Farley Mowat - Biography

Biography

Great-great-nephew of Ontario premier Sir Oliver Mowat, Farley McGill Mowat was born on May 12, 1921, in Belleville, Ontario, Canada and grew up in Richmond Hill, Ontario where he attended Richmond Hill High School. His father, Angus Mowat, who fought at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, became a librarian and enjoyed minor success as a novelist. Farley began writing informally while his family lived in Windsor from 1930–1933.

At the height of the Great Depression, the family relocated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. As a boy, Mowat was fascinated by nature and animals. With his dog, Mutt (the hero of The Dog Who Wouldn't Be, 1957), Mowat explored the Saskatchewan countryside. He also kept a rattlesnake, a gopher, two owls (Owls in the Family 1962), a Florida alligator, several cats, and hundreds of insects as pets. With some of his friends, Mowat created the Beaver Club of Amateur Naturalists. He kept a museum in the Mowat basement, which included the joined skull of a two-headed calf, some stuffed birds and a bear cub. This museum eventually had to be moved after an invasion by moths and beetles.

At the age of 13, Mowat founded a nature newsletter, Nature Lore, and had a weekly column on birds in the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix. He used the money he gained from his writing to feed ducks and geese, who would have otherwise died because they did not migrate south for the winter. His friends were children at the Dundurn Indian Reserve. In 1936, at age 15, Mowat made his first trip to the Arctic with his great-uncle Frank, an ornithologist with the Royal Ontario Museum.