Canada Letter: Wolves in Captivity and Gord Downie’s Last Album

The Times’s recent Canada-related coverage with back stories and analysis from our reporters along with opinions from our readers. View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Friday, October 20, 2017 [NYTimes.com/Canada »]( [Wolves in Captivity and Gord Downie’s Last Album]( By IAN AUSTEN James Gorman, a science writer at The Times who often covers the animal world, recently came to Quebec to look at what separates wolves from dogs. Along with gaining a better understanding of the topic, Mr. Gorman developed a moral quandary, as he explains: [James Gorman, a science writer for The Times, in Nicolet, Quebec, while reporting on the differences between dogs and wolves.] James Gorman, a science writer for The Times, in Nicolet, Quebec, while reporting on the differences between dogs and wolves. Renaud Philippe for The New York Times Holding a wolf pup makes rational thinking go out the window. After a year of talking to an evolutionary biologist about her plan to study the development of wolf pups as a way to understand how domestic dogs evolved, I ended up making two visits to Nicolet, Quebec, last spring and summer to spend time with a brood. One result was a [story]( about differences in development between two animals that are so close many researchers put them in the same species, canis lupus. The location was Zoo Académie, a combination zoo and school for animal trainers owned and run by Jacinthe Bouchard, who has trained animals all over the world — wolves, tigers, elephants. Her strangest experience? “I trained a bat,” she said. It wasn’t easy, but, Ms. Bouchard insisted, “you can train anything that has a brain.” After a pause, she added, “So forget about teenagers. “ She bred her two female gray wolves this year, and they produced six pups between them. Quebec has about 7,000 of the animals. They can be hunted and are only protected in certain small areas. The Algonquin or Eastern wolf is protected. Over all, [Canada’s wolf population]( of more than 50,000 is healthy. It has more than any country other than Russia. The United States has [fewer than 6,000 wolves]( in the lower 48 states and perhaps as many as 11,000 in Alaska. I first visited the wolves at Zoo Académie when they were 3 weeks old. They were babies then, still mostly blind and deaf and dependent entirely on scent. Holding and feeding them with a bottle had the same appeal as holding or feeding any baby mammal. It seems to trigger a parental longing to cuddle and nurture, and a tolerance for being peed on. They’re babies! They can’t help it. I returned when the pups were 8 weeks old. They were still incontinent, but then they were really straddling the wolf-dog line. They were fuzzy, but fierce, already more independent than dog puppies their age. I could see the adult wolf coming, and it gave me the sense of being in touch with the wild, something I reveled in. Only when I wasn’t with the wolves did I think about their future, which was to be captives. Ms. Bouchard treats her wolves as well as anyone can, and they have never known the wild, so they don’t know what they are missing. But they are still wolves and as Doug Smith, the scientist who led the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park in the United States, said to me, wolves have three essential parts to their lives in the wild: they are deeply social and need other wolves, they roam large distances and they kill. In captivity they can have a social life. But they will never roam and kill. On the other hand they may inspire humans to care more about wolves. Seeing or touching an animal like a wolf in a zoo can be exhilarating. Of course, seeing a lone animal, or one pacing in a small enclosure, can be unspeakably sad. I don’t have a fully worked-out moral position on zoos and animal experiments, partly because my job as a reporter trying to be fair is easier if I see the value in many points of view, and partly because my job is the perfect excuse for not coming to a conclusion. But I have to say that those are afterthoughts that don’t really occupy the mind in the middle of spending time with the wolves themselves. I didn’t come up with a conclusion after reporting this story. But I did gain a new sense of how profound the human longing for contact with other species can be. It’s not fundamentally rational. And I wonder if the desire to preserve and save the wild comes from contact with it. Can reason lead people to passion? The answer is, fortunately, beyond my job description. I checked in with Ms. Bouchard this week for an update. She said the pups, at 5 months, now weigh 85 pounds. They are at a dangerous stage for handlers, because they are still puppies, wanting to bite and tussle as part of play, but with adult jaws and strength. They have “T. rex teeth,” she said. Two of the pups went to BioParc in the Gaspé Peninsula and the other four are with their parents at Zoo Académie. I’m planning to visit them again, but I think next time I’ll just be watching, not cuddling Read: [Wolf Puppies Are Adorable. Then Comes the Call of the Wild.]( Watch: [How Did Wolves Become Dogs?]( [At the Zoo Académie, a combination zoo and training facility in Nicolet, Quebec.] At the Zoo Académie, a combination zoo and training facility in Nicolet, Quebec. Renaud Philippe for The New York Times Musical Mirror Canadians knew that time was running short for Gord Downie, the singer-songwriter and member of the Tragically Hip. But when news alerts and social media posts this week announced that the man whose lyrics gave voice to Canada had died of brain cancer, it seemed slightly unreal. [Gord Downie performing with his band, the Tragically Hip, in Victoria, British Columbia, in 2016.] Gord Downie performing with his band, the Tragically Hip, in Victoria, British Columbia, in 2016. Kevin Light/Reuters “The place of honor that Mr. Downie occupies in Canada’s national imagination has no parallel in the United States,” Simon Vozick-Levinson wrote in an article about the recording of Mr. Downie’s final album. “Imagine Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Michael Stipe combined into one sensitive, oblique poet-philosopher, and you’re getting close.” Read: [Gord Downie, a Canadian Rock Legend, Sings Goodbye]( Read: [Gord Downie, a Distinctly Canadian Rock Star, Dies at 53]( Turbulence Trade relations between Canada and the United States continued downward again this week on a variety of fronts. The most sensitive of the trade spats, a preliminary tariff from the Trump administration that quadruples the prices of Bombardier’s new C Series airliner in the United States, took an unexpected turn this week. After spending more than $5 billion to create the airliner, the Montreal-based Bombardier sold just over 50 percent of it to Europe’s Airbus. Underscoring Bombardier’s desire to save the project, Airbus will not pay a penny or take on any of the project’s debt. The move will, however, mean that the plane can dodge the new American tariff by shifting some of its production from Canada to an Airbus assembly line in Alabama. President Trump’s end-of-the-year deadline for renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement was extended this week to sometime next year. But given the demands put forward by his administration over the past few days, many of which went beyond unacceptable for both Canada and Mexico, there was little optimism that more time will produce an agreement. Ana Swanson, the Times’s trade reporter, made her way to Digby Neck, Nova Scotia, to illustrate a part of Nafta in which Canada is often a loser: provisions that allow American companies to claim millions of dollars in damages when Canadian governments enforce environmental laws. [Digby Neck, Nova Scotia.] Digby Neck, Nova Scotia. Stephanie Foden for The New York Times And Elisabeth Malkin reported from Mexico City this week about the preparations there for economic life without the trade pact. While Mexico is looking for alternative sources of imports, Canada doesn’t seem to be high on its list. Argentina is poised to sell it 30,000 tons of wheat. Read: [Bombardier Turns to Airbus to Salvage Imperiled Airliner]( Read: [Nafta Talks’ Extension May Make for Slow, Painful Demise]( Read: [A Nafta Battleground on the Shores of Canada]( Read: [Mexico Braces for the Possible Collapse of Nafta]( Center Ice Britain is not the first place that comes to mind when thinking about hockey talent. But the writer Tal Pinchevsky has told the improbable story of Tony Hand from Edinburgh. During the 1980s, Mr. Hand was signed twice by the Edmonton Oilers, the dominant team of the era. Both times, however, he headed back home and finished his season in Britain. Read: [Britain’s Ice Hockey Icon Wonders, What If?]( ... And We Recommend Catherine Porter, our Toronto bureau chief, has traveled to Auschwitz with Holocaust survivors, written an [e-book about a survivor]( from the Bergen-Belsen camp and produced a thesis about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and anti-Nazi dissident. She recommends watching [“I Have a Message for You,”]( an Op-Docs video from the Opinion side of The Times. “This story about a woman’s bravery, remorse and wisdom and then the message she receives from her father long after he died, gave me both hope and chills at the same time,” she said. Another Draw The Times is a taking part in a daylong conference on artificial intelligence, [Go North,]( that Google is holding in Toronto on Nov. 2. The speakers include Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and [Geoffrey Hinton]( a professor emeritus of computer science at the University of Toronto and a pioneer of artificial intelligence. Cade Metz, a tech reporter for The Times, will interview Mr. Hinton live on stage. We’re giving away 10 tickets to Times readers for the invitation-only event through [this draw](. We will also stream the Schmidt and Hinton sessions live on our YouTube channel. Say Hello The Times is also participating in this year's International Festival of Authors in Toronto. This evening, Oct. 21, at 6:00 p.m., Dan Wakin, the editor of this newsletter among other things, [will interview crime Â]( Sara Blaedel and Peter Robinson. Next Saturday, Oct. 28, I'll be [speaking with novelistsÂ]( Spalding and Wayne Johnston at 11:00 a.m. And at 3:00 p.m., Catherine Porter, our Toronto bureau chief[, interviews Carol Off]( CBC Radio's "As It Happens". Please introduce yourself to us after the sessions, we're always interested in hearing your thoughts about The Times and Canada. Correction: Walmart came to Canada 23 years ago, not 17 years ago, as I wrote in last week’s newsletter, an error some of you pointed out. Trans Canada Keno City Journal [Faded Yukon Gold Rush Town, Population 20, Mines Its Weirdness]( Dan Levin went to Keno City, Yukon, and found a “quirky testament to human tenacity.” [Quebec Bars People in Face Coverings From Receiving Public Services]( Quebec passed a religious neutrality law that will bar women from covering their faces when receiving government services, including receiving medical attention or hopping on a bus or subway, without exemptions. It has dissatisfied people on both sides of the issue. Dream City? [Google’s Founders Wanted to Shape a City. Toronto Is Their Chance.]( A multigovernment agency picked one of Google’s corporate siblings to rethink abandoned docklands in Toronto as a sensor-laden, carbon-neutral, weather-moderated neighborhood of the future with autonomous shared vehicles taking people to modular homes. Even garbage and recycling bins wouldn’t be immune from tech innovation. HOW ARE WE DOING? We hope you enjoyed our Canada Letter. Tell us what you think and what you’d like to see, at [nytcanada@nytimes.com](mailto:nytcanada@nytimes.com? subject=Canada%20Letter%20Newsletter%20Feedback). LIKE THIS EMAIL? Forward it to your friends, and let them know they can sign up [here](. 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