Canadian Wildlife Service

The Canadian Wildlife Service is presented as an agency whose wolf-control policy took practical form in aerial patrols and poison bait stations in the Keewatin Barrens. Its late-1950s operation near Wolf House Bay illustrates the distance between wildlife administration and the animals it sought to control: officers set out poison, but the book leaves the results unknown.

Agency and Policy Context

The account identifies the Canadian Wildlife Service through its continuing policy of wolf control and its employment of Predator Control officers. It does not describe the agency’s internal organization or give the officers’ names; its institutional role is conveyed through the patrol and poisoning operation undertaken in the winter of 1958–1959.

The episode belongs to a wider system of government-supported wolf killing described in the book. Provincial and federal governments offered bounties, and other authorities promoted or organized wolf destruction. These broader examples establish the political context of control, but the specific actions attributed to the Canadian Wildlife Service are its deployment of officers and the placement of poison baits.

Patrols and Poison Bait Stations

During the winter of 1958–1959, the Canadian Wildlife Service employed several Predator Control officers to patrol the Keewatin Barrens in ski-equipped aircraft. Their stated purpose was to establish poison bait stations as part of the agency’s continuing wolf-control policy. The use of aircraft connected government operations to the open, remote terrain where wolves moved, allowing officers to reach sites across the Barrens.

In early May 1959, one officer landed at Wolf House Bay and remained in the vicinity for several hours. After determining that a den was occupied, he placed several Cyanide wolf getter devices at suitable nearby locations and also distributed strychnine-treated bait in the area. The two poison methods were deployed together around an occupied den, making the visit a deliberate control operation rather than a general survey.

Uncertain Outcome and Significance

The officer could not return to inspect the station because spring thaws began early. As a result, the book states that the outcome is unknown: it does not establish whether wolves encountered the baits or whether any animals were killed. That unresolved ending limits what can be claimed about the operation’s immediate effect, while leaving the agency’s intent and methods clear.

The episode gives the Canadian Wildlife Service a concrete place in the book’s account of human intervention in wolf populations. The agency is not shown through research findings or a change in policy, but through an administrative program carried into the field by aircraft, officers, and poison. The lack of a follow-up record means that the operation’s consequences remain uncertain even as its planned means of control are documented.