Farley Mowat is a Canadian author and conservationist. He perhaps best known for his book Never Cry Wolf, which was made into a lovely Disney film. However, this book has been greatly pilloried by wolf biologists, for Mowat suggested that wolves were living largely on small prey and not killing caribou during the denning season. Of course, some of those scientists created a bit of a straw man and said that Mowat was saying that wolves were living exclusively on mice. However, it is true that Mowat never observed the wolves as intensely as the book suggests. Most of what he knew about wolves comes from the Ihalmiut people, an Inuit people who lived on carbiou meat. These people had a deep respect for the wolf, and one of their religious stories is told in the book. In fact, Never Cry Wolf came right after Mowat’s People of the Deer was published. This book was actually about the plight of Ihalmiut people, who were being driven off their native hunting grounds and “civilized” by the Canadian government.
Mowat wrote a great many children’s books, like Lost in the Barrens, Owls in the Family, and The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be. The last two are based upon his childhood pets growing up in Saskatoon. (If you’d like to read the real life stories of both check out Mowat’s memoir Born Naked.)
However, my favorite books of his are both of partial historical research. One of these is the Sea of Slaughter. This book is a compendium of Western man’s destruction of “animate creation” in the northeastern part of North America. It includes some interesting speculations. One of these is that bison once ranged to the Atlantic Coast of Canada but were decimated by the Portuguese seeking “buffle hides.” Another is that polar bears were once found as far south as Boston, and one was killed in Delaware Bay in the eighteenth century. He also claims that the St. John’s water dog (it looks something like a Labrador) is actually a dog belonging to the Beothuck people of Newfoundland, but most mainstream histories and archaeological evidence suggests otherwise. However, it is possible that the Newfoundlanders who had the black water dogs were not Beothuck.
And that brings me to my other favorite Mowat book.
In 2000, Mowat published a book of speculative history on the first Europeans to settle the New World. He had previously argued that these were Norse. He even wrote a book on the Norse in North America called Westviking that predated the scientific acceptance of the Norse in Newfoundland at the L’Anse aux Meadows site.
In this book, however, Mowat argues that the first settlers from Europe were the descendants of the ancient Pre- Indo-European peoples of Scotland– the ones who built the brochs. He argues that these people were always referred to by the prefix Alb or Alp. They escaped to the mountains when the Indo-European arrived. Thus, the mountains in the middle of Europe were called the Alps. The hills around Rome were called Alban Hills, where a city called Alba Longa was located. As you may know, Scotland was once referred to as Alba, which, Mowat speculates, is the Gaelic renaming of the land that they conquered. The Picts had previously conquered the broch builders, and the Gaelic-speaking Dalriada Scotti from Ireland had conquered them.
The Broch-builders are called Albans in Mowat’s work. Their main task is to collect walrus tusks, which they sell to European markets. As they move west in search of walrus rookeries and to escape the Picts, the Gaels, and then the Vikings, they come in contact with Iceland, which Mowat says they call “Tili,” and then Greenland and then Newfoundland. They eventually are driven from Greenland and Tili and then are cut off from Europe.
He uses lots of saga, lore, and speculation in this book. I don’t know whether it is true, but it is very interesting. He argues that the Albans call Newfoundland Albania, and that the vikings often referred to this land as such. One viking actually goes to this Albania, where he meets people riding horses and worshipping in Christian Churches. (The other Albania is mostly Muslim and was during viking times).
But where did these people go? Mowat argues that a group of natives who have been pejoratively called “Jackatars” are actually descendants of these broch builders. They are generally thought of a people of mixed French and Mi’kmaq heritage. He thinks they are also part Alban. He implies the black dogs actually came from Scotland originally. (Of course, we actually do know that golden retrievers come from Scotland and descend from St. John’s water dogs.)
I don’t know whether any of Mowat’s theories in that book are true. The theories are almost impossible to prove. However, it is so beautifully written and beguiling that one almost wants to believe. This book is called Farfarers: Before the Norse.
