Farley Mowat Books In Order

The Top of the World Books In Publication Order

  1. Ordeal by Ice: The Search for the Northwest Passage (1960)
  2. The Polar Passion: The Quest for the North Pole (1967)
  3. Tundra: Selections from the Great Accounts of Arctic Land Voyages (1973)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. People of the Deer (1950)
  2. Lost in the Barrens (1956)
  3. The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be (1957)
  4. Owls in the Family (With: Robert Frankenberg) (1961)
  5. The Curse of the Viking Grave (1966)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. The Desperate People (1957)
  2. The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Mission of a N.A. Salvage Tug (1958)
  3. Coppermine Journey: An Account of Great Adventure Selected from the Journals of Samuel Hearne (1958)
  4. The Black Joke (With: ) (1962)
  5. Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves (1963)
  6. Canada North Now: The Great Betrayal (1967)
  7. The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float (1969)
  8. Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia (1970)
  9. A Whale for the Killing (1972)
  10. Wake of the Great Sealers (1973)
  11. The Serpent’s Coil (1974)
  12. The Regiment (1974)
  13. The Snow Walker (1975)
  14. This Rock within the Sea (1976)
  15. And No Birds Sang (With: ) (1979)
  16. Sea of Slaughter (With: David Suzuki) (1984)
  17. My Discovery of America (1985)
  18. Virunga: The Passion of Dian Fossey / Woman in the Mists: The Story of Dian Fossey and the Mountain Gorillas of Africa (1987)
  19. The New Founde Land (1989)
  20. Rescue the Earth: Conversations with the Green Crusaders (1990)
  21. Born Naked: The Early Adventures of the Author of Never Cry Wolf (1992)
  22. My Father’s Son: Memories of War and Peace (1993)
  23. Aftermath: Travels in a Post-War World (1996)
  24. The Farfarers: Before the Norse (1998)
  25. Walking on the Land (2000)
  26. High Latitudes: An Arctic Journey (2002)
  27. No Man’s River (2004)
  28. Bay of Spirits: A Love Story (2006)
  29. Otherwise (2008)
  30. Eastern Passage (2010)

The Top of the World Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Farley Mowat Books Overview

Lost in the Barrens

Awasin, a Cree Indian boy, and Jamie, a Canadian orphan living with his uncle, the trapper Angus Macnair, are enchanted by the magic of the great Arctic wastes. They set out on an adventure that proves longer and more dangerous than they could have imagined. Drawing on his knowledge of the ways of the wilderness and the implacable northern elements, Farley Mowat has created a memorable tale of daring and adventure. When first published in 1956, Lost in the Barrens won the Governor General’s Award for Juvenile Literature, the Book of the Year Medal of the Canadian Association of Children s Librarians and the Boys Club of America Junior Book Award.

Owls in the Family (With: Robert Frankenberg)

This is one of Farley Mowats funniest books about a boy and two rescued owls named Wol and Weeps. Billy loves all animals. He has rats, mice, over thirty gophers and two dogs. It only seems natural that Billy and his friends search the sloughs and bluffs to find owlets. The boys rescue a pair of owlets from an untimely death and end up keeping them for over three years. The adventures Billy, his friends and the owls have together are not typical. Participating in the local Pet Parade, owls following him to school and having an owl arrive for dinner with a skunk are only a few funny incidents in Owls in the Family. The story is a hoot!

The Curse of the Viking Grave

The popular sequel to his award winning Lost in the Barrens, this is Farley Mowat’s suspense filled story of how Awasin, Jamie and Peetryuk, three adventure prone boys, stumble upon a cache of Viking relics in an ancient tomb somewhere in the north of Canada. Packed with excitement and with little known information about the customs of Viking explorers, this story of survival portrays the bond of youthful friendship and the wonders of a virtually unexplored land.

The Desperate People

THEY COULD SURVIVE ANYTHING IN THE ARCTIC WILDERNESS EXCEPT THE WHITE MAN. They were rich, the caribou were abundant. Their dogs were many and strong. The children in the tents were happy, and there was never any fear of going hungry. Then came the ruthless white man’s civilization. And with it came slaughter of the herds, starvation of the flesh, and torture of the spirit.

The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Mission of a N.A. Salvage Tug

The hair raising rescue missions of a deep sea salvage tug that saved hundreds of lives during two decades of service in the North Atlantic.

The Black Joke (With: )

The Black Joke is a rousing sea story in the tradition of the great classic pirate tales. The time is the 1930s. The loot is bootleg liquor, not pirate gold. And the ship is the Black Joke, the speediest, nimblest craft on the Newfoundland coast Jonathon Spence, owner and master. An unwelcome passenger enmeshes the boat and her crew young Peter and Kye in danger and near destruction until the fiercely independent people of the island of Miquelon are caught up in the fate of the Black Joke and the cargo aboard her.

Never Cry Wolf: The Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves

By enquiring into the puzzle of sibling relations, Frank J. Sulloway pioneers a new view of how family affects individual development. He shows that birth order is so fundamental to the family that it transcends gender, class and nationality.

The Boat Who Wouldn’t Float

It seemed like a good idea. Tired of everyday life ashore, Farley Mowat would find a sturdy boat in Newfoundland and roam the salt sea over, free as a bird. What he found was the worst boat in the world, and she nearly drove him mad. The Happy Adventure, despite all that Farley and his Newfoundland helpers could do, leaked like a sieve. Her engine only worked when she felt like it. Typically, on her maiden voyage, with the engine stuck in reverse, she backed out of the harbour under full sail. And she sank, regularly. How Farley and a varied crew, including the intrepid lady who married him, coaxed the boat from Newfoundland to Lake Ontario is a marvellous story. The encounters with sharks, rum runners, rum and a host of unforgettable characters on land and sea make this a very funny book for readers of all ages.

A Whale for the Killing

A PLEA TO STOP THE SLAUGHTER NOW…

When an 80 ton Fin Whale became trapped in a Newfoundland lagoon, conservationist Farley Mowat rejoiced: here was the first chance to study at close range one of the most magnificent animals in creation. Some local villagers thought otherwise. They blasted the whale with rifle fire and hacked open her back with a motorboat propeller. Mowat appealed desperately to the police, to marine biologists, finally to the Canadian press. But it was too late. Ravaged by an infection resulting from her massive wounds, the whale died.

World renowned for his passionate tales of survival, Farley Mowat wrote his new book to symbolize the plight of all whales preyed on by man for commercial profit. A Whale for the Killing is an urgent, eloquent plea to stop the massacre now…
before the entire species is doomed to extinction.

The Serpent’s Coil

Here is one of the great storytellers of our time reporting the hair raising rescue missions of a deep sea salvage tug that saved hundreds of lives during two decades of service. In Grey Seas Under, Farley Mowat writes passionately of the courage of men and of a small, ocean going salvage tug, Foundation Franklin. From 1930 until her final voyage in 1948, the stalwart tug’s dangerous mission was to rescue sinking ships, first searching for them in perilous waters and then bringing them back to shore. Battered by towering waves, dwarfed by the great ships she towed, blasted by gale force winds and frozen by squalls of snow and rain, Foundation Franklin and her brave crew saved hundreds of vessels and thousands of lives as they patrolled the North Atlantic, including waters patrolled by U boats in wartime. Mowat spent two years gathering this material and sailed on some of the missions he describes. The result is a modern epic a vigorous, dramatic picture of the eternal battle between men and the cruel sea.

The Regiment

On 2 September 1939 the Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment was mobilized and began training for war. For the next six years its members lived the heartbreak, the horror, and the glory of a bitter conflict on foreign soil. This is the heart and soul story of the Hasty P’s and their part in the Second World War, told by their most eloquent spokesman. First printed over fifty years ago and out of print since 1982, The Regiment has lost none of its immediacy or emotional power. This new edition contains the complete, unabridged original text in all its rich detail. For the first time, it also contains a selection of photographs, and lists The Regiment‘s Honours and Awards, its Honour Roll, as well as lists of personnel and Second World War casualties. In 1957 The Regiment was awarded 31 Battle Honours for its actions in the war, the most awarded to any Canadian regiment.

The Snow Walker

Central to Farley Mowat’s writing is his quest to understand the often forgotten native people of the vast arctic wilderness. In this moving collection, he allows these people to describe in their own words the adventures they experience as they struggle to survive in an isolated, untamed land. Stories of survival and courage, of superstition and fate, of uncompromising loyalty to family and tribe are presented here; offering a vivid portrait of a people whose existence is often beyond the comprehension of modern man. Inspiration for the major motion picture from Infinity Media and First Look International

And No Birds Sang (With: )

In July 1942, Farley Mowat was an eager young infantryman bound for Europe and impatient for combat. This powerful, true account of the action he saw, fighting desperately to push the Na*zis out of Italy, evokes the terrible reality of war with an honesty and clarity fiction can only imitate. In scene after unforgettable scene, he describes the agony and antic humor of the soldier’s existence: the tedium of camp life, the savagery of the front, and the camaraderie shared by those who have been bloodied in battle.

Sea of Slaughter (With: David Suzuki)

The northeastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, from Cape Cod to Labrador, was the first region in North America to suffer from human exploitation. In this timeless narrative, Farley Mowat describes in harrowing detail the devastation inflicted upon the birds, whales, fish, and mammals of this icy coast from polar bears and otters to cod, seals, and ducks. Since its first publication some 20 years ago, this powerful work has served as both a warning to humanity and an inspiration for change.

Born Naked: The Early Adventures of the Author of Never Cry Wolf

Farley Mowat’s youth was charmed and hilarious, and unbelievably free in its access to unspoiled nature through bird banding expeditions and overnight outings in the dead of winter. The author writes of sleeping in haystacks for survival, and other adventures, with equal shares of Booth Tarkington and Jack London. He also brings back Mutt, the famous hero dog of his classic THE DOG WHO WOULDN’T BE, and his pet owl Wol, hero of OWLS IN THE FAMILY. The tale of an outrageous and clever boy, BORN NAKED takes its place as the foundation of the Farley Mowat canon.

Aftermath: Travels in a Post-War World

In 1953, Farley Mowat, a Canadian infantryman during World War II, returned to Europe, a place he knew only during the ravages of wartime. Together with his wife, he returns to England, France, and Italy to reexamine the past and find hope in the future. This is a unique and compelling look at a world that has undergone dramatic changes in the last fifty years, described in vintage Farley Mowat style.

The Farfarers: Before the Norse

MYSTERIOUS LONGHOUSES in the Arctic, ancient stone beacons in Newfoundland are they evidence of Europeans who crossed the Atlantic before A.D. 1000? Farley Mowat advances a controversial new theory about the first visitors to North America. Mowat’s Westviking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America 1965 was highly influential in helping to establish the belief, now commonly held, that the Norse visited North America some 500 years before Columbus. And yet ‘a worm of unease’ plagued Mowat even then, a vague feeling that he hadn’t gotten it quite right. He spent the next 30 years in search of a theory that would explain inconsistencies in the archaeological evidence such as carbon dated ruins not left by the Inuit, but that predated the arrival of Vikings in Newfoundland by hundreds of years. Now in The Farfarers he asserts that another Indo European people he calls the ‘Alban’ preceded the Norse by several centuries. Throughout The Farfarers, Mowat skillfully weaves fictional vignettes of Alban life into his thoughtful reconstruction of a forgotten history. What emerges is a bold and dramatic panorama of a harsher age: an age of death dealing warships and scanty food supply, of long, cold journeys across the night sea into unknown lands. ‘A spellbinding story…
told by a master storyteller at the top of his form.’ The Globe And Mail’The book is a fascinating glimpse of yesteryear and offers brief histories on the Celts, Saxons, Vikings, Inuits, and other peoples of the northern hemisphere. Written in vigorous, picturesque prose.’ The Edmonton Sun

High Latitudes: An Arctic Journey

High Latitudes chronicles the author’s journey across northern Canada in 1966. Engaging in what Margaret Atwood, in her introduction, calls ‘a salvation escapade,’ Mowat hoped to write a book based on his experiences that would debunk the then current idea of the North as a playground for developers and polluters. Until now, that book remained unwritten. Mowat s compelling blend of suspenseful storytelling and larger than life characters immerses readers in the Arctic, a place Mowat dubs a ‘bloody great wasteland.’ In a voice alternately filled with rage, humor, and pathos, Mowat seasons his story with photos, maps, and verbatim transcriptions of testimonies from northern peoples Inuit and white at a time when the old ways of life were disappearing.

No Man’s River

With No Man’s River, Farley Mowat has penned his best Arctic tale in years. This book chronicles his life among Metis trappers and native people as they struggle to eke out a living in a brutal environment.

In the spring of 1947, putting the death and devastation of WWII behind him, Mowat joined a scientific expedition. In the remote reaches of Manitoba, he witnessed an Eskimo population ravaged by starvation and disease brought about by the white man. In his efforts to provide the natives with some of the assistance that the government failed to provide, Mowat set out on an arduous journey that collided with one of nature’s most arresting phenomena the migration of the Arctic’s caribou herds. Mowat was based at Windy Post with a Metis trapper and two Ihalmiut children. A young girl, known as Rita, is painted with special vividness checking the trap lines with the men, riding atop a sled, smoking a tiny pipe. Farley returns to the North two decades later and discovers the tragic fate that befell her. Combining his exquisite portraits with awe inspiring passages on the power of nature, No Man’s River is another riveting memoir from one of North America’s most beloved writers.

Bay of Spirits: A Love Story

In 1957, Farley Mowat shipped out aboard one of Newfoundland’s famous coastal steamers, tramping from outport to outport along the southwest coast. The indomitable spirit of the people and the bleak beauty of the landscape would lure him back again and again over the years. In the process of falling in love with a people and a place, Mowat also met the woman who would be the great love of his life. A stunningly beautiful and talented young artist, Claire Wheeler insouciantly climbed aboard Farley s beloved but jinxed schooner as it lay on the St. Pierre docks, once again in a cradle for repairs, and changed both their lives forever. This is the story of that love affair, of summers spent sailing the Newfoundland coast, and of their decision to start their life together in Burgeo, one of the province s last remaining outports. It is also an unforgettable portrait of the last of the outport people and a way of life that had survived for centuries but was now passing forever. Affectionate, unsentimental, this is a burnished gem from an undiminished talent.I was inside my vessel painting the cabin when I heard the sounds of a scuffle nearby. I poked my head out the companionway in time to see a lithesome young woman swarming up the ladder which leaned against Happy Adventure s flank. Whining expectantly, the shipyard dog was endeavouring to follow this attractive stranger. I could see why. As slim and graceful as a ballet dancer which, I would later learn, was one of her avocations, she appeared to be wearing a gleaming golden helmet her own smoothly bobbed head of hair and was as radiantly lovely as any Saxon goddess. I invited her aboard, while pushing the dog down the ladder. That s only Blanche, I reassured my visitor. He won t bite. He s just, uh…
being friendly. That s nice to know, she said sweetly. Then she smiled…
and I was lost. From Bay of Spirits

Otherwise

A Canadian icon gives us his final book, a memoir of the events that shaped this beloved writer and activist.

Farley Mowat has been beguiling readers for fifty years now, creating a body of writing that has thrilled two generations, selling literally millions of copies in the process. In looking back over his accomplishments, we are reminded of his groundbreaking work: He single handedly began the rehabilitation of the wolf with Never Cry Wolf. He was the first to bring advocacy activism on behalf of the Inuit and their northern lands with People of the Deer and The Desperate People. And his was the first populist voice raised in defense of the environment and of the creatures with whom we share our world, the ones he has always called The Others.

Otherwise is a memoir of the years between 1937 and the autumn of 1948 that tells the story of the events that forged the writer and activist. His was an innocent childhood, spent free of normal strictures, and largely in the company of an assortment of dogs, owls, squirrels, snakes, rabbits, and other wildlife. From this, he was catapulted into wartime service, as anxious as any other young man of his generation to get to Europe and the fighting. The carnage of the Italian campaign shattered his faith in humanity forever, and he returned home unable and unwilling to fit into post war Canadian life. Desperate, he accepted a stint on a scientific collecting expedition to the Barrengrounds. There in the bleak but beautiful landscape he finds his purpose first with the wolves and then with the indomitable but desperately starving Ihalmiut. Out of these experiences come his first pitched battles with an ignorant and uncaring federal bureaucracy as he tries to get aid for the famine stricken Inuit. And out of these experiences, too, come his first books.

Otherwise goes to the heart of who and what Farley Mowat is, a wondrous final achievement from a true titan.

Related Authors

Leave a Comment