National Geographic Magazine

Photography by Ronan Donovan, written by Neil Shea

Wolves hold a unique place in the human psyche as the first animals domesticated by humans some 30,000 years ago. There’s simply no other animal on Earth that humans share such a nuanced relationship—wolves are unique. In the Canadian High Arctic, is a glimpse in to the not to distant past when humans and wild wolves lived alongside one another and when domestication occurred.

Alone with Wolves

There is probably no other place on Earth where this would happen. It’s why I travelled to Ellesmere Island, high in the Canadian Arctic, joining a documentary film crew. The landscape is so remote, and in winter so cold, that humans rarely visit.

Neil Shea - Writer
Wolves, like humans, are also one of the most successful and versatile predators on the planet, and they live in family groups that are, by some measures, more similar to human families than even those of our closest primate relatives are.

Neil Shea - Writer