Double-timing on Farley
I have been cheating on Farley Mowat – with a man AND a woman. First with Farley’s second wife, Claire Mowat and second with Alberta author Sid Marty. Â
Claire, perhaps following the large and delightfully wandering footsteps of her husband, wrote two memoirs about their time together. The Outport People and Travels With Farley: A Memoir follow Claire and Farley on their never ending adventures across Canada and abroad. I was envious of Claire as she recounted a portion of their lives together.
If only I hadn’t been born 30 years too late, perhaps I could have been Mrs. Mowat and swam with Pierre Trudeau on Magdalen Island. Or zipped off to Greenland to assist Farley with his research. Perhaps even curled up with that great bearded beauty as he penned so many Canadian literary classics.
Instead of savouring Farley by the hearth, I settled into Sid Marty. Like Farley, Sid is multi-faceted. In addition to a captivating natural history and western life and culture novelist, he is a poet, singer-songwriter, conservationalist and retired park warden from the Rocky Mountain national parks. And he has a beard that rivals Farley.
Two years ago, I attended one of Sid’s book readings as he promoted his latest book, The Black Grizzly of Whiskey Creek. I was captivated by this mountain journalist as he grieved for bears destroyed by human carelessness and contact, for the bears’ unsuspecting human victims, and for park wardens who find themselves in the absurd situation of destroying the wildlife they’re mandated to protect.
Claire and Sid will satisfy any armchair adventurer, aspiring outdoorsmen or bush bunny as they “come out of all that ordering geometry” (Sid Marty).
This post was authored by Sheri Connolly, a fourth year Environmental Studies student at The King’s University College.
Posted: November 26th, 2009 under Book Review, Connolly, King's Students.
Tags: Book Review, Claire Mowat, Farley Mowat, Sid Marty
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