Mowat, Farley

  • From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: See full biography at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farley_Mowat
  • Wiki profile notes:
    • Farley McGill Mowat, OC (May 12, 1921 – May 6, 2014) was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf(1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983. For his body of work as a writer he won the annual Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature in 1970.
    • Mowat was born May 12, 1921, in Belleville, Ontario, and grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario. His great-great-uncle was Ontario premier Sir Oliver Mowat, and his father, Angus Mowat, was a librarian. During World War I, Angus fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. His mother was Helen Lilian Thomson, daughter of Henry Andrew Hoffman Thomson and Georgina Phillips Farley Thomson of Trenton, Ontario. Mowat started writing, in his words “mostly verse”, when his family lived in Windsor from 1930 to 1933.
    • In the 1930s, the Mowat family moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where as a teenager Mowat wrote about birds in a column for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. During this time, he also wrote his own nature newsletter, Nature Lore. In the 1930s, Mowat studied zoology at the University of Toronto but never completed a degree. He took his first collecting expedition in the summer of 1939 to Saskatoon with fellow zoology student Frank Banfield, who collected data regarding mammals while Mowat focused on birds. They sold their collections to the Royal Ontario Museum to finance their trip.  Before the pair had enlisted for service in World War II, Banfield published his field notes in the Canadian Field-Naturalist, while Mowat published his when he returned from serving in Europe.
    • After serving in World War II, Mowat attended the University of Toronto. Mowat’s first book, People of the Deer (1952), was inspired by a field trip to the Canadian Arctic he made while studying at the University of Toronto. Mowat was outraged at the conditions endured by the Inuit living in Northern Canada. The book turned Mowat into a controversial, popular figure.
    • Mowat became a McClelland and Stewart author when they published his book entitled The Regiment in 1955. Jack McClelland, known for his promotion of Canadian authors, became his lifelong friend as well as his publisher. Mowat’s next book, the children’s book Lost in the Barrens (1956), won a Governor General’s Award.
    • In 1963, Mowat wrote a possibly fictionalised account of his experiences in the Canadian Arctic with Arctic wolves entitled Never Cry Wolf (1963).
  • Fourth Great Grandson of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=4289
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/129488723/farley-mowat