FARLEY MOWAT is a Canadian who likes to track down true stories. His books deal with life in the Arctic, the inland Eskimos, the sea and salvage work, dogs, owls, and an infantry regiment. The following narrative is drawn from his ninth book, THE SERPENT’S COIL, to be published in May by Atlantic-Little, Brown.
FARLEY MOWAT, author of PEOPLE OF THE DEER and THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE, is a Canadian who likes to track down true stories. In this second excerpt from his new book, GREY SEAS UNDER, to be published this month by Atlantic-Little, Brown, he records the exploits of a doughty and unsinkable deep-sea tug.
FARLEY MOWATis a Canadian who likes to track down true stories. InPEOPLE OF THE DEERhe wrote the fascinating and pathetic saga of a dying tribe of Eskimos, and in his recent success, THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE,he was writing about the mull whose adventures highlighted Mowat’s boyhood in Saskatchewan. For the past two years he has been in North Atlantic waters recording the exploits of a doughty and unsinkable deep-sea tug.
A native Canadian, FARLEY MOWAT lived in Saskatchewan before the war and in 1935 accompanied an uncle to Churchill on the south edge of the Barrenlands. From that time on he was strangely attracted to the arctic expanses. After his service in the Canadian Army during World War II he teamed up with a young native of the Barrenlands and together they explored about 1200 miles of that territory. From this experience came his book People of the Deer. Mr. Mowat is now married and living near Toronto, where he and his wife raise Huskies for fun and vegetables for insurance against the vicissitudes of a wandering writer’s life. The following account of his life in Saskatchewan is part of a non book. The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, published by Atlantic Little, Brown.
FARLEY MOWAT made his first trip to the Barren Lands in 1935 when, as a boy of fifteen, he saw the great herds of reindeer, “a half-mile wide river of caribou flowing unhurriedly north.”It was a sight he never forgot. On his discharge from the Canadian Army after six years in the Infantry, he decided to return to the unmapped sanctuary of the Barrens and study the migration of the deer. He teamed up with Franz, a young Cree-German trader, who took him to the Ihalmiut, a vanishing clan of primitive Eskimos. This is the last of three articles drawn from Mr. Mowat’s book. People of the Deer (Atlantic-Little, Brown).
FARLEY MOWAT made his first trip to the Barren Lands in 1935 when, as a boy of fifteen, he saw the great herds oj reindeer, “a half-mile wide river of caribou flowing unhurriedly north.”It was a sight he never forgot. On his discharge from the Canadian Army after six years in the Infantry, he decided to return to the unmapped sanctuary of the Barrens and study the migration of the deer. lie flew to Lake Nueltin with enough supplies for a stay of several months, and teamed up with Franz, a young Cree-German trader, who took him to the Ihalmiut, a vanishing clan of primitive Eskimos. This is the second of three articles drawn from Mr. Mount’s forthcoming book, People of the Deer (Atlantic-Little, Brown).
FARLEY MOWAT made his first trip to the Barren Lands in 1935 when, as a boy of fifteen, he accompanied his great-uncle, “a fanatical student of birds"; and on that trip he had his first sight of the great herds of reindeer, “a half-mile wide river of caribou flowing unhurriedly north.”It was a sight he never forgot. On his discharge from the Canadian Army after six years in the Infantry, his thought was to return to the unmapped sanctuary of the Barren Lands and to study the migration of the caribou and, more important, the People of the Deer, a hardy, dwindling clan of primitive Eskimos.