Wilderness Man

Book excerpt: His real name was Archie Belaney. Born and raised in Hastings by maiden aunts, Archie dreamed of escaping to the Canadian wilderness. Finally, in 1906 at the age of seventeen, Archie's dream came true and he left England to live the frontier life in the Canadian northland. He adopted Indian customs, changed his name to Grey Owl and became famous throughout Northern Ontario as a trapper, riverman, and fire-ranger. Even in the rough frontier, Grey Owl was notorious - for his daring, his arrogance and his devastating effect on women. After a stint in the Canadian army during World War I, and two bigamous marriages, Grey Owl fell in love with Anahareo, an Iroquois girl. Together they gave up the traplines to work for the protection of animals and the conservation of the land they both loved. A man before his time, Grey Owl wrote books about the Canadian wilderness and travelled the world lecturing about conservation. But it was not until his premature death in 1938, that the truth about his background was finally revealed, a truth so deeply buried that even his beloved Anahareo was unaware of it.