For Minnesota, winter is impossible to ignore. It is not simply something we endure; it is something that shapes us. Our calendars, our habits, and even our temperaments bend around it. For those who live farther south, winter may register as a mild inconvenience. Here, it is closer to a worldview. And beyond the weather itself, winter offers a useful metaphor for the leaner seasons of our lives—those stretches marked by uncertainty, loss, scarcity—when survival requires more intention than comfort ever does.

Summer is the season we romanticize. It represents abundance, warmth, and ease. There is more to go around, and generosity comes naturally. Winter, particularly north of the 45th parallel, tells a different story. Cold demands preparation. Darkness demands conservation. When resources feel scarce, both materially and emotionally, people tend to turn inward. History and experience suggest that communal instincts flourish in good times, while hardship often brings caution, fear, and self-protection.

Wolves are uniquely suited to lean seasons. They’ve long been treated as symbols of danger and cruelty, though their behavior is not driven by malice. It’s driven by necessity. They do what survival requires, no more and no less. That clarity has inspired awe and mythology, even as it has led humans to persecute them nearly to extinction.

It is worth asking what scarcity does to us. What choices do we make when we feel threatened, when stability slips away, or when abundance feels out of reach? What happens when our moral ideals are tested not in comfort, but in uncertainty?

We like to believe that our values are fixed, that kindness and fairness are permanent traits. But much of our ethical behavior is supported by stable conditions—by predictable routines, social trust, and access to resources. When those supports erode, we are forced to confront uncomfortable realities about ourselves. Winter—literal, emotional, or economic—has a way of revealing who we are beneath the layers of comfort we usually rely on.

But winter also teaches resilience. It forces us to prioritize, to rest when needed, and to endure when necessary. Survival is not selfishness; it is a prerequisite for care. We can’t meaningfully support others if we have not first learned how to stay upright ourselves through difficult seasons.

Wolves survive because they must. They are not softened by excess, nor distracted by illusion. For all the fear they provoke, they embody a kind of honesty that winter demands. Perhaps that’s why they continue to fascinate us. In their clarity and resilience, we see something both unsettling and aspirational. 

Winter strips life down to essentials. It asks us to endure, to adapt, and to emerge stronger. And when the thaw finally comes—as it always does—it reminds us why the light matters, and why surviving the dark was worth it.