National Geographic USA - 09.2019

TOP RIGHT

The pack, desperate

for prey, scours Greely

Fiord for muskoxen and

arctic hares. When the

fiord freezes in winter,

their hunting territory

extends beyond the

distant mountains.

BOTTOM

The wolves visited

a Canadian military

outpost, ignoring the

muskox skeleton hung

up by the staff. Instead,

the pack moved on to

hunt arctic hares in the

grass around the airfield.

ENLARGED

ABOVE

UNITED STATES

ALASKA

(U.S.)

C ANADA

(DEN

MAR

K)

NORTH

A MERIC A

GRE

ENL

AN

D

Gray wolf range

(Canis lupus)

Arctic wolf

subspecies range

(Canis lupus

arctos)

Lake

Hazen

Greely^ F

iord

Norwegian
Bay Baffin
Bay

Kane

Basin

Baumann

Fi

ord

AR

CT

IC^ O

CE AN

Eu

rek

a^ S

oun

d

Na

ns

en

(^) So
und Agassiz
Ice Cap
ELLESMERE
ISLAND
AXEL
HEIBERG
ISLAND
Fos
hei
m (^) P
en.
Graham
Island
Barbeau Peak
8,583 ft2,616 m
Q UTTINIRPAAQ
NATIO NAL P A R K
Eureka
Alert
Grise
Fiord
Wolves photographed
in this area
Summer range of
wolf packs near Eureka
0 mi 60
0 km 60
WOLVES OF
THE FAR NORTH
Arctic wolves live only in Canada’s high Arctic
islands and along stretches of Greenland’s coast-
line, but they are closely related to the gray
wolves found in the Rockies, much of Canada,
and parts of Europe. Scientists are unsure how
many Arctic wolves inhabit this range today.
rarely visit. A weather station named Eureka is
pinned to the west coast and maintains a year-
round staff of about eight. Otherwise the near-
est community (population 129) is Grise Fiord,
250 miles to the south. A thousand miles past
that stands the nearest plant you would actually
recognize as a tree.
What this means is that the wolves in this part
of Ellesmere—the same species of gray wolf
(Canis lupus) that lives in the northern Rockies,
much of Canada, and small, scattered popula-
tions across Europe and Asia—have never been
hunted, never chased away by development,
never poisoned or snared by ranchers. Cars
don’t crush them; fickle legislation doesn’t pro-
tect them one year and endanger them the next.
Only a few scientists have ever studied them.
Even among the Inuit I know, whose ancestors
have inhabited this region for millennia, these
wolves stand apart.
This isn’t to say that the Ellesmere wolves
never encounter people. Beginning in 1986,
the legendary biologist L. David Mech spent 25
summers observing wolves here. Weather station
personnel see them often, and large groups of
wolves have been reported wandering through
the station grounds.
And my friends on the film crew had essen-
tially embedded with the pack I came to know
for a few weeks, using ATVs to follow their
relentless movement.
Did this human contact somehow make
them less wild? Is the measure of an animal’s
wildness equal to the distance it keeps from
humans? The Ellesmere wolves are separated
from their relatives living on much tamer land-
scapes to the south, such as Idaho or Montana,
by far more than distance. Up here, wolves
were never driven to the edge of extinction
by humans. Here they live so far beyond the
human shadow, they aren’t necessarily fright-
ened of it, of us. To visit them is to surrender
control and enter another world.
MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, NGM STAFF; SCOTT ELDER. SOURCES:
NUNAVUT DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENT, WILDLIFE RESEARCH
SECTION; INTERNATIONAL UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE;
U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE; USGS; RONAN DONOVAN