In High Latitudes Farley Mowat chronicles for the first time a sometimes hazardous journey he took across northern Canada in 1966. He hoped to write a book that would let northern people speak for themselves and that would expose the speciousness of the political idea that the North was “a bloody great wasteland” with no people in it, and therefore resource developers could exploit it however they chose. For reasons Mowat describes that book did not get written then. But here it is now, with the original conversations recorded by Mowat during that epic journey. In vintage Mowat fashion the legendary writer delivers a sweeping narrative brimming with breathtaking nature writing, suspenseful storytelling, larger-than-life characters, ferocious humor, pitiless rage, iconoclastic insights, and compassionate concern. In her foreword Margaret Atwood writes: “High Latitudes gives us, with passion and insight, a vertical section of time past—the time that preceded our present. The choices that were made then affect our now, just as the choices we make now will determine the future... It’s both depressing and cheering to note the changes that have taken place since 1966. On the one hand, more damage and devastation, both natural and social, with global warming as a contributing factor. On the other hand, an increased optimism. . . But as Farley Mowat has always known, and as more and more people have come to agree, it’s a race against time, and time—not just for the North, but for the planet—is running out.”
Author
Farley McGill Mowat was a conservationist and one of Canada's most widely-read authors. Many of his most popular works have been memoirs of his childhood, his war service, and his work as a naturalist. His works have been translated into 52 languages and he has sold more than 14 million books. Mowat studied biology at the University of Toronto. During a field trip to the Arctic, Mowat became outraged at the plight of the Ihalmiut, a Caribou Inuit band, which he attributed to misunderstanding by whites. His outrage led him to publish his first novel, People of the Deer (1952). This book made Mowat into a literary celebrity and was largely responsible for the shift in the Canadian government's Inuit policy: the government began shipping meat and dry goods to a people they previously denied existed. The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship RV Farley Mowat was named in honour of him, and he frequently visited it to assist its mission.
