“Remember, you belong to Nature, not it to you.” – Archibald Belaney, aka Grey Owl
“Give me a good canoe, a pair of Jibway snowshoes, my beaver, my family and 10,000 square miles of wilderness and I am happy” – Archibald Belaney, aka Grey Owl
I thought it was appropriate to post information on Archie Belaney, the Englishman better known as Grey Owl, and a bit about his canoes and canoeing. Grey Owl wrote several books including Men of the Last Frontier,Pilgrims of the Wild, and Tales of an Empty Cabin, and gave a series of public lectures, all expounding the need for wilderness.
Despite Archie’s fraudulent persona as a Native, he was at least responsible for bringing attention to the need to conserve the Canadian wilderness, first through his writing and then in public appearances. While Archie Belaney has been ridiculed as “a fraud, a bigamist, a drunk, a scoundrel and a liar” (as Dave Yanko starts out his article, Grey Owl’s Cabin on Virtual Saskatchewan, http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl.html), other writers see him as a champion of conservation, to the point that “some believe he should rank with John Muir and Rachel Carson in the environmentalists’ pantheon” (as described by Kenneth Brower in his article Grey Owl in The Atlantic Online, January 1990, http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/90jan/greyowl.htm).
For those of you who may not be aware of him, I’ll post this brief overview of Grey Owl from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Owl:
Grey Owl (or Wa-sha-quon-asin, from the Ojibway wenjiganoozhiinh, meaning “great horned owl” or “great grey owl”) was the name Archibald Belaney (September 18, 1888 – April 13, 1938) adopted when he took on a First Nations identity as an adult. A British native, he became a writer and one of Canada’s first conservationists. Revelation of his origins after his death adversely affected his reputation for some time. Since the 1970s and at the centennial of his birth, there has been renewed public appreciation for his conservation efforts. Recognition has included biographies, a historic plaque at his birthplace, a 1999 film by Richard Attenborough (starring Pierce Brosnan), and a 2005 TV special about him.
This website gives a more in-depth biography of Grey Owl.
As well as the previous links noted, for more information on Grey Owl or Archie Belaney see the following links:
http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl_bio.html
http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl.html
http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/nlc-bnc/heroes_lore_yore_can_hero-ef/2001/h6-230-e.html
http://www.econet.sk.ca/sk_enviro_champions/grey_owl.html
http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=10191
http://www.pastforward.ca/perspectives/august_112000.htm
http://www.1066.net/greyowl/index.htm
http://archives.cbc.ca/environment/environmental_protection/clips/12551/(Note: Contains video of Grey Owl and a CBC report on him…..including the recollections of John Diefenbaker.)
http://hpcanpub.mcmaster.ca/node/176500
Some photos related to Grey Owl:
Portrait of Grey Owl (1936), by Yousif Karsh, from Wikipedia,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Owl.
Photos and signature of Grey Owl from http://www.waskesiu.org/things_to_do/grey_owls_wake.shtml.
Grey Owl, courtesy of Parks Canada, from Virtual Saskatchewan, http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl.html.
Archie Belaney a.k.a. Grey Owl, courtesy of Parks Canada, from Virtual Saskatchewan, http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl_bio.html
The affection was real. But the images were carefully constructed to elicit a sympathetic reaction. Image courtesy of Parks Canada, from Virtual Saskatchewan, http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl.html.
Grey Owl at the time he visited Hastings in 1935, from http://www.1066.net/greyowl/.
Grey Owl courtesy of Tourism Saskatchewan, from http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/grey_owl_archibald_stansfield_belaney.html.
Image of Grey Owl from http://www.historycomesalive.ca/canadians/images/belaney.jpg
Grey Owl is shown here with a beaver pup in Riding Mountain Park (courtesy Archives of Ontario/P-150), from http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=ArchivedFeatures&Params=A2132.
Image of Grey Owl from http://www.historycomesalive.ca/canadians/images/greyowl.jpg.
Picture of what is reported to be Archie Belaney’s cabin, from Mr. Canoehead,http://www.mistercanoehead.com/mississagi07.html, from the trip report on a July 2007 Mississagi River trip.
Picture of one of the walls on what is reported to be Archie Belaney’s cabin, from Mr. Canoehead, http://www.mistercanoehead.com/mississagi07.html, from the trip report on a July 2007 Mississagi River trip.
This report from Mr. Canoehead states the following on this cabin that Archie Belaney puportedly lived in at one time:
The legendary Grey Owl (Archie Belaney) lived in this cabin. Although he was not a native, he lived as one and wrote about his wilderness life. It is unfortunate that his dwelling has been defaced by hundreds of people over the years….The current owner could do more than put up ‘private property’ signs. A carving board, for those who must, could be erected away from the cabin. As well, Grey Owl is an icon of our wilderness heritage and as such should be better honoured….
The clean-cut fellow on the right is Archie Belaney, who would later become known as Grey Owl. Archives of Ontario, Duvall photo. (C273-1-0-46-23), from http://pastforward.ca/perspectives/sep_2002.htm.
From the Chapleau Library’s Vince Crichton Collection, http://www.canadianfishing.com/crichton/vc/vc1.htm, Grey Owl (Archie Belaney) and Anahero, 1920s.
Archie Belaney (Grey Owl) & Gertrude Bernard (Anahareo)’s cabin in Quebec, from http://www.pastforward.ca/perspectives/December_232005.htm.
Grey Owl’s cabin on Ajawaan Lake, from Virtual Saskatchewan, http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl.html.
An empty cabin a long way from Sussex. But in the wilderness – still, Grey Owl’s cabin on Ajawaan Lake, from Virtual Saskatchewan, http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl.html.
Ajawaan lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, Grey Owl’s cabin “Beaverlodge”, from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Greyowls_cabin_ajawaan_lake.jpg.
From http://www.waskesiu.org/things_to_do/grey_owls_wake.shtml:
Displayed at Beaver Lodge:
I hope you understand me. I am not particularly anxoius to be known at all, but my place is back in the woods, there is my home and there I stay.
But is this country of Canada, to which i am intensely loyal, and and whose natural heritage I am trying to interpret so that it mabe better understod and appreciated here, at least , i want to be known for what I am
Graves of Grey Owl, Anahareo, Shirley Dawn (daughter), Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graves_go_an_sd.jpg.
Grey Owl or Archie Belaney have been viewed by many as an icon of the Canadian wilderness, even perhaps of the canoe and canoeing.
In the article Grey Owl: Voice for Canada’s Wilderness by Matthew Jackson, from Paddler Magazine Online, http://www.paddlermagazine.com/issues/2000_3/article_45.shtml, comes this:
An excellent canoeist, Archie’s skills as a paddler are what likely saved him from self-destruction as a bingeing alcoholic, helping him to find work as a ranger in anOntario forest reserve. Paddling a canoe, Archie was at his best, and he spent two summers traveling between ranger stations throughout the remote park. On his canoe outings he began to notice the effects timber barons were having on the northern forests, and angrily composed on birch bark his first statements as a conservationist: “God made this country for the trees—Don’t burn it up and make it look like hell!”
In The Canoe In Canadian Cultures, edited by John Jennings, Bruce W. Hodgins, and Doreen Small, in the chapter Being There: Bill Mason And The Canadian Canoeing Tradition, James Raffan compares Bill Mason to previous personalities (starting with Tom Thomson) associated with canoeing:
….though there are other people since Thomson who have come to be identified with the canoe – Grey Owl, Sigurd Olson, Eric Morse, Omer Stringer, Kirk Wipper, Dan Gibson, and a host of Liberal politicians – none have captured the essence of canoeing in the Canadian imagination like Bill Mason. (p. 24)
So maybe Grey Owl wasn’t quite in Bill’s league but he’s up there LOL LOL.
In Bark, Skin and Cedar: Exploring the Canoe in Canadian Experience, James Raffan states:
…in the more southerly reaches of the country, the great imposter Archie (Grey Owl) Belaney’s conservation efforts on behalf of the beleagured Canadian beaver were similarly secured and authenticated by the canoe-tripping experience. (p.184)
As to how he viewed the wilderness and various means of travel through it, including the canoe, Grey Owl (Archie Belaney) said it best when he wrote:
The trail, then is not merely a connecting link between widely distant points, it becomes an idea, a symbol of self-sacrifice, and deathless determination, an ideal to be lived up to, a creed from which none may falter…. Stars paling in the East, breath that whistles through the nostrils like steam. Tug of the tump line, swing of the snowshoes; tracks in the snow, every one a story; hissing, slanting sheets of snow; swift rattle of snowshoes over an unseen trail in the dark. A strip of canvas, a long fire, and a roof of smoke. Silence.
Canoes gliding between palisades of rock. Teepees, smoke-dyed, on a smooth point amongst the red pines; inscrutable faces peering out. Two wooden crosses at a rapids. Dim trails. Tug of the tump line again; always. Old tea pails, worn snowshoes, hanging on limbs, their work well done; throw them not down on the ground. Little fires by darkling streams. Slow wind of evening hovering in the tree tops, passing on to nowhere. Gay, caparisoned clouds moving in review, under the setting sun. Fading day. Pictures forming and fading in glowing embers. Voices in the running waters, calling, calling. The lone cry of a loon from an unseen lake. Peace, contentment. This is the trail.
(From Men of the Last Frontier, pp. 78-79….also quoted in Bark, Skin and Cedar: Exploring the Canoe in Canadian Experience by James Raffan, p.15.)
From Grey Owl: The Curious Life of Archie Belaney by Irene Ternier Gordon, it is in Grey Owls’ own words that a better side of his character emerges as in his description of canoeing with his fellow rangers:
The canoes seem to leap suddenly ahead, and one after another, with a wild howling hurrah, we are into the thick of it. Huge combers [waves], any one of which would swamp a canoe, stand terrifically beside us there is a thunderous roar which envelopes us like a tunnel, a last flying leap and we are in the still pool below thrilled to the bone. (pp. 35-6)
So what about Grey Owl’s canoe. On the Grey Owl’s Hastings message board, http://www.1066.net/greyowl/visitors.htm, comes this:
27 Jun 2000
Hi there! Great Bio on Grey Owl! I am actually looking fo some information about Grey Owl’s Peterborough Canoe. Does anyone know what colour it was? Most photographs of him in it are black and white. Thanks for the help,
Sarah Ferguson, Interpretive staff
Assuming this must be someone from the Canadian Canoe Museum (the email address shown on the message indicated as coming from the Canadian Canoe Museum), I contacted John Summers (General Manager of the Museum….who happens to be a great fan of Archie Belaney/Grey Owl….he even had a sailing canoe named Jelly Roll in honour of one of Grey Owl’s beavers) who has passed it on to Jeremy Ward (the Museum’s Curator). I’ll update this entry when I hear back from Jeremy with more info on this.
On researching the WCHA forum on the Peterborough Minetta wood canvas canoe (I have a “new” old 1950s Minetta so I was looking for info on that model), I found the following, http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=1326&highlight=Archie+Belaney+Grey+Owl, which was a post sometime back about a Peterborough Minetta that was supposedly used by Archie Belaney or Grey Owl ….of course as was pointed out in the posts to the WCHA forum this canoe couldn’t have been a Peterborough Minetta as Archie Belaney died in the 1930s and the Minetta wasn’t out as a model until the 1950s. But this thread did contain some interesting comments from various WCHA members (as always quite knowledgeable).
Starting the thread, Dave Lanthier (from Kamloops, BC) wrote enquiring about a Peterborough Minetta Model #1815, S # G4628:
I have it from a good source that this canoe was originally used by the park wardens of Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan. The story has it that to prevent adverse publicity it was not unusual for a park warden to assist the famous yet very inebriated “Grey Owl” [Archie Belaney] back to his ” Beaver Lodge” cabin. What I would like to do is try too prove or disprove that this canoe was used by these park wardens and that Archie Belaney might have spent time in it. Firstly, what years was the 15′ Peterborough Minetta produced? Second, does any one have pictures or any history of Prince Albert wardens and their canoes? Thirdly, what other information might help solve this puzzle? Thanks.
It was pointed out by several others that the canoe couldn’t be a Minetta because it was not introduced until the 1950s. Dick Persson (also of Headwater Boat Restorations) replied with the following:
Below attached picture is one of many of Archie Belaney in Prince Albert National Park. That canoe looks more like a Chestnut “Bob’s” than a Peterborough Minetta.
Picture from WCHA forum, http://forums.wcha.org/showthread.php?t=1326&highlight=Archie+Belaney+Grey+Owl.
So while there seems some question as to whether Archie (Grey Owl) Belaney’s canoe was a Peterborough or a Chestnut, since this was after the merger of the two companies under the auspices of Canadian Watercraft Limited in 1923, it was very likely a wood-canvas canoe made in New Brunswick’s Chestnut Co. plant regardless of what name was on the decal on the deck….as most of the wood-canvas canoes of both companies were made at the Chestnut factory.
The Beaver People, http://www.nfb.ca/film/Beaver_People/, a short silent film that was made about the famous conservationist, Grey Owl (born Archibald Belaney), and his wife, Angele Egwuna, who had a special talent for interacting with beavers, was made in 1928. Note: The beavers in the film may be Grey Owl’s pets, Jellyroll and Rawhide. If you watch closely, there are several scenes of Grey Owl paddling a wood-canvas canoe….first appearing alone paddling along a stream or beaver “canal” at approximately 2:18….then slapping the paddle on the water to get the beavers’ attention before he is seen to be calling the beavers (roughly2:28 to 2:38)….later he seen getting one of the beavers to come into the canoe (at 2:47 to 3:05). The canoe used seems to be an earlier Chestnut model with similar “closed” gunwales as the Morris canoes. It also looks like the beavers might have been snacking on the canoe based on the damage just below one gunwale at the centre thwart LOL LOL. Grey Owl is seen from 3:43 to 3:58 again “playing” with the beavers in the canoe….which does seem to have the lines of an early Chestnut (very similar to a Morris)….these had more recurve and higher ends than later Chestnuts.
In 1929, The Beaver Family was made, http://www.nfb.ca/film/Beaver_Family/. This was a short silent film portraying Grey Owl and a family of beavers who would come when he called and take food from his hand without the slightest fear. The film is set in Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba. The first few minutes of this film show Grey Owl again with a wood-canvas canoe. At approximately 1:20, he is seen portaging a canoe….this canoe appears to be a Chestnut, possibly a Bob’s Special with a wider beam….and appears to be the same as the canoe in the picture Dick Persson posted on the WCHA forum. At about 2:25, Grey Owl is seen paddling the canoe from a standing position; then at approximately 2:40, he is seen paddling, very much in what we know as the Canadian style today.
Here are some other picures of Archie Belaney (Grey Owl) in a canoe:
Grey Owl on one of his canoeing excursions. From a copy of an old postcard, http://www.pastforward.ca/perspectives/august_112000.htm.
Photo of Grey Owl from http://www.econet.sk.ca/sk_enviro_champions/grey_owl.html.
Grey Owl at Riding Mountain National Park, Manitoba, circa. 1931, photographer: Oliver, W.J., Calgary, Alberta, also from http://paddlemaking.blogspot.com/2010/01/grey-owls-canoe-paddles.html.
For more on Grey Owl and stories related to him and paddling….including canoe trips see the following (I have repeated some previous links):
http://pastforward.ca/perspectives/sep_2002.htm
http://www.mistercanoehead.com/mississagi07.html
http://www.paddlermagazine.com/issues/2000_3/article_45.shtml
http://www.bearlair.ca/greyowl.htm
http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771055379
http://www.travelarticles.co.uk/Features/greyowl.htm
http://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/pageant/04/greyowlchristmas.shtml
http://wildernesscanoe.ca/article.htm
http://www.virtualsk.com/current_issue/grey_owl.html
As an aside, the Paddle Making blog has a post on Grey Owl’s canoe paddles, http://paddlemaking.blogspot.com/2010/01/grey-owls-canoe-paddles.html, that was also posted today….great info….and I really do think that great minds must think alike LOL LOL (I had no idea that this info on Grey Owl’s paddles had been posted until I checked the Paddle Making blog….after I’d posted this blog entry originally)….I have to admit that there were some great additional pictures from Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan, from a link to Tom Buttle’s travel blog, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html, on the post on Paddle Making blog….I’ve included some of them here:
Trail sign, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Trail sign, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Trail sign, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Grey Owl’s cabin, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Grey Owl plaque, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Cabin stove, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Beaver lodge, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Grey Owl tribute, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Grey Owl signed paddle, http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tombuttle/10/1246029958/tpod.html#_.
Of course there is also Grey Owl Paddles, http://www.greyowlpaddles.com/, a world renowned Canadian paddle company.
Check out this interesting video from YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhRuWMDR4Bw&feature=related, entitled Wa-Sha-Quon-Asin Grey Owl.
One final sidebar: In Kevin Callan’s book A Paddler’s Guide To Algonquin Park, there is an interesting tale involving Archie Belaney. Kevin writes:
Many historical figures have made use of the Smoke Lake/Ragged Lake portage….rangers continuously used the trail while out on patrol in search of poachers.
One of the most noteworthy poachers in Algonquin was Archie Belaney (Grey Owl). In the winter of 1909, Belaney boasted to another trapper that he could head clear across Algonquin Park undetected by park rangers. It didn’t take long for the rangers to get wind of the bet, and they quickly set out in search of the skilled woodsman, with Mark Robinson and Zeph Naden patrolling from McCraney Lake to the Oxtongue River and Bud Callighen and Albert Ranger patrolling from Cache Lake through Bonnechere Lake to Big Porcupine.
There are several reports of Belaney’s capture, but the one that seems to ring most true is that of Bud Callighen. In his diary, Callighen writes that long after dark Belaney stumbled into his and Albert’s camp. His feet nearly lost to frostbite after falling through thin ice earlier in the night, he asked the rangers for help. Belaney was escorted by all four rangers to park headquarters and was then taken to have his feet treated at Mark Robinson’s Canoe Lake shelter hut. (pp.31-32)
