Tiltle: Grey Owl - Writer, Conservationist (1888-1938)

PHOTOGRAPHER: Unknown

National Archives of Canada, negative no. C-036186

Grey Owl was born Archibald Stansfeld Belaney in Hastings, England in 1888. He came to Canada first in 1906 when he settled in northern Ontario and worked a trap line. He served with the Canadian Army overseas in World War I and was wounded in 1915. When he returned to Canada, he married Gertrude Bernard (Anahareo), an Iroquois woman who was to have a profound influence on his life.

It was through her active encouragement and persuasion that Grey Owl gave up trapping and hunting. He turned his considerable skills as a story-teller into a career as a well-known writer, lecturer, and vocal conservationist. He died in 1938.

Anahareo's role in his new life was honoured in October 1979, when she was the second person to receive the Order of Nature Award from the International League for Animal Rights. (The first person to receive it was Dr. Albert Schweitzer).