeing some of the scenery I grew up with, and there is plenty of it.

Episode 1, “Track of the Cat,” starts with the death of another park ranger, Sheila Drury. It appears that Sheila has been killed by a mountain lion, but Anna isn't convinced that the evidence matches a cougar attack.

She starts picking apart what she's seeing at the scene, and Sheila's backpack gives her another reason to question the obvious explanation. There is no water. Sheila was an experienced ranger, and Anna doesn't believe she would have headed into the backcountry without it.

There's another problem: the park is prepared to treat the cougar as the killer. Anna believes they could end up killing an animal that had nothing to do with Sheila's death, and cubs are part of the equation as well.

This was also where I started wondering exactly what Anna's job was, because she seemed to have an extraordinary amount of authority for someone I initially thought of simply as a park ranger. It turns out the distinction matters. Anna is a National Park Service law-enforcement ranger, and in the U.S. those rangers are federal law-enforcement officers who can make arrests and conduct investigations. Her role isn't directly comparable to what I was picturing from Canadian parks.

Anna's investigation soon leads to Cory Nelson, who had his own history with Sheila. Cory had been angry about new RV hookups in the park, Sheila had written him up for being on a closed trail, and he had made threats against her.

Then Cory turns up dead.

The apparent explanation starts pointing conveniently toward Cory as Sheila's killer, but Anna doesn't believe this scene either. Cory has a massive amount of ketamine in his system, Sheila's missing water bottle turns up in his van, and Anna notices that evidence has been wiped clean where fingerprints should have been. Instead of closing the case, Cory's death gives her another dead person and more reasons to think somebody is constructing the story they want investigators to believe.

The investigation also brings FBI agent Frederick Stanton into Anna's orbit. He's played by Canadian actor Ronnie Rowe Jr., and he and Anna already have a history. At the same time, we're getting pieces of the life Anna had before Glacier, particularly the death of her husband, Zach, and the grief she is still carrying with her.

The warnings directed at Anna become harder to ignore when somebody leaves a dead pigeon for her. By this point, Sheila's death is no longer an isolated mystery. Somebody knows Anna is investigating and wants her to stop.

That becomes considerably clearer at Gunsight Ridge. Anna is sent out there by a false report about people hitting golf balls, and whoever set it up knows enough about her to use litter to draw her toward the trap. What looks like solid ground is actually a tarp covered with leaves and dirt near the cliff edge.

Anna goes through it and falls. Then somebody throws a rock at her head.

She survives with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion, and later describes what happened as a tiger trap. It also answers one question pretty decisively: Anna isn't imagining the threat.

As the investigation comes together, Sheila's death leads into illegal hunting in the park. Ranger Harlan Roberts is the one who killed her after she discovered the poaching operation. He staged Sheila's injuries to make her death look like a cougar attack, tried to make Cory look responsible and left the dead pigeon for Anna.

Jeremiah Paulson is connected to that larger poaching story. Anna accuses him of running illegal hunting trips in the park, although Paulson denies her accusation. The confrontation leaves him positioned as something more than a one-episode suspect, particularly when the conversation turns toward Glacier and who gets to profit from its resources.

That means Kim Coates may still get considerably more to do, which I am hoping is the case.

By the end of the episode, Anna has changed her mind about leaving Glacier. She had requested a transfer to the Badlands, but decides to stay. She also ends up taking Sheila's cat, Piedmont, even though she's allergic to cats.

Jesse checks in on her and invites her to the bar, leaving whatever is happening between those two open for later. Stanton is still around, Paulson clearly isn't finished, and Anna now has several reasons to remain exactly where she is.

So Episode 1 gives us the basic machinery for the series: Anna Pigeon, a National Park Service ranger with a complicated personal history; a wilderness that can provide both the setting and the cover for a crime; an American park system that is different from the one I'm used to; and a cast that is considerably more Canadian than I expected when I started watching.

Overall, I'm interested. I have no idea where this is going yet, although it is mildly reminiscent of Untamed, the Netflix series starring Eric Bana as a National Park Service investigator in Yosemite. That show also starts with a death in a national park and a protagonist dealing with a personal tragedy, but it has a clear overarching mystery running through its six episodes.

Anna Pigeon looks more episodic. From the premiere, my assumption was that we'd be getting a new crime or mystery in the park each week rather than spending the season solving Sheila's murder. A weekly murder in a national park isn't exactly a realistic picture of park life, so we'll see how much of that turns out to be the structure of the series and where Anna takes us.

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