For years, as the 2010s turned into a new decade, I had an irrational fear that on one of my daily walks I would encounter a wolf in the nearby forest.

I lived in a suburb in central Finland, where wolves walked deep in the forest, not in urban areas. Few had encountered any. Yet, as darkness fell, I looked suspiciously at the copse trees surrounding my shortcut back home. When I reached the light of the houses on the other side of the trees, I felt I had reached safety.

The idea of wolves remained even after I moved to the capital region, and wolves fascinated me even more. In general, there were many negative associations with wolves. The first thing that came to mind was Little Red Riding Hood, whose grandmother was eaten by a wolf. And the three little pigs, whose house the wolf threatened, barked at and barked at. In Finland, a product can be ”a wolf” (susi), meaning it seemed good but failed to deliver on its promises. Perhaps it was a wolf from birth, meaning it was defective from the start.

The negative connotations with wolves go as far as saying, when something was lost or destroyed, we use another name for wolf (hukka), it went to hukka. Wolf = lost. A bit similarly in English, a deceitful person can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. And then there is a lone wolf, a person who does not need a companion and moves through the world according to their own vision. Maybe admired, maybe feared, maybe someone who’s looked at different.

Although the wolf is a deceptive predator in the imagination, wolves do not usually pose a threat to humans. The last time a wolf killed a person in Finland was in the 19th century, and even then only when many factors came together.

After moving to the Helsinki Metropolitan Area, I lived in an area where wolf sightings were high. Suddenly, encountering a wolf was no longer a distant thought, but a real possibility. Here, wolves were not shy of people, and would come into people’s yards to investigate. I looked at the sightings on the map and saw that wolves had been encountered on my jogging trail.

I finally drew a wolf as it was in my imagination. The wolf in my drawing doesn’t look like a real wolf, but the scary wolf of my imagination. There’s something mysterious about the wolf, as if it appears as a guide only to a few. The lone wolf guide for those who wonder.

The year 2026 is uncommon for wolves, who have been protected in Finland since the 1970’s. Finland has granted permission to hunt wolves from 1st of January 2026. The hunting quota is 100 wolves, and the protected population is 273 wolves. The aim of hunting is to reduce the number of wolves, prevent socio-economic harm, and respond to the concerns of people (riista.fi/). By the 11th of January, 81 wolves out of the 100 wolf quota had already been taken (Yle.fi).