| Lancette Arts Journal Founded in 2000 |
NON-Fiction Book Reviews From our Archives |
June 2005 |
High Latitude
by Farley Mowat, Key Porter Books,
hardcover, 300 pages, $32.95 ISBN 1-55263-473-6
By J. M. Smith
Farley Mowat, master Canadian storyteller, is the author of 38 books, including People of the Deer, The Boy Who Wouldn't Be, Never Cry Wolf, A Whale for the Killing, The Farfarers, and Walking on the Land. They have sold over 14 million copies in 24 languages. Now High Latitudes chronicles Mowat's epic journey across northern Canada in 1966.
Canada's north in 1966 was "undergoing seismic changes in consequence of a massive 'Northern Vision' campaign launched by the Conservative Government of John Diefenbaker to 'enrich the nation by making available the Canadian Arctic's golden cornucopia of minerals, fossil fuels and other valuable resources.'" Suggestions that opening this 'golden cornucopia' might bring disaster/adverse consequences in the North were ignored.
After an enlightening visit to Spence Bay early in 1966, Mowat subjected his Toronto publisher, Jack McClelland, to something of a tirade. "The vandals are taking over the Arctic, Jack, and they're getting away with it by peddling the myth the whole north is a bloody great Klondike, its frozen guts filled with fabulous wealth. The Arctic's crawling with southern business types who don't give a damn what happens to . . .
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