Less than 500 miles from the North Pole lies Canada's most distant frontier Ellesmere island.  It takes a special kind of animal to survive here. This is one the arctic wolf. These hunters of the high Arctic have little fear of man. They roam this frozen wilderness beyond reach of the superstition,  hatred and mistrust we have heaped upon their kind. Now, these wolves and men have met  and the encounter has revealed some of the truth about these animals' lives.  Unlike wolves in other parts of the world,  these creatures live so far away from towns and cities  that they have never been hunted or persecuted.

Ellesmere is an island surrounded by pack ice most of the year,  a harsh land about the size of Nebraska. Only someone with a passion for wolves would dream of tracking  them into this desolate land. One such person is photographer Jim Brandenburg. He has been here before,  on assignment for NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine. Now the wolves have lured him back. Wolves have always been a favorite animal of mine. And I suppose one of the reasons  they're my favorite animals is because they're so intelligent  that intelligence makes it nearly impossible to film them  in a more conventional place, say in the forested areas.