Grey Owl

Archibald Stansfeld Belaney (September 18, 1888April 13, 1938), commonly known as Grey Owl, was a popular Canadian writer, public speaker and conservationist. Born an Englishman, he immigrated to Canada and, in the latter years of his life, passed as half-Indigenous, falsely claiming he was the son of a Scottish man and an Apache woman. With books, articles and public appearances promoting wilderness conservation, he achieved fame in the 1930s. Shortly after his death in 1938, his real identity as the Englishman Archie Belaney was exposed. He has been called one of the first persons to engage in Indigenous identity fraud in Canada.

Moving to Canada as a young man, Belaney established himself as a woodsman and trapper, before rising to prominence as an author and lecturer. While working for the Dominion Parks Branch of Canada in the 1930s, Belaney was named the "caretaker of park animals", first at Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba and then at Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan.

Recognition of Belaney includes biographies, academic studies, historic plaques in England, Ontario and Quebec, and a film based on his life, directed by Richard Attenborough.

Early life (18881906)

Archibald Stansfeld Belaney was born on September 18, 1888, in Hastings, England, into an upper-middle-class English family. His father was George Belaney and his mother Katherine "Kittie" Cox. His paternal grandfather had come from Scotland and married in England. "He mixed little with the other students in class, or afterwards. The shy, withdrawn boy, ashamed of having been abandoned by his parents, lived largely in his own world."

Belaney was fascinated by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, reading about them and drawing pictures of them in the margins of his books. He prepared maps showing the linguistic divisions in Canada and the locations of the tribes. His knowledge impressed his aunt Ada, who was "amazed at his knowledge of the detail... He was not interested in the romantic picture of the Indians but in their mastery over nature..."

Belaney left Hastings Grammar School and worked for a short time as a clerk in a lumber yard. He hated the job and ensured a sudden end to it by almost destroying the building with fireworks. Although, in agreement with his aunt Ada, he was supposed to work longer in England, he was finally allowed to move to Canada, In 1907 he was working at the Temagami Inn as a "chore-boy". He returned home to Hastings for a short visit during the winter of 19071908. He learned then that his father had been killed in a drunken brawl in the United States. In June he was shipped to England and initially assigned to the 23rd Reserve Battalion in Kent. He later joined the 13th Battalion (Royal Highlanders of Canada), known as the Black Watch, and was shipped to the front line in France, where he served as a sniper. Fellow soldiers accepted his assumed Indian identity, with one writing that he "...saw him squirm up muddy hills in a way no white man could. He had all the actions and features of an Indian.... Never in all my life did I ever meet a man who was better able to hide when we would go out onto No Man's Land."

In the late summer of 1925, 36-year-old Belaney began courting 19-year-old Gertrude Bernard. Their relationship would last till 1936, They met at Camp Wabikon, located on Temagami Island, where he was working as a guide. She was of Algonquin and Mohawk descent.

Her father's nickname for her was "Pony", but she would come to be known by another name, "Anahareo". According to her account in Devil in Deerskins: My Life with Grey Owl, Belaney's answer to her father's question about his background was this: "I come from Mexico. [M]y father was Scotch and my mother was an Apache Indian." According to the account given in Pilgrims of the Wild, Belaney located a beaver lodge, which he knew to be occupied by a mother beaver, and set a trap for her. When the mother beaver was caught, he began to canoe away to the cries of the kittens, which greatly resemble the sound of human infants. Anahareo begged him to set the mother free, but, needing the money from the beaver's pelt, he could not be swayed. The next day he rescued the baby beavers, which the couple adopted. As Albert Braz stated in his article "St. Archie of the Wild", "[P]rimarily because of this episode, Belaney comes to believe that it is 'monstrous' to hunt such creatures and determines to 'study them' rather than 'persecuting them further'." He moved back to Hay Lake with Jelly Roll, while Anahareo and David White Stone left to work his mining claim in northern Quebec. which was shot in the summer of 1930. It featured the two beavers, as well as Anahareo and Belaney, who was identified as Grey Owl. was shot by the cameraman W. J. Oliver, and released in 1932. This was highly unlikely during the Depression, "beavers [being] to the north what gold was to the west".

He believed that Canada's wilderness and vast open spaces, both of which were fast disappearing, were what made it unique in the world. was shot by W. J. Oliver in August 1932. The roof of the cabin was temporarily removed to facilitate the filming of some scenes. Oliver returned in 1933 to film the fourth beaver film Grey Owl's Neighbours, which showed Grey Owl interacting with various animals in addition to the beavers. It also showed him welcoming visitors arriving by canoe. which showed Grey Owl and Anahareo together on a canoe trip in the bush.

At Grey Owl's request, Anahareo returned from the prospecting trip in the summer of 1935 to help him prepare for the upcoming lecture tour in Great Britain and to look after the beavers in his absence. She sewed his costume for the tour and later wrote:

The Trail - Men Against the River (1937) was shot by B. J. (Bert) Bach in the Mississagi Forest Reserve, near Biscotasing, where Grey Owl worked for many years as a fire ranger in the 1910s.

In early August 1936, Grey Owl travelled to Fort Carlton, Saskatchewan, where he attended a convention of the Great Plains Indians, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the signing of Treaty 6. He participated in the "huge Indian dance" in "his own particular style" and addressed the assembly with the words: "If there is anything I can do to help your cause, please let me know, I know a number of their important people in Ottawa and I know they will listen to me, again I thank you all." for the Scarborough Board of Education (now in Toronto).

In 1999, the film Grey Owl, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Pierce Brosnan in the title-role, was released.

In June 1997, the mayor of Hastings and the borough's Member of Parliament Michael Foster unveiled a plaque in his honor on the house where he was born at 32 St. James Road, Hastings, East Sussex. A commemorative plaque is on the house at 36 St. Mary's Terrace, where he grew up with his grandmother and aunts.

The Hastings Museum contains an exhibition of memorabilia and a replica of part of his Canadian lakeside cabin.

The ranger station at Hastings Country Park has a commemorative plaque to Grey Owl.

In Riding Mountain National Park, the cabin, where he resided for six months in 1931, is a Federal Heritage Building.

In Prince Albert National Park, the cabin built in the 1930s according to his specifications still stands and is open to visitors.

Appendices

Grey Owl's works

Books

The Men of the Last Frontier (1931)
Private Interest vs. The People (1934)
Pilgrims of the Wild (1934)
The Adventures of Sajo and Her Beaver People (1935)
Tales of an Empty Cabin (1936)
The Tree (1937)

Articles and short pieces

"The Passing of the Last Frontier" (1929)
"The Vanishing Life of the Wild" (1930)
"Little Brethren of the Wilderness" (1930)
"The Fine Art of the Still Hunt" (1930)
"King of the Beaver People" (1930)
"Who Will Repay?" (1931)
"A Day in a ... Hidden Town" (1931)
"More about "Game Leaks." The Indian’s Side of the Question" (1931)
"A Mess of Pottage" (1931)
"Comments on Mr. Godsell’s Article by Grey Owl" (1931)
"White Water!" (1931)
"Little Indians" (1931)
"The Perils of Woods Travel" (1931)
"Indian Legends and Lore" (1931)
"And a Little Child Shall Lead Them" (1931)
"A Philosophy of the Wild" (1931)
"Unto ... the Least of These" (1932)
"Secrets of the Beaver Family" (1932)
"Re-builder of the Wilderness" (1932)
"The Beaver Family Migrates" (1933)
"The Beaver Babies" (1934)
"A Description of the Fall Activities of Beaver" (1935)
"Getting Lost in the Woods" (1935)
"The Indian’s Code of the Wild" (1935)
"Author’s Special Preface to his English Readers" (1935)
"The Fine Art of the Still Hunt" (1935)
"Introduction to The Great Trek" (1936)
"Grey Owl Speaks his Mind" (1936)
"A Plea for the Canadian Northland" (1936)
"Preface to Special Tour Edition" (1937)
"Grey Owl’s Farewell to the Children of The British Isles" (1937)
"Grey Owl Pleads for Wild Life" (1938)
"My Mission to My Country" (1938)
"A Message from Grey Owl" (1938)

Alcohol use

Belaney started drinking when he arrived in Canada as a young man. "At some point during his first years in Temagami, he also discovered alcohol. Years later he said that 'he wished all liquor tasted like ginger ale so he could enjoy the taste as well as the effect.' He drank for the effect."

Belaney's first wife's name was "Angele Egwuna" (a combination of Christian given name and traditional surname), while Anahareo had the completely Christian name "Gertrude Bernard". Thus there would be nothing remarkable in a Canadian Indian having a completely Christian name such as "Archie Belaney" as well as a traditional animal name.

Grey Owl. Belaney started using this as a pen and stage name in the 1930s and it is under this name that he is commonly known to the public.
Wa-sha-quon-asin. Belaney used this pen name as well as "Grey Owl" in the title pages of his books. According to one source, the word "Wa-sha-quon-asie" (ending in "e" not "n") means "white beak owl" in Ojibwe and is used to denote the screech owl, not the grey owl.
Yvonne Perrier, married 1936 in Canada. (Belaney was married under the name "McNeil", due to his undissolved marriage with Angele Egwuna.)

Notes

References

External links

When a Pilgrim of the Wild met a Cameraman of the Wild: The collaboration between Grey Owl and W.J. Oliver
On the Trail with Grey Owl and Bert Bach
In Hindsight: Half a Century of Research Discoveries in Canadian History, Episode 3: Grey Owl

The Path Of Grey Owl

Grey Owl exhibit at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery