Farley Mowat
| Farley Mowat OC |
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|---|---|
Mowat in 2010
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| Born | Farley McGill Mowat May 12, 1921 Belleville, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | May 6, 2014 (aged 92) Cobourg, Ontario, Canada |
| Resting place | Port Hope, Ontario |
| Occupation | Author, soldier, environmentalist, philanthropist |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Education | Biology |
| Alma mater | University of Toronto |
| Period | 1952–2014 |
| Genre | Memoir, Young adult fiction, Non-fiction |
| Subject | Environmentalism, Northern Canada |
| Notable works | Never Cry Wolf, People of the Deer, Lost in the Barrens, The Curse of the Viking Grave, The Grey Seas Under |
| Spouse | Frances (Thornhill) Mowat, Claire (Wheeler) Mowat |
| Children | Robert Mowat, David Mowat |
| Relatives | John Mowat, John Bower Mowat, John McDonald Mowat, Angus McGill Mowat, Sir Oliver Mowat, Frank LeGrange Farley |
| Military career | |
| Nickname(s) | Squib, after his father |
| Allegiance |
 Canada
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| Service/branch |
 Canadian Army
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| Years of service | 1939–1945 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment |
| Battles/wars | World War II: Allied invasion of Italy, Moro River Campaign |
| Awards | |
| Relations | Angus McGill Mowat |
| Website | |
| farleymowat |
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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's advocacy for environmental causes and his own claim to "never let the facts get in the way of the truth", earned him both praise and criticism: "few readers remain neutral" (Canadian encyclopedia). Descriptions of Mowat refer to his "commitment to ideals" and "poetic descriptions and vivid images" as well as his strong antipathies, which provoke "ridicule, lampoons and, at times, evangelical condemnation".
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 who fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. His mother was Helen Lilian Thomson, daughter of Henry Andrew Hoffman Thomson & 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 collecting data regarding mammals and Mowat focusing on birds. They sold their collections to the Royal Ontario Museum to finance their trip. Before enlisting Banfield published his field notes in the Canadian Field Naturalist. Mowat published his when he returned from World War II.
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Wikipedia