He went overseas as a reinforcement officer for that regiment, joining the Canadian Army in the United Kingdom. Mowat published his when he returned from World War II.ĭuring World War II, Mowat joined the Canadian Army and was commissioned as a supernumerary second lieutenant into the Second Battalion, The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment (affectionately known as the Hasty Ps) on 19 July 1940. : 219 Before enlisting Banfield published his field notes in the Canadian Field-Naturalist. They sold their collections to the Royal Ontario Museum to finance their trip. He took his first collecting expedition in the summer of 1939 to Saskatoon with fellow zoology student Frank Banfield collecting data regarding mammals and Mowat focusing on birds. In the 1930s Mowat studied zoology at the University of Toronto but never completed a degree. During this time he also wrote his own nature newsletter, Nature Lore. In the 1930s, the Mowat family moved to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, where as a teenager, Mowat wrote about birds in a column for the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. Mowat started writing, in his words 'mostly verse', when his family lived in Windsor from 1930 to 1933. His mother was Helen Lilian Thomson, daughter of Henry Andrew Hoffman Thomson and Georgina Phillips Farley Thomson of Trenton, Ontario. His great-great-uncle was Ontario premier Sir Oliver Mowat, and his father, Angus Mowat, was a librarian who fought in the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

Mowat was born May 12, 1921, in Belleville, Ontario and grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario. Descriptions of Mowat refer to his 'commitment to ideals' and 'poetic descriptions and vivid images' as well as his strong antipathies, which provoke 'ridicule, lampoons and, at times, evangelical condemnation'. Mowat's advocacy for environmental causes earned him praise, but his admission, after some of his books' claims had been debunked, that he 'never let the facts get in the way of the truth' earned harsh criticism: 'few readers remain neutral'.

For his body of work as a writer he won the annual Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature in 1970. The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf (1963). His works were translated into 52 languages, and he sold more than 17 million books.

John Mowat, John Bower Mowat, John McDonald Mowat, Angus McGill Mowat, Sir Oliver Mowatįarley McGill Mowat, OC (– May 6, 2014) was a Canadian writer and environmentalist. Never Cry Wolf, People of the Deer, Lost in the Barrens, The Curse of the Viking Grave, The Grey Seas Under, Owls in the Familyįrances (Thornhill) Mowat, Claire (Wheeler) Mowat Author, soldier, environmentalist, naturalist, philanthropist

Farley mowat wolves