Dancing With Wolves. Interview With NatGeo’s Jad Davenport

by George Williams

For over a decade, National Geographic photographer and author Jad Davenport has been choreographing one of nature’s most extraordinary performances – intimate encounters between humans and wild wolves along Manitoba’s remote Kaska Coast.

As Director of Wolf Programs for Churchill Wild, Davenport has also led the Cloud Wolves of the Kaska Coast safari at Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge since its inception in 2021, crafting a delicate dance between curious wolves and awestruck observers.

Davenport’s work, which has appeared in National Geographic magazines and books, LIFE, Newsweek, Outside, and Audubon magazines, brings a unique perspective to this moving wilderness ballet, where wolves can sometimes approach within meters, creating moments that can move guests to tears.

Located at the convergence of Arctic and boreal forest ecosystems, the Cloud Wolves of the Kaska Coast safari offers what Davenport describes as one of the world’s most transformative wildlife experiences – the chance to step into nature’s grand ballroom and share authentic encounters with wild wolves in their natural habitat.

A much sought-after speaker, a member of the The Explorers Club in New York, and an international photography expedition leader, Davenport shares insights from a decade of wolf observation, discussing everything from close encounters to research that complements the vital work being done by wolf biologists worldwide.

Through a combination of citizen science and emotional connection, Davenport and the Cloud Wolves program are helping to change public perception of wolves while contributing valuable observations to our collective knowledge of wolf behavior.

In the conversation that follows, Davenport details how each wolf encounter becomes another step in a wild dance – one that is changing hearts and minds, and creating new champions for these truly extraordinary creatures.

Discovering the World’s Most Unique Wolf Experience

Churchill Wild: What makes the Cloud Wolves of the Kaska Coast Safari unique among the wildlife experiences you’ve documented?

Jad Davenport: This is the only place in the world where you can have close encounters with wild wolves. Wolves are hunted and trapped almost everywhere else, so they flee from humans.

Churchill Wild: What makes Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge a special place for observing wolves and other wildlife?

Jad Davenport: Nanuk Polar Bear Lodge is unique in its location at the frontier between the Arctic and boreal forest. You have Arctic animals like polar bears right next to boreal animals like black bears; you have snowy owls next to great gray owls, and caribou next to moose. In this small strip of coastline, two worlds meet that normally have very little to do with one another.

The lodge sits in a wilderness the size of California, and during the season we’re the only people here. We’re essentially giving guests access to an unspoiled wilderness from 200 years ago, fifty times the size of Yellowstone National Park. It’s one of the wildest places left on the planet. Fortunately our base is a cozy fly-in lodge with beautiful bedrooms and hot showers, even in the middle of winter. Nobody else offers that in the Arctic.

Churchill Wild: What drew you to this particular safari and what keeps you returning to Nanuk?

Jad Davenport: Back when I was working at Nanuk on the Emergence Quest, tracking polar bears and newborn cubs, I kept running into wolves. They were incredibly curious, coming within a couple meters of my snow machine, just to look at me and sniff.

I thought they were fascinating animals, which led me to research wolves in this part of the world. While wolves have been well-studied in the wild and captivity, no one had researched the wolves in this corner of Manitoba. It was essentially a blank spot on the wolf map.

Favourite Encounters with Cloud Wolves

Churchill Wild: Can you describe one of your favourite encounters with the wolves? What was the setting, and what stood out most about their behaviour?

Jad Davenport: One of my favorite encounters happened when we built a big igloo with our guests and guides. I had planned to sleep in it, but as I headed out there, the wolf pack approached. This was my first time seeing the wolves at close range.

They came within a couple of meters, clearly curious, and urinated on the igloo to claim it. What struck me was their intelligence and beauty—they were telling me I was the intruder. That igloo wasn’t ours anymore; it was theirs.

Churchill Wild: How have these experiences deepened your understanding of wolves and their Arctic environment?

Jad Davenport: We’ve definitely learned how adaptable wolves are. Being in this location gives us unique access because we’re out here 24/7 during the season. Our team and guests are recording behaviors that haven’t been documented before.

I was just talking to Dr. Dave Mech, the godfather of wolf studies. He started studying wolves back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and has written the most famous wolf books. He’s fascinated by the interactions we are witnessing between polar bear and wolves, because these relationships haven’t been observed anywhere else in the world.

 

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Churchill Wild: How do the wolves interact with other wildlife in the area?

Jad Davenport: Wolves are always doing one of four things: hunting, feeding, playing or sleeping. We’ve discovered how adaptable these animals are.

They hunt moose during the winter, beaver during the summer, and even polar bear cubs when opportunities arise in spring and summer. We’ve seen them chase lemmings, willow ptarmigan, fox and even wolverine. We’ve seen them feeding on seal and beluga whale carcasses.

Our guides and guests have witnessed remarkable interactions: wolves attacking a polar bear mother and cubs, with the mother standing upright, wolves clamped on her as she spun, sending them flying.

We’ve also observed what appears to be playful behaviour, with wolves darting up to nip at polar bears, who chase them while the wolves display play bowing.

Capturing Wild Wolf Moments: Photos and Videos

Churchill Wild: Have there been moments during this safari that have profoundly changed your perspective as a photographer or storyteller?

Jad Davenport: Definitely as a storyteller, and as a photographer, too. As a National Geographic photographer with a background in film, I had left documentary filmmaking behind after filming wars for ten years. But working with wolves has brought me back to moving pictures—video—because I want to record their behavior in context, all the little nuances of their interactions, things that still photos just can’t capture.

I’ve been watching these wolves for 10 years now, getting to know individual animals. The breeding males, breeding females, their offspring. You see some of the same wolves each year and follow the arc of their lives. The breeding male, Mestakaya (which means “thick hair” in Swampy Cree), is very pale now, almost completely white.

He’s devoted to his pups and an excellent moose hunter. One of my other favourites was a yearling I call Metawehaw (Swampy Cree for “likes to play”). He’s an absolute clown, constantly playing with the new pups, letting them chase him and tackle him. He’s always reinforcing social bonds among the pack.

Churchill Wild: What techniques do you use to capture the wolves’ personalities and the essence of their environment through photography?

Jad Davenport: What’s fascinating for photographers is that unlike mostly solitary polar bears,  wolves are pack animals. When you photograph wolves, you’re capturing dynamic interactions, social behaviors, family bonds, pack dynamics.

You’re photographing an animal bonding with its mother or trying to work out an issue with its siblings. You’re not just photographing an animal looking at you or walking along the beach; you’re documenting relationships. That’s what makes this wildlife opportunity truly superior. Not the close-up portraits but the images that show behaviour and tell stories.

Churchill Wild: How do you balance your role as a guide and photographer while ensuring your guests have an immersive experience?

Jad Davenport: The guests always come first. That’s essential for any guide and photo leader. We’re here to help guests have the safest and best experience possible with these creatures. Churchill Wild teaches us to live by that philosophy. Mike and Jeanne’s (founders and co-owners) business was built around ethical wildlife viewing. Keep the guests safe, keep the animals safe.

One of the great things about guiding is that we’re having these incredible moments right alongside the guests. One guest recently was surprised when the guides were laughing and high-fiving after an incredible encounter.  “I thought you guys would see this all the time?” she said. “We are just as excited as you are,” I told her, “these moments are magic for all of us.”

Searching for Cloud Wolves: A Day on the Tundra

Churchill Wild: Can you describe the day-to-day experience of the Cloud Wolves safari?

Jad Davenport: It’s all about putting your time in and paying your dues and that means getting out and exploring the land. We start with a great breakfast, then immediately prepare for the day. Guests don their heavy Arctic gear, which can take about 15 minutes and make you feel like you’re preparing for a spacewalk. Then we load up into the sleds or Rhinos and head off on the trail.

We spend two to three hours before lunch in the field. All hands are on deck, searching for wolf tracks and scanning for ravens that might indicate a wolf kill nearby, glassing the tundra with binoculars.

We document everything: wildlife sightings, tracks, unusual behavior. When conditions permit, we conduct what’s known as a howl survey. We teach the group how to howl; we call three times and listen, and if wolves are nearby, they often howl back. That lets us know where they are.

When it’s safe and weather conditions permit, we’ll stay out in the field all day long. The kitchen and hospitality staff do an incredible job of providing hearty “pub food”—soups, wraps, desserts and lots of hot chocolate and tea. If we’re not out on an all-day excursion (which can be dictated by wildlife encounters), we return for lunch, then head back out for another three hours.

In addition to searching for wolves during the safaris, guests are helping set up trail cameras and review footage to see what is happening while we’re not there.

There’s a lot wolf education that goes on in the field. We train guests to be expert wolf trackers. You can learn so much from tracks. What was the wolf’s behavior? Was it hunting or was it hiding or resting?

By the end of the trip, I want guests to be able to find a wolf track and tell me, “Oh, this is a member of the Opoyastin Pack, she’s a female sub-adult and was running west because she was playing with one of her siblings.”

We typically end the day with a happy hour, where a guide will give a short presentation. The talk might be on wolf-human coexistence, reproduction, behaviour, or it could be on travel and wildlife photography. After dinner, guests have free time to relax, review photos, do puzzles, learn knot tying, carve soapstone, or watch for northern lights from the deck. If the skies are clear we can have incredible northern lights.

Transformative Encounters: Guest Stories From the Wolves

Churchill Wild: Do you have a favourite story about a guest’s reaction to encountering the wolves?

Jad Davenport: One of our most memorable experiences happened in November with a guest named Marie Schatz. She was not a world traveller. She told us, “This is out of my comfort zone, coming up to a remote lodge, but I really want to see wolves.” She’d always loved reading about and studying them, and had been in the field in the US looking for them. But she had never seen wolves in the wild.

That whole week we had tracked the pack, but we hadn’t spotted them. It was a tough break, but naturalists understand that wolves are wild and do what they want. Well, everyone was in the lounge that last morning, waiting for their delayed airplane. Marie hadn’t given up. She stood at the window and scanned the treeline. Suddenly she shouts “Wolves!”

The Opoyastin Pack emerged from the spruce and came straight to the lodge. They paused, sniffed, looked at everyone watching from the open-air decks, and circled the lodge, sniffing and marking.

Everyone captured amazing photos of these wolves just meters away. When I looked at Marie, her eyes were glistening, and we all celebrated together. Of all the people we wanted to see wolves, she was the one to spot them, too!

We had a guest named Craig Iseli, a business and technology COO from Colorado who was so moved by a wolf encounter that he came back again last year. Now he’s writing magazine stories and studying wolves. It’s become his passion. He’s photographing them, researching them, meeting with experts.

When you stare at a wolf and they stare back at you, something happens inside you. It’s a moment that can be truly life changing.

Our guests are always fascinating. We’ve had cattle ranchers and dog mushers, plastic surgeons and teachers, and of course lots of wildlife photographers. Fabienne and Christoph Jansen of Arctic Wild—a photography studio in Switzerland—have been on every single wolf expedition (and many Nanuk Emergence Quests).

They’re wonderful to work with, very welcoming with new guests, and they have deep experience in Arctic travel and an intimate knowledge of the wolves. Their photography has appeared in numerous magazines including National Geographic and they shot a wonderful cover and feature story on the wolves for Canadian Geographic.

Guardians of the Arctic: Understanding Wolf Ecology

Churchill Wild: What role do the wolves play in the Arctic ecosystem and why is it important to share their story?

Jad Davenport: In the Arctic ecosystem and everywhere they exist, wolves are apex predators. They keep caribou herds and moose populations healthy by culling the weak, sick, and lame, ensuring the strength of the herds. They also maintain the balance of vegetation by keeping herbivores moving and preventing overgrazing of pasture.

They’re crucial for smaller predators too. When wolves take down a moose and pause their feeding, ravens, golden eagles, martens, foxes, and wolverines have access to the carcass. If wolves didn’t open up a carcass and keep it open in freezing weather, all those calories would locked inside. It’s like they’ve created a refrigerator of food for all these other species.

Churchill Wild: Can you share insights into how Indigenous knowledge from the Kaska coast or other local groups has influenced your understanding of the wolves?

Jad Davenport: One of my favourite experiences is talking with Albert Saunders, one of the York Landing First Nation elders who works with Churchill Wild, and hearing his stories of being out on the land, hunting and fishing and encountering wolves. First Nations people provide an understanding that comes from thousands of years of living on this coast.

From my conversations with Albert and others in York Landing, Shamattawa, and Churchill, there’s a deep appreciation of wolves as fellow hunters rather than just furbearers for harvest or animals to be killed out of fear. The First Nations people have learned crucial lessons from wolves about hunting and living on the land.

Churchill Wild: What challenges do the wolves face in their environment, and how are they adapting to changes, such as climate shifts?

Jad Davenport: Wolves are incredibly adaptable. They’re the most widespread land mammal next to humans on the planet, found across North America, Europe, Asia, and even parts of Africa. You have wolves in Italy that are much smaller than ours, feeding on grapes, melons, and hares, while in Western Canada they tackle bison. They’re remarkably adaptable and will likely handle climate change better than many species.

Scientific Contributions and Wolf Research

Churchill Wild: How does this safari contribute to the broader mission of wildlife conservation and education in the Arctic?

Jad Davenport: These wolves are doing great, and our program focuses primarily on natural history and science. We have a unique opportunity here. Our guests and guides are constantly documenting wolf behavior, and we compile and analyze this information. We have presented our findings at the 2022 International Wolf Symposium and most recently at the 2024 Great Lakes Wolf Symposium.

I’m in touch with wildlife conservation officers in Canada. We’re sharing information with them. One of the most exciting things to come out of the wolf program, but not related to wolves, was our trail cameras captured for the first time ever, a barren-ground grizzly bear, the farthest east and south in Canada one has ever been recorded. We shared that information with conservation and they were super excited.

Churchill Wild: How does this program contribute to citizen science?

Jad Davenport: We have been blessed to spend time with the wolves up there, and it’s our duty to record and document what we’re seeing and share that with the greater world. Not just scientists and wolf biologists, but with people who are curious about wolves and want to know more.

I am regularly getting out and sharing the information we’re learning. I’ve worked as a photographer with National Geographic for the past 20 years and I do quite a bit of work as guest speaker at everywhere from public schools and civic organizations to luxury yachts and expedition ships.

People always want to know more about Churchill Wild and the wolves, so that also takes them to a larger audience. And if we can get people to understand more about them, to care about them, it makes a difference.

Everything we’re learning, everything our guests and guides are documenting, is going to add to the greater knowledge of wolves and help us understand wolves. We’re able to share unique observations that most scientists don’t ever get to see.

The Churchill Wild Difference: People and Philosophy

Churchill Wild: What sets Churchill Wild apart as a leader in experiential and conservation-focused tourism?

Jad Davenport: It’s absolutely the people. Take Emri Canvin for example, one of our senior guides in the wolf program. He’s a Renaissance guide, with deep knowledge comes from decades as an outdoorsman and naturalist.

One minute he’s teaching guests how to tell the difference between red fox and Arctic fox prints in the snow and the next he’s explaining the  coastal geology and isostatic rebound. He has an uncanny ability to find wildlife.

Then there’s Boomer Jerritt, who isn’t just an exceptional guide and eternally optimistic, but also a fine-art photographer and excellent instructor. Our outstanding lodge managers, Ben Lawrence and Nicole Spinks and Emma Dickins and Danny Nicholls. They keep this remote lodge running under incredibly severe conditions. Their hospitality teams keep us fed and happy.

Even our ace pilot, Jason Francouer, is an important part of the wolf team. Every time he flies he’s searching for wolves from Churchill on down to Nanuk. He’s given us some fantastic information about a couple of wolf packs—including an all-white one—that we didn’t know about.

I’ll never forget one afternoon when our great maintenance chief, Tyler Warkentin, came hiking out to serve guests hot chocolate with marshmallows and cookies as they sat on a snowbank watching wolves play. Five-star service in the most remote place in the world. All the Churchill Wild guides and staff help create unforgettable experiences through their dedication.

Churchill Wild owners Mike and Jeanne Reimer early on recognized a cultural shift was happening, people were moving away from hunting lodges and wanting to spend time with wildlife in different ways. They adapted to this change and have done more than perhaps anyone to bring an understanding of the Arctic to the everyday world.

When you talk about conservation, it’s really about getting people to care about the environment we’re all part of. We aren’t separate from animals. We are animals, and we’re all in this together. Churchill Wild puts people on the land to experience that firsthand.

Beyond Expectations: The Reality of Wolf Encounters

Churchill Wild: What should guests expect from this experience?

Jad Davenport: This isn’t like a fenced African game park, where you can expect to see a leopard in a specific tree at 11 o’clock. This is a true expedition. You work hard for brief but precious moments, and when they happen, they’re life changing. This isn’t a canned experience; this is authentic adventure. And how rare is that in life?

These trips challenge you. Not just physically but mentally. When you spend days out in the frozen landscape searching without success, you really discover what you’re made of. But we work as a team—lodge managers, hospitality, maintenance, guides and guests—and when someone struggles, another person steps in with encouragement. I love the camaraderie out there.

With the exception of one November in 2023, we’ve had nearly 100% success in seeing wolves. And during that exception, we saw polar bears.

Of course there are no guarantees when you are searching for  wolves. I liken it to people who want to see the incredibly elusive snow leopards. People will travel to the Himalayas knowing they probably will not see a snow leopard, but it’s about the experience, it’s about the quest. Wolves are very much like that. They do not hang around the lodge, although they do stop by occasionally, but they are constantly on the move.

It’s my hope that we will see the wolves at least once during each expedition. That encounter could be brief, a few seconds through binoculars or maybe a few minutes. But more often it’s a close encounter for several minutes or an hour or more.

People are often very surprised when wolves approach us. And these are people who have trekked with mountain gorillas in Rwanda, gone on safari with tigers in India, photographed jaguars in the Patanal. These are people who have done all the classic wildlife experiences. And then they come to see our wolves.

What normally happens is that when we have an experience with the wolves, it might just be one experience, guests are awed by how close we are and how intense the moment is. Time stands still. “I wasn’t scared at all,” people say. “I didn’t feel they were threatening me at all.”

And almost invariably, when the wolves fade away into the willows, people turn to me with tears in their eyes and say…

“That is the single best wildlife encounter I’ve ever had.”

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