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

Before Farley sets out for the wilderness to live among the wolves, he interviews citizens of Churchill, all of whom express that they are lupine experts. The information they give him turns out to be ludicrous and useless. How could people living in civilization’s closet outpost to wolf country be so ignorant of actual wolf knowledge?

What three distinct expressions of Canadian civilization are present in Ootek, Mike, and Farley?

Farley points out that Mike and Ootek have very different feelings toward the wolves. How do they differ and why might they have looked differently upon wolves? Why does Ootek develop a deep kinship with Farley that Mike does not? How has Mike diverged from his Inuit ancestors? What in his background might have contributed to him having different priorities and values from Ootek?

In a footnote, Farley points out that there is no record of wolves attacking human beings. Given that Farley, Ootek, and other humans would be relatively easy prey for wolves, why are they so deferential to people?

At the end of the narrative, Farley states that his time with the wolves almost restored him to a previous natural condition of symbiotic harmony. Is it possible for the average human being to recover the eco-friendly state lived by the traditional Inuit in the narrative? Apart from moving to the Barrens and living among the wolves, can modern people move toward a true balance with nature?

Farley pegs the career need of ammunition manufacturers, trappers, and tour guides to exploiting the caribou and attempting to exterminate the arctic wolf. Other conservationists have pegged the financial concerns of special interests and their governmental supporters to the difficulty in protecting the environment. Will it ever be possible to safeguard endangered species and the earth’s ecosystem so long as powerful financial and governmental interests resist it?

Farley writes about the willingness of many Canadian government employees to abandon legitimate research and scientific objectivity in order to keep their jobs and avoid public criticism. Does this phenomenon have any corollaries to current events? How can government employees and elected officials maintain accuracy, honesty, and integrity when special interest groups exert pressure on them?

Farley’s book had critics when it was first released, some of whom expressed the idea that Farley was making up his stories and observations about arctic wolves. What is an “argument ad hominem”? When critics use the argument ad hominem to disclaim Farley’s observations about arctic wolves, are those criticisms logically valid?