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David Attenborough cameraman GORDON BUCHANAN relives the second he walked with a pack of untamed wolves – and lived to inform the story!

In Saturday’s Mail, David Attenborough cameraman Gordon Buchanan wrote of his terror as a polar bear tried to break into his hide on an icebound Norwegian island and eat him alive. 

Here, in another extract from his new book, he tells the extraordinary story of how he befriended a wild wolf in the Arctic – which then let him join its pack…

In 2014, for the BBC series Snow Wolf Family And Me, I travelled by helicopter to Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic – so far north that it’s doubtful the wolves there had ever seen an Eskimo, let alone a Scotsman.

The plan was for our crew to start searching for a wolf pack. In fact, we thought it might take most of our first three-week trip there even to get close to a wolf (if we managed it at all).

That’s not how it worked out. No sooner had I started setting up camp than a lone wolf appeared and began to circle me. He was white and simply enormous – capable of bringing down an animal four times my size.

Slowly, I manoeuvred myself to the other side of a small mound of equipment – though I was fully aware that the wolf could leap over the gear in a heartbeat.

It stared at me for what felt like several minutes, sniffing my scent and clearly puzzled by this strange creature who’d seemingly dropped from the sky and landed in the middle of his world.

There was no sign of aggression, just that penetrating stare.

Gordon Buchanan recalls the time he came face-to-face with a lone wolf and then went to find a pack of wolves

Gordon Buchanan recalls the time he came face-to-face with a lone wolf and then went to find a pack of wolves

Buchanan spent so much time with 'Scruffy' the wolf that he believed the animal would never attack him

Buchanan spent so much time with ‘Scruffy’ the wolf that he believed the animal would never attack him  

The minutes stretched. Was it contemplating having me for lunch?

My feelings in those moments were almost indescribable: a primal intensity mixed with a sense of raw excitement. Hyper-aware of what could happen, yes. But deep inside, I also felt at my most alive.

For a while, we gently danced around each other, the wolf on one side of my mound of gear, me on the other, the crew filming at a sensible distance. Somehow, I managed to keep speaking.

‘Wolves,’ I explained, ‘are at their most dangerous when they lose their fear of people. And it seems that these wolves don’t have any fear to begin with…’ Then, quite suddenly, it was all over. The wolf had gathered whatever information it needed and trotted off to the slopes on the horizon.

This would be just the first of many such experiences.

To increase my chances of encountering more wolves, I knew I needed to be away from everyone else – so I pitched my little yellow tent about half a mile away from the crew. I remember delivering a cheery piece to camera about a young man who’d been out camping in Canada when he was torn from his tent by a wolf pack.

He’d only survived because there were other people around. And I was alone. Brilliant.

If this were a Hollywood movie, it would be blindingly obvious who’d end up as a wolf’s first human meal. It would be the brave but, quite obviously, deeply stupid Scotsman. All alone and tucked up in his sleeping bag, like a canvas-wrapped sausage roll.

Buchanan started mimic the wolves behaviour and their noises

Buchanan started mimic the wolves behaviour and their noises 

Buchanan found after three weeks on Ellesmere island the pack of wolves began to trust him

Buchanan found after three weeks on Ellesmere island the pack of wolves began to trust him 

On the morning of my second day, the lone wolf was back – but this time he’d brought a friend. Soon they were close enough for me to see how the wind ruffled the hair on their backs.

I could see the point where their brilliant white fur melted into shades of mustard on their chests and bellies.

And I was near enough to appreciate the sheer size of their powerful teeth and claws.

One of them came just an arm’s length from my camera lens. In her auburn eyes, I could see a wild intelligence hard at work as she tried to figure me out. Then, once again, the stand-off ended without any sign of attack.

As the days went on, I inched my way closer to the wolves’ den. I was soon able to distinguish different animals in the pack from their varying coats and distinctly individual howls.

The one that probably left the deepest impression on me was a large and bold wolf, just over a year old, whom I called Scruffy.

He kept returning to my campsite, and often tried to gnaw at my equipment.

During my second week on the island, I found him tossing my camping stool around – then, in a flash, running off with it clamped firmly in his jaws.

Buchanan has been a wildlife camerman for over 30 years - and is well aware of the risks

Buchanan has been a wildlife camerman for over 30 years – and is well aware of the risks

Realising that if I didn’t get it back, he’d assume all my possessions were fair game, I followed him making howling noises to show I wasn’t a pushover. I tracked him at a distance. My stool, still gripped in his teeth, looked minuscule.

Eventually, far from the camp, he finally grew tired of this game and dropped his prize.

As I picked it up, he circled behind me, shuffling ever closer. When he was just a few feet away, I turned and he stopped in his tracks. At that point, I gave my best impression of a wolf howl.

‘You like that, don’t you?’ I whispered, almost laughing as a beautiful look of inquisitiveness danced across his eyes.

He was still a bit jumpy (we both were) but I had the strong feeling that what he really wanted was just to find out more about me. There was no sign of hostility – just a sense of nervous discovery that we were both experiencing. Eventually, he ran off but he continued to visit me at the camp.

One day, I decided to see if I could somehow trigger his hunting response. I know how mad that sounds – but I was a bit bored, very curious and quite convinced by now that Scruffy would never attack me.

So I lay on the ground to make myself look small, and made a deliberate high-pitched ‘chirrup’, like a small rodent. Immediately, Scruffy’s behaviour flipped. Assuming a predatory posture – head and nose down low, eyes alert, ears pricked – he advanced slowly towards me.

Oh f***, I thought, as he crept closer, this is what it’s really like to be stalked.

His new book details adventures over the last 30 years as David Attenborough's cameraman

His new book details adventures over the last 30 years as David Attenborough’s cameraman

I didn’t leave it too long before sitting up. At that point, Scruffy sprang up from his crouch.

It was easy to read his face: ‘Where did that mouse go?’ was written all over it.

Later, I repeated this risky ‘game’ one more time, just to be sure Scruffy’s reaction wasn’t a fluke. A little ‘chirrup’ and there he was again: predatory switch flicked, crouching, alert and ready to crush me in his jaws – until the point I sat up, and that disarming look of confusion washed over his eyes again.

After that, I started trying to mimic certain wolf behaviours, like crouching on all fours to drink from a stream. By my third week in Ellesmere, I felt the entire wolf pack had begun to trust me.

A big line was crossed when I realised they’d peed over my binoculars. This purely instinctive scent-marking showed I was being properly embraced into their group for the first time.

Then came the moment I’ll never forget. I’d shuffled in among them as they polished off what was left of an animal carcass, and then they’d started howling – rallying the pack for a big move across the tundra.

Deep in my gut, I had the feeling they wanted me to go with them. So I did. There were wolves behind me, in front of me and alongside me as I walked at my own pace in the heart of the pack.

I remember experiencing an incredible, dreamlike sense of peacefulness, security and belonging. In that moment, I’d crossed wholly over into their world.

I felt a near-overwhelming compulsion to become part of the pack. To slip the collar and lead that were holding me back in my own world and keep going onwards, up and over the horizon.

It was quite dreamlike, and out of all the animal families I would live with over all the years of filming the Animal Families And Me series, it was only within the wolf pack of Ellesmere that I instinctively felt that connection.

Adapted from In The Hide: How The Natural World Saved My Life by Gordon Buchanan (Witness Books, £22), to be published February 6. © Gordon Buchanan 2025. 

To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 08/02/25; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.