The Friendliest Wolf Pack

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REach island of themselves, in the far north of Canada, is an adventure that is its own. It took six interior flights for the Israeli photographer Amit Eshel to put himself at a strike distance, then on travel days by dogs and snowmobiles to go to the northern part of the island. Eshel undertook the journey in the hope of spotting the wolves of themselves, who have no history known to hunt and are not afraid of the few human visitors they meet. Yet only about 200 arctic wolves (Canis Lupus Arctos) Live on themselves, which is roughly the size of Great Britain, and during the first visit of Eshel in April 2022, he and his Inuit guides sought two weeks without finding them.

Sometimes they were so close that they almost touched me.

He tried again in 2024. This time, 12 days after the start of the expedition, his group moved through a frozen fjord at -31 degrees Fahrenheit when they spotted a single wolf through twins. Eight others soon appeared, and the pack slowly moved to Eshel. “I lying down while holding my camera with a wide goal and they came for a glance,” he said. “Sometimes they were so close that they almost touched me, and I could feel their breath.”

Eshel says that he hopes that the resulting composition gives an idea of what it felt to be briefly part of the pack. He also hopes that this illustrates most of these predators often made, especially in a place where human persecution has not compromised their natural curiosity.

His image was the winner of terrestrial fauna In the 12th annual annual photography competition of California Academy of Sciences.

This article appeared for the first time in biographicalAn independent magazine on nature and regeneration powered by California Academy of Sciences.

• Knight Skylar

  Published on August 14, 2025

  Skylar Knight is an independent writer and scientific communicator focused on nature, fauna and conservation. He holds a master’s degree in scientific communication from the Imperial College London and produced content for cinema, radio and printing.

• Krista Langlois

  Published on August 14, 2025

  A long -standing independent journalist and a contributory editor -in -chief, Krista Langlois is now editor -in -chief of features at biographical. From her home in southwest Colorado, she writes on the intersection of people and nature for publications like Adventure Journal, The Atlantic, Hakai, National Geographic News, outside, And Smithsonian.