Bacon Magazine presents the next installment of our Canadian profiles. Every month we detail the lives of extraordinary Canadians. Everyone from politicians, entertainers, and criminals to celebrities, musicians, artists and writers will be featured in future instalments of our profiles series. This month we bring you, Farley Mowat

Farley Mowat is one of Canada's great writers. He has entertained and enlightened us on "real" subjects for more than fifty years. Many Canadians were first introduced to Farley Mowat in school and remember his ever popular book - Never Cry Wolf. In fact many of his works can be seen on required reading lists in high school. He is an author, traveller, outdoorsman and activist. Mowat is passionate about wildlife, the forgotten north and he is a proud Canadian.

Anyone who has read a book by Mowat will recognize his writing style. He presents his books in a straightforward manner as he deals with unique material examining such topics as the Arctic and its people, Newfoundland, Siberia, the Vikings, World War II, whales and other environmental concerns. Mowat's books are really a dialogue between himself and his reader. In this sense his writing is often described as "subjective non-fiction" for a style in which "facts" and "truth" are not mutually exclusive - a memory from childhood can be told today and be truth but it is not necessarily told with all facts. The dialogue that Mowat develops with his reader is that of honesty. Mowat is content to let the readers decide for themselves the elements of truth and fact within his books because he knows that they are the works of true stories. In fact, many of Mowat's books are autobiographical in nature as he uses life stories and experiences to provide realism and truth to his stories. By reading a few of Mowat's books you can pick away from the story his life experiences and when putting these experiences together it develops into a montage of his life and what Mowat believes in as he writes on subjects that are close to his heart. Mowat also uses his books to educate, challenge notions and even reform the ideas and beliefs of his readers. From his book it is also clear that Mowat is intensely nationalistic in his pride for Canada.

On May 12, 1921 Farley McGill Mowat was born in Belleville, Ontario. His father, Angus, was a novelist-librarian and he continually chose different jobs that required him to move. Consequently, Mowat grew up in Trenton, Windsor, Saskatoon, Toronto, and Richmond Hill. Mowat did not have a conventional childhood. He was allowed to have a variety of pets at home and his love for animals grew, especially for some Canadian favourites like the brown squirrel, muskrats and birds of any kind. He gained a love for the wilderness from various excursions such as sailing trips on Lake Ontario and explorations of Hudson Bay. Mowat had always been bookish and his love for writing stories grew. By the age of 14 he began to publish a regular column in The Star-Phoenix on his observations of birds.

Farley answered the call to arms at 18, alongside many other Canadian men, and joined the military service to fight in World War II. Farley was shipped off to England in the summer of 1942 and in 1943 he was a part of the invasion of Sicily. He spent the next three years in Europe in places like Italy and Germany. When the war was finally over Farley emerged as a decorated Captain and Intelligence Officer.

He came back to Canada and enrolled in the University of Toronto as a biology student. It was during a field trip that he became aware and outraged at the many problems that were facing the Inuit in Canada due to exploitation and intolerance. Mowat decided to use this knowledge to write his first book called People of the Deer (1952) in the hope that his knowledge would increase awareness of Canada's Inuit culture and help to reduce suffering at the hands of white people. As quoted from People of the Deer, "In 1886, the Ihalmiut people of northern Canada numbered 7,000. When Farley Mowat came to stay with them in 1946, their population had dwindled to forty." Mowat spent two years with them sharing their lives and tells their story in his book. After this experience, he graduated in 1949 and never looked back because he had determined his purpose in life - to tell the stories of Canada's neglected animals and native peoples. He began his career as a writer and has continued to support himself since.

Mowat was recognized early in his career for his writing talent and won the Governor General's Award for Lost in the Barrens (1956). In this young adult novel, two youths survive part of an arctic winter by using each of their skills and abilities until their lack of knowledge on the North nearly kills them and only an Inuit boy can rescue them from their ordeal.

Since his early days, Mowat has written more than 35 books and various short stories many of which have been translated into other languages (52 languages). Owls in the Family (1961) was written for a younger audience and contains recollections from Mowat's childhood. Wol and Weeps are two pet owls that a young boy raises to be loyal companions but soon these owls begin to turn the town upside down as they get into trouble. Similarly, The Regiment (1961) is autobiographical in nature as the book is based on a collection of letters written from 1943 to 1945 between Farley and his parents.

In A Whale for Killing (1972) we see Mowat examine how humans are constantly endangering their animals and their habitat. He tries to educate his readers through this story of the wanton shooting of a whale. Sea of Slaughter (1984) is a continuation on this theme and chronicles the destruction of the species in the North Atlantic

In 1975 Mowat wrote The Desperate People a companion book to People of the Deer (1952) and continues this story about the Ihalmiut but in this book Mowat has stepped back from the story-telling as the story is told simply with a narrative. The white man's civilization has come and brought with it the destruction of the people including the slaughter of the herds, starvation and the demoralization of the people. This excerpt details the powerful imagery:

"By 1951, Eskimos throughout the Canadian arctic were already dying of malnutrition and its attendant diseases at an unprecedented rate. In those few areas where the incidence of tuberculosis was known with any certainty, as many as 48 per cent of the population were afflicted. Outright starvation was known to have killed at least 120 Eskimos between January of 1950 and the middle of the following year. Except for some Eskimos in the Mackenzie delta who were able to trap muskrat, the average income of most Eskimo families had shrunk to a cash value of less than fifty dollars a year--a sum which had a purchasing power in northern trading posts equivalent to that of about twenty dollars in southern Canada."

In his most notable book - Never Cry Wolf (1963) Mowat was sent by the Canadian Wildlife Service to investigate why wolves were killing the arctic caribou. The book is his account of living alone with them for a summer in the arctic tundra. His appreciation and love of the species is clear in this book as stated in the Preface, "We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be--the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer--which is, in reality, no more than the reflected image of ourself."

Mowat continues to write even though he is now in his eighties. His most recent work is Walking on the Land (2000) which tells the story of a journey through the Eastern Arctic and the haunting tale of the Barrenground Inuit. He is currently married to his second wife, Claire and they divide their time at a farm in Cape Breton and a house in Port Hope, Ontario. He has one son - Sandy and is now a proud grandfather.

Mowat believes that a good writer will write about his own personal experiences and because he practises what he preaches, we gain an insight into Canada through the reflection of its animals and the native culture. He has claimed that he never wanted to be a novelist despite the fact the he has published so many books. Mowat sees himself as an entertainer and merely uses his many novels as a form of communication - above all else he is simply a valuable story-teller. Farley Mowat is truly a Canadian legend.