Cyanide wolf getter

The Cyanide wolf getter appears in the book as an instrument of government wolf control: in May 1959, a Canadian Wildlife Service officer set several near an occupied den at Wolf House Bay, alongside strychnine-treated bait. The officer could not return to inspect the station, so the narrative records the deployment but not its outcome—a final, unresolved instance of the campaign against the wolves observed there.

Definition and Use

The book identifies the Cyanide wolf getter as a poison device intended for wolf control. It gives no construction details or explanation of how the device worked. Its documented use is specific: an officer placed several in suitable locations near a den known to be occupied. The account therefore establishes the getters’ purpose and deployment, but does not establish that any wolf encountered or was killed by them.

The devices were part of a broader poisoning operation. The officer also spread strychnine-treated bait in the vicinity, making the getters one element in a control station rather than the sole method used there. The distinction matters: the account describes several means of poisoning at one site, but supplies no results for either the getters or the bait.

Deployment at Wolf House Bay

The episode followed the Canadian Wildlife Service’s continuing policy of wolf control. During the winter of 1958–1959, several Predator Control officers patrolled the Keewatin Barrens in ski-equipped aircraft to establish poison-bait stations. In early May 1959, one officer landed at Wolf House Bay, stayed for several hours, and placed the getters near an occupied den before spreading the treated bait nearby.

The timing left the operation unfinished as a recorded event. An early spring thaw prevented the officer from returning to check the station. The book does not say whether the devices remained in place, whether they were triggered, or what happened to the wolves at the den; it states plainly that the results were unknown.

Place in the Wolf-Control Campaign

The getters belong to a wider system of state-supported wolf killing described in the book. Provincial and federal governments offered bounties, and poison was among the common methods used against wolves. The account notes that bounty payments could function as a subsidy to trappers and traders when fur prices were low; in one reported case, indiscriminate strychnine poisoning also wiped out foxes, wolverines, and other smaller predators. Against this background, the control station at Wolf House Bay represents an organized administrative practice, not an isolated device used outside policy.

Yet the object’s significance at this particular site rests as much on the missing result as on its placement. The occupied den made the operation’s intended target concrete, while the thaw cut off the possibility of a documented follow-up. The narrative closes without confirming a kill or a survivor: the Cyanide wolf getter remains evidence of the attempt to control the wolves, not proof of what that attempt accomplished.