Walking On The Land

Using one of his own trips through the Eastern Arctic as a starting point, Farley Mowat interweaves the stories of the Barren Ground Inuit with stunning, lyrical descriptions of the Northern landscape.

With great beauty and terrible anguish, Mowat traces the history of the Inuit, revealing how the arrival of the Kablunait — white man — in the early part of the century and the subsequent obliteration of the caribou herds combined to unleash a series of famines and epidemics that virtually wiped out the Barren Ground Inuit population.

Full of larger-than-life characters — old-time Hudson's Bay company men, eccentric priests, wild bush pilots and well-meaning interlopers — Walking on the Land is an unforgettable account by one of Canada's most committed and impassioned voices.

Using one of his own trips through the Eastern Arctic as a starting point, Farley Mowat interweaves the stories of the Barren Ground Inuit with stunning, lyrical descriptions of the Northern landscape.

With great beauty and terrible anguish, Mowat traces the history of the Inuit, revealing how the arrival of the Kablunait — white man — in the early part of the century and the subsequent obliteration of the caribou herds combined to unleash a series of famines and epidemics that virtually wiped out the Barren Ground Inuit population.

Full of larger-than-life characters — old-time Hudson's Bay company men, eccentric priests, wild bush pilots and well-meaning interlopers — Walking on the Land is an unforgettable account by one of Canada's most committed and impassioned voices.

Library Journal

Canadian naturalist and Arctic specialist Mowat started his career 50 years ago with the publication of People of the Deer, which described the lives and customs of the Ihalmuit (Barren Ground Inuit), with whom he lived for two years, and also helped bring attention to their "unwitting genocide" by establishment institutions. Some 30 years later, Mowat wrote another influential book, Sea of Slaughter, which focused on environmental destruction along the northern Atlantic seaboard. Now, in this passionate account, the prolific author of 30 books revisits the controversial subject and place and learns that his past predictions of tribal decline have been fulfilled as he again witnesses disease, starvation, and violence. Known for his extraordinary storytelling, Mowat presents a multigenerational viewpoint through his accounts of Hudson Bay men, missionaries, and other Arctic people as he subtly describes the desolate landscape. Recommended for public libraries. Margaret W. Norton, Oak Park, IL Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Farley Mowat was born in Ontario in 1921. He served in World War II and spent the better part of two years in the Arctic before he began writing for a living in 1949. He is the author of thirty-seven books which combined have sold more than 14 million copies in 52 languages. He and his wife, Claire Mowat, divide their time between Ontario and Nova Scotia.