Yep, already. ARCTIC FOXES By Wilton Strickland
In early summer at Sondrestrom, I began to notice a couple of light tan arctic foxes poking their heads from under the edge of a small building directly outside of my rear windows. Because of their more compact bodies, shorter legs, shorter snouts and shorter, triangular ears, all to conserve heat more efficiently, they look much better to me than the long, skinny red foxes in the States. I soon began to look out the windows hoping to see them, and soon, there were two cute little kits added to their small family. At first I could see the kits only when they shyly peeked from under the building, but they were soon playing enthusiastically in their front yard and were obviously not aware of my observations from the second floor windows above them. I wished many times that I could join them in their games - as if playing with puppies or domestic kittens - but, of course, I knew that could not be. I never saw anybody else near them or their den, and there were no other predators in the area, so they had nothing to fear. I don't think anybody else was aware of their presence under the unoccupied storage building. The mom and dad would at first leave the den one at a time, evidently, to gather food for the family, who would always greet the returning parent very enthusiastically.
As the summer progressed, the kits grew fast and developed beautiful, full and fluffy-looking coats. Sometime near mid-summer, the base commander issued a notice, especially to kitchen staff in the dining facilities (dining hall, Officer and NCO Clubs) to stop feeding the base fox population and to "Please, stop trying to make them pets." There was some chance of their having and spreading Rabies, but I never heard any reports of it in the area, and I never heard anything about any of the foxes showing any aggression, but I thought it wise to keep each other at a distance. Their shyness worked very well for me to keep us well apart. I did not mention the fox family outside my window; 'just continued to enjoy observing them as the kits became adolescents and became more independent - running off on their own occasionally.
As summer yielded to autumn and colder weather in early September, I began to notice the subtle changes in the foxes coats from the summer tan or beige to graying at first, then to a little whiter and, finally, to brilliant solid white as winter gained a solid grip in mid to late September. As darkness came earlier in the day, I was able to observe them less and less and finally was unable to see them at all outside my window. 'May have seen them elsewhere on base from my truck, but because they all looked alike from a distance, I could not know. For a while, I occasionally had a feeling of having lost some friends.
This is merely another example of the many beautiful and fantastic things happening all around me that made an otherwise somewhat forbidding and potentially boring environment extremely enjoyable and interesting. I'm afraid that many who were there with me never saw it and never realized the fantastic world of beauty and adventure all around us. Of course, I should remind the reader that my situation was nearly unique in that I was able to move around in an area much larger and much more varied than Sondrestrom itself, but, again, there were many new and rewarding things to enjoy there in that small and confined space, too. The fox family immediately outside my window was another bonus.
Wilton
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