The Day I Kissed a Wolf

In our family we like to print pictures ...we took way too much shots to be able to print all of them, but we select some every year so we can go through them with the kids without having to turn on a smartphone or a tablet. And every time we review the images together there is a group of pictures that catches their attention: 'The day dad kissed a wolf'.

So in this post I'm going to tell you the story from that day and how I ended up with a wolf muzzle on my face :)

It happened some years ago, during a trip with others photographers in Norway. We went there in winter to catch some shots of the northern lights, but while there we organised a trip to the Polar Park.

The Polar Park is the world's northernmost animal park and all animals have large areas to create a habitat as free and natural as possible. There are times when visitors are allowed to enter the animals enclosure guided by members of the zoo team (the winter season is recommended for wolves as they are most active in this season).

When we entered the wolf enclosure we sit down together and waited. At the beginning the wolves was quite far away and we had times to take some shots while they run and played by themselves.

But after some time they started to approach our group and interacted with the zoo members that they already knew.

Three of us were lucky enough to be approached by some of the wolves; they started to walk between us, sniff our clothes and in my case one of them stopped right in front of me.

At first I didn't know what to expect, but then the wolf approaches even more and I closed my eyes. Not sure if this helped, but after closing the eyes the wolf took the last step and lick my nose.

Of course one of the instruction received before entering the enclosure is to stay calm and don't move in the case one of the wolf comes near you, so I just waited until the wolf was satisfied and moved on.

It's not easy to describe the feeling of being so close to such an animal, but it's one of the most intensive experience in my life, and I'm sure I will remember that moment forever.

Thanks for reading, and if you happen to be in the northern part of Norway in winter don't forget to plan a trip to the Polar Park ;)

Credits: Of course the images where I'm in the frame have not been taken by me, huge thanks to Lorenzo Laffi for them :)

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Sergio