![]() Mowat was blocked from coming here by an anti-subversive statute that was used to bar writers like Nobel Prize winner Gabriel Garcia Marquez from entering even for brief appearances at universities and bookstores. He was told that the reasons for the denial would not be revealed. In 1985, during the Reagan administration, Mowat was on a book tour that included the United States when he was informed that he would not be allowed to enter. What few realize, though, is that Mowat was also victim of archaic laws that allowed Congress to deny certain individuals entry to the U.S. He was best known for literary works like the classic Never Cry Wolf, which combined science and storytelling. “They treasured the snow – when it was deep enough and hard enough so that the domes of the snow houses can rise again to turn winter into a time of gaiety, of songs of leisure and lovemaking”.Farley Mowat, the great writer of books on the environment, passed away on Tuesday. That these people lived good lives and at peace with oneself and ones fellow man, to be in harmony with one’s environment, to laugh and love without restraint, to experience fulfillment in one’s daily life and rest from birth to death upon a sure and certain pride. Mowat’s experience however, living in the north, found this assumption is wrong. I imagine if I grew up and living in this environment, I think I would take to it.Īs Mowat says in another one of his novels, the Snow Walker about the assumptions us “city dwellers” make about people who live in closer proximity to nature: “Cocooned in the machine age, we smugly assume that because these people live unarmoured by our ornate technology, they must lead the most marginal kind of existence”. Rather a rhythem that flows with the sun, the seasons and ones needs.Īs I read his book, I craved a life living in nature – amongst the beauty and hardships of it. Why do we create such intricately orchestrated days and schedules?Ī life in the north, on the land, demands nothing of the sort. One where you have to work intimately and collaboratively with your environment. One that oriented you towards day to day living concerns – shelter, food, love, community. Thank you Farley Mowat for slowing my heart and transcending me into a different space and place.Īs I read, I identified and craved the slower, simpler, vaster life. I felt thankful for feeling its magnitude. I surrendered and looked at the little head sleeping in my arms hoping that I would remember the image and feeling – a moment I know is and will be fleeting as he grows into a man. We were tired, but that good kind of tired you feel after a day in the outdoors. I imagined in that moment that we were in a cabin in the arctic, after a day of “gathering” and playing. I took a bath, lied down and let one of my sons fall asleep in my arms. One night I read a few chapters and I felt my heart rate slow, I felt my intuitions align.
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