In The Footsteps Of Grey Owl

In words and glorious full-colour photographs Gary and Joanie McGuffin take us on a 1,200-mile canoe trip through some of the most breathtaking ancient forests in northwestern Ontario, an area made famous by the popular writer/conservationist Grey Owl. The 3-month journey takes place in the region between Temagami and Algoma, including the Sturgeon, Spanish, Mississagi, Aubinadong, and Montreal Rivers. This is Grey Owl territory; where he lived, trapped, fished, hunted, manned firetowers, canoed rivers, and portaged across watersheds. The McGuffins incorporate quotations from Grey Owl’s writings and details of his life and travels into their own story as they explore the romance and mystical beauty that surrounds the ancient forests. In the Footsteps of Grey Owl contains more than 100 beautiful photographs in addition to the McGuffins’ fascinating account of a unique adventure.

First published in 1935, Pilgrims of the Wild is Grey Owl’s autobiographical account of his transition from successful trapper to preservationist. With his Iroquois wife, Anahereo, Grey Owl set out to protect the environment and the endangered beaver. Powerful in its simplicity, Pilgrims of the Wild tells the story of Grey Owl’s life of happy cohabitation with the wild creatures of nature and the healing powers of what he referred to as "the great Northland" of "Over the Hills and Far Away." A bestseller at the time, Pilgrims of the Wild helped establish Grey Owl’s international reputation as a conservationist. His legacy of warnings against the degradations of nature and the dangers of industry live on, despite the posthumous revelation that he wasn’t, in fact, the First Nations man he claimed to be.

A self-taught artist and photographer, Hap Wilson has travelled over sixty thousand kilometres by canoe and snowshoe, and embarked on more than three hundred wilderness expeditions. He is one of North America's best-known wilderness guides and canoeists, and has been building sustainable trails for more than thirty years. He is also the co-founder of the environmental group Earthroots. He lives in Rosseau, Ontario. for more information, please visit Hap's website at www.eskakwa.ca. Ingrid Zschogner is a self taught artist and outdoor enthusiast who has been creating detailed portraits in oil, graphite, and pastel for more than fifteen years. She is also a professional trailbuilder, wilderness guide, and environmental activist. To view Ingrid's portfolio, please visit her website at www.wildrosedesigns.ca.

“The Men of the Last Frontier” is a 1922 work by Grey Owl. Part memoir, part chronicle of the vanishing Canadian wilderness, and part collection First Nations lore and stories. His first book, “The Men of the Last Frontier” is an impassioned cry for the conservation of the natural world that is as poignent now as when first published. Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (1888–1938), also known as Grey Owl, was a British-born Canadian fur trapper, conservationist, and writer. In life, he pretended to be a First Nations person, but it was later discovered that he was in fact not Indigenous—revelations that greatly tarnished his reputation. Other notable works by this author include: “The Men of the Last Frontier”, “Pilgrims of the Wild”, and “Tales of an Empty Cabin”. This classic work is being republished now in a new edition with specially curated introductory material.

In the 1930s Grey Owl was considered the foremost conservationist and nature writer in the world. He owed his fame largely to his four internationally bestselling books, which he supported with a series of extremely popular illustrated lectures across North America and Great Britain. His reputation was transformed radically, however, after he died in April 1938, and it was revealed that he was not of mixed Scottish-Apache ancestry, as he had often claimed, but in fact an Englishman named Archie Belaney. Born into a privileged family in the dominant culture of his time, what compelled him to flee to a far less powerful one? Albert Braz’s Apostate Englishman: Grey Owl the Writer and the Myths is the first comprehensive study of Grey Owl’s cultural and political image in light of his own writings. While the denunciations of Grey Owl after his death are often interpreted as a rejection of his appropriation of another culture, Braz argues that what troubled many people was not only that Grey Owl deceived them about his identity, but also that he had forsaken European culture for the North American Indigenous way of life. That is, he committed cultural apostasy.