The column was abruptly cancelled, an early indication of the author’s habitual conflict with authority. In 1936, at age fifteen, he began a column, Birds of the Seasons, for the Saskatoon Star- Phoenix, but his explicit descriptions of the mating habits of the ruddy duck proved too much. While living in Saskatchewan Farley launched his career as a writer. It was Farley’s personal favourite, a sustaining reminder that the very best of humanity could arise, somehow, from the worst of our experiences. Indeed, an op-ed column in the New York Times in 2009 listed this work as one of the best children’s books of all time, a work first drafted during war service in Italy. Both the family’s road boat trip to Canada’s west coast attired with motorcycle goggles and his beloved dog, Mutt, given to him on his thirteenth birthday, who also made the trip in biker fashion, were to figure prominently in The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be, perhaps Farley’s best known and most-beloved work.
It was this contraption, named the Rolling Home that helped inspire some of Farley’s best writing. The family’s move in 1933 from Ontario to Saskatchewan was made in a ship’s cabin, bolted to a Model T truck chassis, a conspicuously odd form of transport. It is likely that his family may have given the young boy, in addition to a love of books, a sense of adventure and expressive individualism. He often expressed the view that he cared very little for the human race. This would influence his writing and his philosophies throughout his life. From a very early age, he developed a deep and enduring love of animals. He was a librarian and moved the family frequently in support of work. His great-grand uncle was Sir Oliver Mowat, a premier of Ontario. His impact on Canada’s sense of identity and on the world’s view of Canada was profound his stand for the environment and the wild others we share this world with, relentless.Ĭonceived, if we can believe his father Angus Mowat’s account – and why wouldn’t we? – in a canoe, Farley McGill Mowat was born in Belleville, Ontario, on. Five of these books were made into television or feature films. The prolific author’s 45 books sold more than 16 million copies in dozens of languages in more than 60 countries worldwide. On, a mere handful of days before his 93rd birthday, Farley Mowat died at his home in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada, after a long, fascinating and vigorous life.