I wonder what the world knows of Farley Mowat? Canadians will miss him. He died last Tuesday. Mowat’s books “Lost in the Barrens” and “Curse of the Viking Grave” connected me to our Canadian arctic when I was a boy. I later watched the wonderful film Never Cry Wolf, adapted from Mowat’s novel of the same name. His depiction of life in the north was so rich because he lived there for several years. When I was twelve, I was lucky enough to visit Iqaluit briefly en route to Greenland. I was part of a two-week student exchange program with Greenlandic students from Ilulissat, and so I experienced a bit of arctic living in the deep-freeze of March. I’m sure dog sledding over the frozen landscape in subzero temperatures seemed more romantic to me because of Farley Mowat. My memories of Greenland are definitely rose-tinted.

CBC radio aired a 2008 interview with Mowat this past Saturday. Here it is. It’s a great little insight to a man who had the ability to attract as much adoration as derision.

In my home and native land, tributes to Farley Mowat abound. This is mine.