The Inimitable Farley Mowat.
Author, Environmentalist and Preserver of the Species!
Farley Mowat had a powerful impact on me. I read his books growing up. Then, years later, I had an opportunity to know him, and for a time work with him, in the Manitoba Government.
In 2010, I published a book of political stories, Tales from the Backroom (thank you Great Plains Publications!) about my adventures in government and politics. In it, I included a few stories about Farley Mowat. As the book is currently out of print, I excerpt two of the stories below.
Farley Mowat I
About the last person I expected to become friendly with while working for the Manitoba government was Canada’s best-known environmental campaigner and best-selling author, Farley Mowat. A business loan given by the Schreyer government in 1973 first attracted Mowat’s attention.
The loan was to an Inuit co-operative in Churchill, Manitoba. The purpose: to allow the group to begin hunting the Beluga whales that frequented Hudson Bay near Churchill.
Mowat had just finished his book A Whale for the Killing, about the grizzly fate of a whale trapped in a Newfoundland bay and used as target practice by the Newfoundland cowboy contingent.
He was enraged that any government would sponsor the further killing of the whales. Never mind the NDP. As a long-time supporter, he expected better from them. In his Mowat-like fashion, he laid siege to Premier Schreyer.
Schreyer, a good politician and an intuitive environmentalist, was also a fan of Mowat. He was amenable to Farley’s suggestions. He told Mowat that if he could convince the Inuit co-op that there was more money to be made in building a tourism industry, he would be just as happy to provide the money for that purpose.
Mowat, good to his word, flew to Churchill and persuaded the community that there was more money to be had bringing wealthy Canadians, Americans and Europeans to see the whales rather than killing and eating them as had been their traditional way.
Surely Mowat has been vindicated by the popularity of whale watching in Churchill. Some thirty years later, the Michelin guide and other major tourist guides, celebrate the whales of Churchill as a major tourist destination.
In the process, he became friendly with Premier Schreyer and became, as we all were in those days (and remain so), completely enamoured by the wondrous Lily Schreyer.
Mowat was so charmed by Ed and Lily that he decided to take up residence. He parked his small caravan in the backyard at their house. The Premier signed him on as a dollar-a-year man for the government and Farley took to pounding out proposals on how to bring about some sensitivity to natural environment.
As a young functionary in the cabinet office, I was assigned the task of being the go-between for Mowat with the departments. My role was to attempt to figure out who exactly should be responding to Mowat’s proposals and to impress upon them the seriousness with which the premier took Mowat’s ideas.
In those days, I had returned from four years in the concrete jungle of Boston and had decided that I must live in the country. To this end, I bought a very small house in the community of Starbuck, Manitoba. I painted the house barn red so that friends could find it and proceeded with some pretty amateurish renovations.
Nevertheless, I extended an invitation to Mowat to visit, which he did with Lily Schreyer in tow. Ed was making a speech somewhere nearby and that was the only explanation offered. There was a compulsory bottle of rum, which we proceeded to demolish.
Starbuck, I should note, is a small community and not one noted for radical tendency of any sort. It was a warm summer evening. Farley decided that he would see if the creek across the road was suitable for swimming. He casually stripped nude, threw a towel over his shoulder and set off. However, I found out later, he stopped at a few neighbours’ homes to seek directions as he was unfamiliar with the area.
Over the next number of months while I lived in Starbuck, I harboured the secret hope that Farley’s celebrity was such that cause had been helped and not hurt by his naked perambulations. The neighbours never said a word about his appearance.
Farley Mowat II
Farley Mowat continued to tour Canada making speeches saying he'd been a dollar-a-year man to the Manitoba government and that the province was so cheap that it never paid him his dollar.
Other than being mildly annoyed, there wasn't much I could do about this assault on the provincial honour until 1981, when I went into the new government of Howard Pawley as the Cabinet Secretary. (The most senior public servant.) Only then could I take action to silence the loquacious Mowat.
Among the perks of my office, if one could describe it as that, was the chairmanship of an obscure cabinet committee, distinguished because it had in fact, no actual cabinet ministers on it. It had the bland, innocent name, the Hospitality Committee of Cabinet.
This committee approved all hospitality grants, grants for visiting conventions of Elks, Women Of The Moose, and other fraternal orders. We had a modest budget, and we also presided over Manitoba’s prestigious Order of the Buffalo Hunt.
This honour had been given randomly to winning curling teams and visiting dignitaries over the years. It it struck me that in one fell swoop, I could regain Manitoba’s pride and do something nice.
I conspired with the wonderful Rita Kurtz, the publisher’s rep who toured Farley, about when he would be coming to Manitoba next. I prevailed upon Premier Pawley, who heard me out on the story of Manitoba’s honour being tarnished by the Mowat’s rather repetitive assertion that he was owed a dollar that he never saw.
The Premier invited Farley for a very special ceremony at which we presented him with two items: a framed one-dollar bill and recognition of his services to the province.
And we created a new category of the Order of the Buffalo Hunt, entitled Preserver of the Species, in honour of Mowat’s tireless work, not only to save the whales of Churchill, but also many other species.
I think Farley was as delighted at the dollar as by being named as the first Preserver of the Species, Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt. An odd combination when you consider that we pretty much wiped out the buffalo on the Canadian prairies.
Farley and I remained friends although I didn’t see him as often as I would’ve liked. Many years later I had the opportunity to find his old Manitoba manuscripts, wonderful ideas that he typed out on his Underwood typewriter. I felt the right course was to return them to him.
He was reading at Harbourfront in Toronto some thirty years after he had typed these manuscripts. A mutual friend, his publisher Anna Porter, tried to introduce me to Farley backstage at the event. Farley turned - we hadn’t seen each other in a decade - threw his arms around me, gave me a big kiss and said,
You don’t need you to introduce me to my friend, Michael.
This allowed me the perfect location to return the manuscripts to him and to tell a somewhat surprised Anna Porter that Farley was in fact the only living Preserver of the Species, Manitoba Order of the Buffalo Hunt.
If you want to know the full capacity of human beings to destroy nature, Mowat’s Sea of Slaughter is a book you must read. It takes a journey through over 100 years of the history of Gulf of Saint Lawrence. The destruction of the eco-system of the St. Lawrence River that had been teeming with life.
Set in the period of European settlement, the stories Mowat tells are one of rampant destruction, and extinction of species after species by those determined to enrich themselves by taking nature’s bounty without regard for sustainability or for the consequence of their taking.
Sea of Slaughter was one of many powerful books written by Mowat with rancor towards his own human species and our capacity for carnage.
Farley Mowat was a larger-than-life character in every sense. He wrote over 40 books that were translated into 52 languages. He sold more than 17 million books. His first book People of the Deer was published in 1952, the year of my birth. His occupations included author, soldier, environmentalist, naturalist and philanthropist.
When Farley passed in 2014 at 92 years of age, Canada lost one of its most remarkable citizens.
Fabulous Book Launch at Booklore in Orangeville.
My sincere thanks to one of Canada’s very best independent booksellers, Nancy Frater, proprietress of Booklore and friend to authors.
Nancy’s curation of the store is terrific, and she’s also very involved in the local community, hosting author talks and fundraising events for Theatre Orangeville. She’s well-read, erudite and fun.
We had a packed house for The Fulcrum event last weekend, and she generously provided food and beverages for the crowd. I’m grateful to her, and to all booksellers and publishers, who do yeoman’s work birthing stories into this world.
Wonderful post. A great Bellevillian!
Michael, what wonderful stories about the inimitable Farley Mowat. I didn’t know about the Churchill whales or his Order of the Buffalo. He was such a wise and wild character whom I remember well. We sure could use him now.