In Saturday's post, David Attenborough wrote Cameraman Gordon Buchanan about his fear while a polar bear tried to break into his skin on an ice -bound Norwegian island and eat him alive.
Here, in a different extract from his new book, he tells the extraordinary story of how he became friends with a wild wolf in the North Pole area – so that he then let himself participate …
In 2014, for the BBC series Snow Wolf Family and me, I traveled by helicopter to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian North Pole – so far it was doubtful that the wolves there had once seen an Eskimo, let alone a Shot.
The plan was that our crew started looking for a wolf package. We even thought it could have the majority of our first three -week journey there, even to get close to a wolf (if we have not managed it at all).
That is not how it worked. As soon as I started setting up camp, a lonely wolf appeared and started circling me. He was white and just huge – able to get an animal four times my size.
Slowly I maneuvered myself to the other side of a small hill with equipment – although I was completely aware that the wolf could jump over the equipment in a heartbeat.
It stared at what felt for a few minutes, my scent sniffed and clearly surprised by this strange being that apparently had fallen out of the sky and landed in the middle of his world.
There was no sign of aggression, only that penetrating look.
Gordon Buchanan remembers the time that he came face-to-face with a lonely wolf and then went to find a lot of wolves
Buchanan spent so much time with 'Scruffy' the wolf that he believed that the animal would never attack him
The minutes extended. Is it considering having lunch for lunch?
My feelings at those moments were almost impossible to describe: a primary intensity mixed with a feeling of rough excitement. Hyper conscious about what could happen, yes. But deep down I also felt the most alive.
For a while we gently danced around each other, the wolf on one side of my hill of equipment, me on the other, the crew that filmed at a wise distance. Somehow I managed to keep speaking.
“Wolves,” I explained, “are the most dangerous when they lose their fear of people. And it seems that these wolves have no fear in the beginning … 'Then it was quite suddenly over. De Wolf had collected all the information he needed and trotted the slopes on the horizon.
This would only be the first of many such experiences.
To increase my chances of encountering more wolves, I knew that I had to be away from everyone else – so I threw my little yellow tent in about half a mile away from the crew. I remember delivering a cheerful part to the camera about a young man who was camped in Canada when he was torn out of his tent by a wolf package.
He had only survived because there were other people in the area. And I was alone. Brilliant.
If this was a Hollywood film, it would be blindly clear who would end up as the first human meal of a wolf. It would be the brave, but, clearly clearly, deeply stupid scotsman. Completely alone and stored in his sleeping bag, such as a sausage rolled by Canvas.
Buchanan began to mimic the behavior of Wolves and their sounds
After three weeks in Ellesmere Island, Buchanan found the peloton wolves to trust him
The only wolf was back on the morning of my second day – but this time he brought a friend. Soon they were close enough to see how the wind threw the hair on their backs.
I could see the point where their brilliant white fur melted on their chest and bellies in shades.
And I was close enough to appreciate the enormous size of their powerful teeth and claws.
One of them only came an arm length from my camera lens. In her Auburn -eyes I saw a wild intelligence hard at work while she tried to sort out me. Then the stand-off ended again without any sign of attack.
As the days progressed, I got closer to the wolves of the wolves. I was soon able to distinguish different animals in the pack from their different layers and clearly individual howling.
The one who probably left the deepest impression on me was a big and daring wolf, just over a year old, which I called Scruffy.
He continued to return to my campsite and often tried to gnaw at my equipment.
During my second week on the island I noticed that he was throwing my camping stool – then, in a flash, running away that it clamped firmly in his jaws.
Buchanan has been a natural camerman for more than 30 years – and is well aware of the risks
I realized that if I didn't get it back, he assumed that all my possessions were an honest game, I followed him to show crying sounds that I was not a pushover. I followed it remotely. My stools, still caught in his teeth, looked tiny.
Eventually, far from the camp, he finally got tired of this competition and dropped his prize.
As I picked it up, he circled behind me and shuffled closer and closer. When he was only a few meters away, I turned and he put in his spurs. At that moment I gave my best impression of a wolf crust.
“You like that, right?” I whispered, almost laughing while a nice look of curiosity danced over his eyes.
He was still a bit jumpy (we were both), but I had the strong feeling that he really wanted him to be more about me. There was no sign of hostility – only a feeling of nervous discovery that we both experienced. He finally ran away, but he kept visiting me in the camp.
One day I decided to see if I could somehow cause his hunting reaction. I know how angry that sounds – but I was a bit bored, very curious and pretty convinced that Scruffy would never attack me.
So I lay on the floor to make myself look small and made a deliberate high pitched 'Chirrup', like a small rodent. Scruffy's behavior immediately turned. Based on a predatory position – head and nose down, low, alert, ears poked – he slowly went to me.
Oh f ***, I thought, while he got closer, this is how it really is to be stalked.
His new book describes adventures in the last 30 years as a cameraman of David Attenborough
I didn't leave it too long before I sat up. At that moment Scruffy came out of his squat.
It was easy to read his face: “Where did that mouse go?” Was completely written about it.
Later I repeated this risky 'game' again, just to be sure that Scruffy's reaction was not a coincidence. A bit 'chirrup' and there he was again: robber switch flashed, squatting, alert and ready to crush me in his jaws – to the point that I sat up, and washed that disarming look of confusion again.
Then I started to try to imitate determined wolf behavior, such as squatting on hands and feet to drink from a stream. By my third week in Ellesmere I felt that the whole wolf -pack started to trust me.
A big line was crossed when I realized that they had been peeed over my binoculars. This purely instinctive scent mark showed that I was well embraced in their group for the first time.
Then came the moment that I will never forget. I had screamed in while they were polished what was left of a carcass with animals, and then they started crying – collecting the peloton for a large movement over the tundra.
Deep in my feeling I felt that they wanted me to go with them. So I did. There were wolves behind me, in front of me and next to me while I walked into the heart of the peloton at my own pace.
I remember that I experienced an incredible, dreamy feeling of peace, safety and connectedness. At that time I was completely crossed to their world.
I felt an almost overly coercion to be part of the peloton. To slide the collar and lead that stopped me in my own world and continue, up and over the horizon.
It was pretty dreamy, and from all the animal families that I would live with during all the years of filming the Animal Families and Me series, it was only within the Wolf package of Ellesmere that I felt that connection instinctive.
Adapted from in the Hide: How the Natural World Saved My Life by Gordon Buchanan (Witness Books, £ 22), to be published on 6 February. © Gordon Buchanan 2025.
To order a copy for £ 19.80 (offer valid for 08/02/25; UK P&P for free on orders of more than £ 25) Go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
