This book describes the range and behavior of the Great Gray Owl in the states of California, Oregon and Washington. The tallest owl in North America the Great Gray Owl is both mysterious and hard to find in the forest.

An Englishman with the imagination and the arrogance to pose as a North American Indian, a fur trapper who kept beaver as pets, a drunken brawling bigamist who embraced the wilderness to escape his ghosts, a compelling champion of that wilderness who travelled much of the world speaking to huge audiences about the fate of the natural world - who was the real Archie Belaney, known to many as Grey Owl?Grey Owl, the Mystery of Archie Belaney is a unique, accessible collection of narrative poetry and journal entries which examines this dynamic, often contradictory, always fascinating man who reconstructed his identity and delivered a message of conservation to the world.

His real name was Archie Belaney. Born and raised in Hastings by maiden aunts, Archie dreamed of escaping to the Canadian wilderness. Finally, in 1906 at the age of seventeen, Archie's dream came true and he left England to live the frontier life in the Canadian northland. He adopted Indian customs, changed his name to Grey Owl and became famous throughout Northern Ontario as a trapper, riverman, and fire-ranger. Even in the rough frontier, Grey Owl was notorious - for his daring, his arrogance and his devastating effect on women. After a stint in the Canadian army during World War I, and two bigamous marriages, Grey Owl fell in love with Anahareo, an Iroquois girl. Together they gave up the traplines to work for the protection of animals and the conservation of the land they both loved. A man before his time, Grey Owl wrote books about the Canadian wilderness and travelled the world lecturing about conservation. But it was not until his premature death in 1938, that the truth about his background was finally revealed, a truth so deeply buried that even his beloved Anahareo was unaware of it.

A self-taught artist and photographer, Hap Wilson has travelled over sixty thousand kilometres by canoe and snowshoe, and embarked on more than three hundred wilderness expeditions. He is one of North America's best-known wilderness guides and canoeists, and has been building sustainable trails for more than thirty years. He is also the co-founder of the environmental group Earthroots. He lives in Rosseau, Ontario. for more information, please visit Hap's website at www.eskakwa.ca. Ingrid Zschogner is a self taught artist and outdoor enthusiast who has been creating detailed portraits in oil, graphite, and pastel for more than fifteen years. She is also a professional trailbuilder, wilderness guide, and environmental activist. To view Ingrid's portfolio, please visit her website at www.wildrosedesigns.ca.

Anahareo (1906-1985) was a Mohawk writer, environmentalist, and activist. She was also the wife of Grey Owl, aka Archie Belaney, the internationally celebrated writer and speaker who claimed to be of Scottish and Apache descent, but whose true ancestry as a white Englishman only became known after his death. Devil in Deerskins is Anahareo’s autobiography up to and including her marriage to Grey Owl. In vivid prose she captures their extensive travels through the bush and their work towards environmental and wildlife protection. Here we see the daily life of an extraordinary Mohawk woman whose independence, intellect and moral conviction had direct influence on Grey Owl’s conversion from trapper to conservationist. Though first published in 1972, Devil in Deerskins’s observations on indigeneity, culture, and land speak directly to contemporary audiences. Devil in Deerskins is the first book in the First Voices, First Texts series. This new edition includes forewords by Anahareo’s daughters, Katherine Swartile and Anne Gaskell, an afterword by Sophie McCall, and reintroduces readers to a very important but largely forgotten text by one of Canada’s most talented Aboriginal writers.

Originally published in 1936, this classic collection of Canadian yarns harkens to a simpler time, a time when we were closer to the natural world around us. It is a celebration of the pure delight of storytelling, and of the bounty of the land. Grey Owl was both a hearty outdoorsman and a skilled raconteur, and his stories of life in the bush, so beloved by readers then and now, are the perfect companion for a cold winter night or a lazy summer afternoon. In Tales of an Empty Cabin, he offers an eclectic sampling of campfire stories—some are tall tales, while some are drawn directly from the author’s own day-to-day life. All are characterized by Grey Owl’s unique wit, charm, and passion of nature.