I was working for Panarctic Oil in the Arctic Circle. My job was air traffic control. There are no roads in the arctic, so all material comes in either by barge (in the summer), or by aircraft.

As soon as I arrived at Rae Point, the main camp, I noticed that the area was swarming with arctic fox. The arctic fox is a very bold animal, and readily took advantage of the vast amounts of leftover food that the men working there threw away daily.

This abundance of food caused the arctic fox population to explode. The arctic fox is a small fox, and acting alone it could not hunt the arctic hare. The hare is large, for a rabbit. It was comical to see a solitary fox go after a hare. The hare would simply lean back and, using its enormous hind legs, beat the crap out of the fox. However, since the arctic fox population had exploded, the large numbers of these opportunistic little predators allowed them to gang up on the hare, which caused a severe decline in their population.

In this region of the arctic the main prey species of the arctic wolf was the hare. It was very apparent to me that the decline in the hare population was the reason that I had not seen any wolves in the area. Wherever humanity goes, we neither understand nor respect the balance of Nature.

About 2 weeks after arriving in the arctic, I was walking from Rae Point to a rig camp about 2 miles away. A twin otter aircraft was scheduled to come into the rig, and I was going to the rig to give landing instructions. About a mile from the camp I met the first wolf that I was to get to know.

He was lying against a large boulder, sheltered from the wind. I stood quietly and watched him. He was very thin, and did not even lift his head as we looked at each other. Knowing that he was not a threat, I slowly approached. He tried to rise, but in his emaciated state he did not have the strength.

Seeing the fear in his eyes, I started to talk to him softly, telling him that I would not hurt him and asking him why he was alone. It is not the nature of the wolf to be alone. I lowered my height and slowly approached to a distance of about five feet, all the while talking and telling how pretty Ithought he was. He just lay there, resigned. After about 15 minutes I knew I had to leave to take care of my work commitments, so I told him to hang on; that I would be back.

After the twin otter had landed and departed, I stuffed some leftover pork chops in a bread bag and started back to Starving Wolf, as I was starting to think of him. It didn't take me long to get back to him, and I saw that he hadn't moved. He showed no fear of me this time. He seemed totally disinterested and resigned. Talking softly all the while, I again approached to a distance of around five feet, and sat down. Reaching under my parka, I pulled out the bread bag and tossed a pork chop under his nose. I was greatly surprised when he just sniffed at it and then ignored it.

Then I began to understand. Starving Wolf had lost his pack. The great imbalance caused in the local animal population by man had also resulted in death by starvation of his pack. The wolf, being by nature more shy than the fox, had not taken advantage of the food thrown out by the men and had not been able to find sufficient hare to survive. Starving Wolf was dying of loneliness; starvation was just the method of his death.

I sat quietly while these feelings and understandings came to me and then, nodding gently to myself, I told him that I understood. I told him he was too beautiful to die and what a good boy he was and just kept chattering away. His sad, yellow eyes would look up at me once in a while. There was barely a spark of spirit left within. I would not give up and tossed more pork chops under his nose.

Finally, he took one. I really think it was just to get me to shut up, but there was no chance of that. Encouraged, I kept at it until he had finished about ten of them. With his shrunken stomach, I thought that was all I could expect, and left several more close to him. Happy that he had eaten, I sat with him for a time and just babbled away. I told him that I knew that he was lonely, and that even though I was not a wolf I would be his friend. I don't think he was impressed.

Finally, it was time for me to go. The extreme cold of the arctic demands a high calorie intake, and I was getting hungry. I told him I would be back as soon as I could, and then I headed back to Rae Point.

Three days after I had found the wolf, I was again returning to feed him. When I was about 50 or so yards from where he lay, I saw two large male and female wolves approaching him. They were aware of me, so I stopped to watch. They paused for several seconds to check me out then continued on towards Starving Wolf. He had recovered a bit of his strength, enough to lift his long muzzled head as they came to him, but not enough to get up. They sniffed him over casually and then looked at me again. Losing interest, they slowly left. I could tell they did not believe his chances for survival were high.

Wrong, say I.