Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

Farley Mowat published Never Cry Wolf in 1963. The book is a non-fiction memoir of the 18 months he spent in the Barrens, a treeless area of tundra, studying arctic wolves for the Dominion Wildlife Service. Told that these wolves killed caribou for sport, Farley was surprised to discover that wolves never attacked humans and only culled the deer herds of unhealthy animals. Farley also encountered rampant inefficiency among his government colleagues, which he reports in the often humorous, self-deprecating narrative. The book is credited with changing average Canadian attitudes toward wolves and the arctic ecosystem. Widely read, the book was made into a 1983 biopic of the same name by director Carroll Ballard. Summarized here is the 2001 paperback Back Bay version.

Content Warnings: Farley uses the mid-20th-century term “Eskimo,” to refer to Indigenous Canadians and other Indigenous peoples of the farthest northern reaches of North America. In this study guide, the proper name of these people, “Inuit,” is used.

In Chapter 23, Farley graphically describes a trapped group of 23 caribou slaughtered by hunters from an airplane.

Summary

In the 1993 Preface, written 30 years after the book’s initial release, Farley expresses concern that the Canadian government, at the behest of special interest groups, continues to allow the hunting of wolves, many species of which have already become extinct.