Bill and I had discovered a den in the Richardson Mountains occupied by a family of wolves the summer before. We had returned home to prepare to live through the next spring, summer, and fall alongside the den. In late fall we planned to leave the summer wolf pack and ski across the MacKenzie Delta to the northern coast of Canada, then beyond to the frozen sea ice off Canada’s northern coast. Our winter study would involve wolves and polar bears.       We were about to enter a world where spring and summer plant growth accelerates unbelievably. As the summer solstice approaches, the summer sun stays above the horizon twenty-four hours a day bathing the tundra in continuous light for several weeks. Flowers, sedges and mosses grow with a frantic vigor to take advantage of the long days that all too soon are replaced by darkness and cold.