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Conservation strategies have a tendency to discount range peripheries, but recent evidence suggests that range edges may be important to species persistence by harboring genetic variants not found in core distributions. Wolverines in Canada are recognized as existing in two populations—an endangered eastern population and an extant western population thought to be largely panmictic. Studies from western North America identified strong patterns of female philopatry and increased genetic structure at the current southwestern periphery. Due to the paucity of data from the contemporary eastern periphery, it remains unclear if similar patterns exist at this range edge. Using neutral microsatellite and mitochondrial DNA markers from a broad geographic extent (>2,500 km), we found that wolverines at the eastern periphery displayed strong patterns of genetic distinctiveness from northwestern populations …