麻豆约拍

Wolves are one of the most mesmerising, intelligent and persecuted animals on the planet. They have fascinated me from my childhood growing up in Ottawa, Canada, a city that is special in at least one regard. On its northern edge begins a vast wilderness of unbroken forest, low granite mountains and clear lakes with few people. On its outskirts (and sometimes inside it) live black bears, lynx, beaver, moose, deer and even wolves – classic Canadian animals.

I remember one cold winter's night with deep snow when I was six years old. My father told me that a neighbour had been hunting. We crossed the dark street with snow crunching under our feet and met a burly man who ushered us into his garage. On the cold concrete floor lay five dead wolves. Their faces were frozen, wild-looking and lifeless. Their huge bodies were stretched out as if they were warming themselves beside a fire from which they would never rise. With their thick, shaggy winter coats they looked like creatures from another planet.

The hunter had not killed these wolves to eat them, nor to wear their fur, or to protect life or property. It was his hobby. Young people usually have a clarity of moral principles that often escapes adults. We learn to do wrong, rather than being born to do so. It was in that moment that I released that adults can do wrong.

That night, I thought about the incredible lives of those wolves and I dreamed about their world. A world in nature, often of great danger. Four decades passed, and after years of work getting the series commissioned and planned, I was fortunate in joining the film crew on Ellesmere Island, where I saw the true nature of wolves.

I witnessed their selfless compassion and incredible devotion to family. These seemed to me to be moral qualities that put many of us to shame. These are qualities which enable wolves to survive at the very edge of the world.

Back in the UK after filming was complete, I found myself in an edit suite in the UK with the Snow Wolf Family & Me team, watching Gordon’s intimate encounter with Scruffy and the pups. As the film ended, a vision of five frozen faces came back to me. The ones in my neighbour’s garage. Tears rolled down my face. Finally ‘their’ story had been told.