Grey Owl

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This article is about the writer. For the bird, see Great Grey Owl. For the film, see Grey Owl (film).
Portrait of Grey Owl (1936),
by Yousuf Karsh.

Grey Owl (or Wa-sha-quon-asin, from the Ojibwe wenjiganoozhiinh, meaning "great horned owl" or "great grey owl") was the name Archibald Belaney (September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938) adopted when he took upon a First Nations identity as an adult. He was a writer and became one of Canada's first conservationists.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Archibald Stansfeld Belaney was born in September 1888 in Hastings, England, to a farmer family. His father wasted the family fortune in drinking. Some sources also suggest that his mother was only 13 years old when they were married.[citation needed] His parents separated in 1901, and his father left the country.

Belaney was raised by his grandmother and two maiden aunts. He expressed an interest in nature and Indian culture at an early age. He went to Hastings Grammar School, and at the age of 16 – due to his aunts' urging – left to work for a timber yard. He was fired when he dropped a bomb down his employer's chimney (Dickenson, Lovat. Wilderness Man. p. 40).

[edit] Immigration to Canada

In 1906, Belaney emigrated to Canada, ostensibly to study agriculture. After a brief time in Toronto, he moved to Temagami, Northern Ontario and worked as a trapper. He met with the Anishinaabe of Tema-Augama to learn their language and lore. He married an Anishinaabe woman, Angele Egwuna, from whom he learned much about the people. Belaney worked as a fur trapper, wilderness guide, and forest ranger. At first he began to sign his name as "Grey Owl". Then he adopted a native identity, telling people that he was a child of a Scottish father and Apache mother, and had emigrated from the U.S. to join the Ojibwa.

During World War I, in 1915 Grey Owl joined the 13th (Montreal) Battalion of the Black Watch. His unit was shipped to France, where he served as a sniper. His compatriots treated him as an Indian and generally praised his conduct. He was wounded first in January 1916 and then again on April 24, 1916, with a shot through the foot. The wounded limb developed gangrene, and he was shipped to England for treatment.

Grey Owl was moved from one British infirmary to another for a full year while doctors tried to heal his foot. He also met and briefly married childhood friend Constance Holmes. The marriage failed. He was shipped back to Canada in September 1917 and honourably discharged on November 30 with a disability pension.

[edit] Career

In 1925, he met the Mohawk Iroquois woman Gertrude Bernard (whom he later called Anahareo and married), who encouraged him to stop trapping. Through her he began to think more deeply about conservation. She also encouraged him to publish his writings about wilderness life.

His writings attracted the attention of the Dominion Parks Service, and he began to work for them as a naturalist. In 1928, the National Parks Service made a film, Beaver People, showing Grey Owl and Anahareo playing with their pet beavers, Jellyroll and Rawhide. In 1931, Grey Owl and Anahareo moved briefly to a cabin in Riding Mountain National Park with their pet beavers. Next year, they moved to near Ajawaan Lake in Prince Albert National Park.

In his articles, books, and films, Grey Owl promoted the idea of environmentalism and nature conservation. In the 1930s, he wrote many articles for the Canadian Forestry Association (CFA) publication Forests and Outdoors, including the following:

He also wrote an article, "A Description of the Fall Activities of Beaver, with some remarks on Conservation", which was included in Harper Cory's book Grey Owl and the Beaver (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1935).

In 1935 and 1937, Grey Owl successfully toured England (including Hastings) in Ojibwa costume to promote his books and lecture about conservation. His aunts recognized him but remained silent until 1937. In his later tour, he also visited the court and met princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

The tours fatigued him badly, and in 1938, he returned to Beaver Lodge, his cabin at Ajawaan Lake. Grey Owl died of pneumonia on April 13, 1938; he was buried near his cabin.

[edit] Exposure

Doubts about his First Nations identity began appearing after his death. The North Bay Nugget newspaper ran the first exposé, followed up by international news organisations such as The Times. His publisher Lovat Dickson tried to prove Belaney's chosen identity, but unfortunately had to admit that his friend had lied to him. "Grey Owl" had been an invention, an invented Indian such as Forrest Carter, Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, and Nasdijj.

The consequences of the revelation about Grey Owl's identity were dramatic. Publication of the Grey Owl books ceased immediately, and in some cases they were withdrawn from publication. This in turn had a knock-on effect on the conservation causes with which Belaney had been associated, resulting in a decrease in donations to conservationist causes.

[edit] Posthumous recognition

Numerous books about Grey Owl have been published, including:

  • Half-Breed: The Story of Grey Owl by Lovat Dickson (1939)
  • My Life with Grey Owl by Anahareo (1940)
  • Devil in Deerskins: My Life with Grey Owl by Anahareo (1972) published in the UK as Grey Owl and I: A New Autobiography by Anahareo (1972)
  • Wilderness Man: The Strange Story of Grey Owl by Lovat Dickson (1974)
  • From the Land of Shadows: the Making of Grey Owl by Donald B. Smith (1990)

In 1999, the film Grey Owl premiered, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Pierce Brosnan in the title role. The film received mixed reviews and received no theatrical release in the United States.

Attenborough and his brother had seen Grey Owl at the London Palladium theatre as a teenager along. His brother David Attenborough became a naturalist. In a 1999 interview, Richard Attenborough mentioned that they were both very affected by seeing Grey Owl, perhaps to the point of influencing their future career paths.

On the 100th anniversary of Grey Owl's birth, the Grey Owl Society of Hastings arranged planting of a Canadian Red Maple tree in his honor in the grounds of the William Parker School, the successor to the Hastings Grammar School.. In June 1997, the mayor of Hastings and the borough's Member of Parliament (Michael Foster) unveiled a plaque in his honor on the house at 32 St. James Road where he was born.[1] The ranger station at Hastings Country Park, 4 miles to the east of Hastings, also has a commemorative plaque to Grey Owl. A full-size replica of his Canadian lakeside cabin is in Hastings Museum at Summerfields. An exhibition of memorabilia and a commemorative plaque are at the house at 36 St. Marys Terrace where he lived with his grandmother and aunts.[1]

In September 2004, hip-hop activist Raoul Juneja (aka Deejay Ra) launched a 'Grey Owl' Birthday Recognition Campaign. He incorporated Grey Owl titles into his 'Hip-Hop Literacy' project and campaigned on Canadian community TV for national recognition of Grey Owl's birthday as the first author to teach Native rights at Harvard University. In 2005, the birthday recognition campaign led to Key Porter Books re-publishing Grey Owl's classic Tales from an Empty Cabin. It also inspired a BookTV special that featured Deejay Ra and Lord Attenborough discussing Grey Owl's legacy.

[edit] Grey Owl's books

  • The Men of the Last Frontier. London: Country Life, 1931.
  • Pilgrims of the Wild. London: Lovat Dickson Ltd., 1934.
  • The Adventures of Sajo and her Beaver People. London: Lovat Dickson Ltd., 1935.
  • Tales of an Empty Cabin. London: Lovat Dickson Ltd., 1936.

A long story from Tales of an Empty Cabin was published separately in 1937 as a small volume:

  • The Tree. London: Lovat Dickson Ltd., 1937.

[edit] Collected editions

Grey Owl's first three books, The Men of the Last Frontier, Pilgrims of the Wild and Sajo and her Beaver People have been collected and reprinted as Grey Owl: Three Complete and Unabridged Canadian Classics (2001: ISBN 1-55209-590-8). Excerpts from all four of his books were collected in The Book of Grey Owl: Selected Wildlife Stories (1938; 1989 reprint: ISBN 0-7715-9293-0).

[edit] Translations

  • Ludzie Z Ostatniej Granicy. Translation by Aleksander Dobrot. Warsaw (Poland): Wydawnictwo J. Przeworskiego, 1939.
  • Ambassadeur des bêtes. Translation by Simonne Ratel. Paris : Hatier-Boivin, 1956?. (Translation of the second part of: Tales of an Empty Cabin.)
  • Récits de la cabane abandonnée. Translation by Jeanne-Roche-Mazon. Paris : Éditions contemporaines, 1951. (Translation of the first part of: Tales of an Empty Cabin.)
  • Sajo et ses castors. Translated from the English by Charlotte and Marie-Louise Pressoir; illustrations by Pierre Le Guen. Paris : Société nouvelle des éditions G.P., 1963. (Translation of: The Adventures of Sajo and Her Beaver People.)
  • Pilgrims of the Wild. Éd. ordinaire. Translation by Jeanne Roche-Mazon. Paris : Éditions contemporaines, 1951.
  • Саджо и её бобры. Перевод с английского Аллы Макаровой. Предисловие Михаила Пришвина. Москва: Детгиз, 1958.
  • Рассказы опустевшей хижины. Перевод и предисловие Аллы Макаровой. Художник Б.Жутовский. Москва: Молодая гвардия, 1974.
  • Cаджо та її бобри. Переклад з англійської Соломії Павличко., Київ: «Веселка», 1986

[edit] References

 This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2009)
  1. ^ a b Grey Owl's Hastings, 1066.net, accessed 19 Apr 2009

[edit] Additional reading

  • Anahareo. Devil in Deerskins: My Life with Grey Owl. Toronto: Paperjacks, 1972.
  • Attenborough, Richard, dir. Grey Owl. Screenplay by William Nicholson. Largo Entertainment, 1999.
  • Atwood, Margaret. "The Grey Owl Syndrome", Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Literature. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995. 35-61.
  • Ruffo, Armand Garnet, Grey Owl: The Mystery of Archie Belaney (1996)

[edit] External links and sources

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See also
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