A Brief History
On May 6, 2014, Canadian author Farley Mowat died only a week before turning 93 years old.
Digging Deeper
A World War II veteran, Mowat saw combat in Sicily and Italy with the infantry and later served as an intelligence officer, including working with a German general to allow the Allies to drop food and supplies to Dutch civilians behind German lines.
Promoted to the rank of Captain, Mowat would have been promoted to major had he stayed in the Army. After the war, he began a career in writing and environmental causes and was known as an anti-war activist. Writing about the Canadian wilderness, Mowat’s work was criticized for not being accurate or honest, prompting him to say, “never let the facts get in the way of the truth.”
Mowat wrote over 40 books about nature and his war experience, and in 1985 when he was to make a book tour of the US, the US government denied him entry, calling him a subversive! The recipient of numerous awards, including 9 honorary doctorates, Mowat was honored with a life sized statue of himself at the University of Saskatchewan after his death.
Mowat once threatened to shoot his .22 LR rifle at US B-52 bombers!
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Mowat, Farley. Never Cry Wolf: Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves. Back Bay Books, 2001.
Mowat, Farley. Woman in the Mists: The Story of Dian Fossey and the Mountain Gorillas of Africa. Grand Central Publishing, 1988.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Flibirigit of Farley Mowat’s grave site, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
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