On the surface an adventure story, its structure is allegorical. Lost in the Barrens (1956) won the Governor General's Award and is a masterpiece that incorporates many of the themes central to his adult works. The highly ironic My Discovery of America (1985) speculates on the reasons he was placed in the American "lookout book" for undesirables and refused entry into the US in 1985.įarley Mowat's novels for young readers, including The Dog Who Wouldn't Be (1957) and Owls in the Family (1961), are classics of Canadian children's literature. Leacock Medal 1970) reflects his later disillusion A Whale for the Killing (1972) transforms the wanton shooting of a trapped whale into a symbolic tragedy. Three books centre on his eight-year residency inīurgeo, Newfoundland: The Rock within the Sea (1968) presents his seafaring neighbours as heroic because they are uncorrupted by modern technology The Boat Who Wouldn't Float (1969, The Regiment (1961) and And No Birds Sang (1979) deal with his experiences in the Second World War. Many of his works are autobiographical: The Dog Who Wouldn't Be (1957) and Owls in the Family (1961) are comic recollections of his youth Mowat’s antipathies produce ridicule, lampoons and at times, evangelical condemnation. Commitments to ideals inspire verbalįireworks, while his enthusiasms evoke poetic descriptions and vivid images. No matter what the context, his narratives and anecdotes are fast-paced and compelling, his tonegraceful, personal, and conversational. Mowat is considered a natural storyteller, but he is also a brilliant stylist. His observations led to his first book, People of the Deer (1952), which made him an instant, albeit controversial, celebrity. He studied at the University of Toronto on a field trip as a student biologist he became outraged at the problems of the Inuit,Īll of which he attributed to white misunderstanding and exploitation. "mostly verse" while living with his family in Windsor (1930–33) and then publishing a regular column based on his observations of birds in The Star-Phoenix after hisįamily moved to Saskatoon. "A swift kick to any remaining complacency about the plight of our oceans" ( National Geographic Adventure), The Whale Warriors is "two parts high seas swashbuckle and one part inconvenient truth" ( Surfer).The great grandnephew of Ontario Premier Sir Oliver Mowat and son of a veteran of the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Farley Mowat has been writing since his pre-teens. The exploitation of endangered whales is emblematic of an over-exploitation of the seas that is now entering its desperate denouement with our own survival in the balance. Japan threatens to send down defense aircraft and warships, Australia appeals for calm, New Zealand dispatches military surveillance aircraft, the US Office of Naval Intelligence issues a piracy warning, and international media begin to track the developing whale war.Īs Heller describes the slow, rusting, old Norwegian trawler Farley Mowat and the fast, new six ship whaling fleet of the Japanese, we also learn about the crisis of our oceans, which are on the verge of total ecosystem collapse. But while the ships are far from rescue, the world is watching. Heller recreates a nail-biting showdown when Captain Watson and his crew attempt to deliberately ram an enormous Japanese whaling ship, trying to tear open its hull with a steel blade called a "Can Opener." In thirty-five-foot seas, a deadly game of Antarctic chicken begins. The little ship is black, flies under a jolly roger, and carries members of the Sea Shepherd Society, a radical environmental group who are willing to die to stop illegal whale hunting. For two months in 2005, journalist Peter Heller was aboard the Farley Mowat as it stalked its prey-a Japanese whaling fleet-through the storms and ice of Antarctica. The Whale Warriors is an adventure story set in the far reaches of the globe. Description Now with a new afterword by the author, the tenth-anniversary edition of Peter Heller's "swashbuckling adventure" ( Publishers Weekly) takes us on a hair-raising journey aboard a whale saving pirate ship with a vigilante crew whose mission is to stop illegal Japanese whaling in the stormy seas of Antarctica.
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