Why Was Farley Significant To Canada

A Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship and a public school in Ottawa are named after him, but one might wonder why Farley Mowat is so significant to Canadians that his name would be displayed so prominently in Canadian institutions. Dictionary.com defines a significant person as one who “has or expresses a meaning”. Farley Mowat demonstrates Canadian significance because he holds a lot of meaning to the history of Canada as a country. Farley is significant to Canadian history because he helped change Canadians views on the North and its inhabitants, he was a very successful author who inspired other authors and made Canada better known worldwide, and he used his storytelling gifts to spread his message and beliefs. First, Farley Mowat changed

Farley sold over seventeen million novels across sixty countries, and his novels were translated into 52 languages. Each of Farley’s novels contained an important message he wanted to share with the world such as that wolves are not bad like people believe. Farley was an inspiration to many aspiring authors and environmentalists. He was the first Canadian author to write stories in the genre of creative non-fiction, and he continued to explore that genre of writing despite the many criticisms he received for doing so. He paved the way for different writing genres such as environmental and political polemic and adventure travel writing, but his favourite and most written genre remained creative non-fiction. His unique genres of writing and the themes he included in his novels inspired young authors, activists and environmentalists. The main themes Farley wrote about such as humanity’s relationship with nature and the sympathetic portrayal of animals most believed should be exterminated caused much controversy, but also attracted a lot of positive attention worldwide. This global attention helped to spread Canadian culture around the world. It has been said that Farley Mowat invented the Canadian North in terms of global awareness because his novels were so popular worldwide. His success helped to both inspire other people to follow in his footsteps, and helped the world learn

Before travelling to the Barren Grounds and writing about the people inhabiting that land, Farley Mowat travelled to the Northwest Territories as a government biologist. He had been sent on a mission to figure out the extent to which wolves were responsible for the declining caribou populations of the North. While in the Northwest Territories, Farley discovered that it was trappers who were largely responsible for the disappearance of caribou, not wolves. This finding led Farley to write a book titled, “Never Cry Wolf”. In this book, Farley discussed his beliefs concerning animals such as wolves and he used his platform to spread the message that wolves are not bad like we portray them to be. In the book Farley writes, “The wolf never kills for fun, which is probably one of the main differences distinguishing him from man”. This quotation from the book is one of the many powerful lines Farley writes to share his beliefs and messages about animal rights to the public. Later in his life Farley lived in Newfoundland, where he witnessed many townspeople tormenting whales. A specific instance that saddened and angered Farley was when he saw people using bullets and speedboats to attack a whale that was trapped in a pond. Not long after the incident, Farley moved out of the province and wrote a book titled, “A Whale for the Killing”.