The Black Joke is a rousing sea story in the tradition of the great classic pirate tales. The time is the 1930s. The loot is bootleg liquor, not pirate gold. And the ship is the “Black Joke,” the speediest, nimblest craft on the Newfoundland coast – Jonathon Spence, owner and master. An unwelcome passenger enmeshes the boat and her crew (young Peter and Kye) in danger and near destruction…until the fiercely independent people of the island of Miquelon are caught up in the fate of the “Black Joke” and the cargo aboard her.

Classic works by one of North America's greatest storytellers brought back to print in a new paperback series Inspiration for the major motion picture from Infinity Media and First Look International Central to Farley Mowat's writing is his quest to understand the often-forgotten native people of the vast arctic wilderness. In this moving collection, he allows these people to describe in their own words the adventures they experience as they struggle to survive in an isolated, untamed land. Stories of survival and courage, of superstition and fate, of uncompromising loyalty to family and tribe are presented here, offering a vivid portrait of a people whose existence is often beyond the comprehension of modern man.

Farley Mowat's youth was charmed and hilarious, and unbelievably free in its access to unspoiled nature through bird-banding expeditions and overnight outings in the dead of winter. The author writes of sleeping in haystacks for survival, and other adventures, with equal shares of Booth Tarkington and Jack London. He also brings back Mutt, the famous hero-dog of his classic THE DOG WHO WOULDN'T BE, and his pet owl Wol, hero of OWLS IN THE FAMILY. The tale of an outrageous and clever boy, BORN NAKED takes its place as the foundation of the Farley Mowat canon.

The popular sequel to his award-winning Lost in the Barrens, this is Farley Mowat’s suspense-filled story of how Awasin, Jamie and Peetryuk, three adventure-prone boys, stumble upon a cache of Viking relics in an ancient tomb somewhere in the north of Canada. Packed with excitement and with little-known information about the customs of Viking explorers, this story of survival portrays the bond of youthful friendship and the wonders of a virtually unexplored land. From the Trade Paperback edition.

It seemed like a good idea. Tired of everyday life ashore, Farley Mowat would find a sturdy boat in Newfoundland and roam the salt sea over, free as a bird. What he found was the worst boat in the world, and she nearly drove him mad. The Happy Adventure, despite all that Farley and his Newfoundland helpers could do, leaked like a sieve. Her engine only worked when she felt like it. Typically, on her maiden voyage, with the engine stuck in reverse, she backed out of the harbour under full sail. And she sank, regularly. How Farley and a varied crew, including the intrepid lady who married him, coaxed the boat from Newfoundland to Lake Ontario is a marvellous story. The encounters with sharks, rum-runners, rum and a host of unforgettable characters on land and sea make this a very funny book for readers of all ages.

To the delight of Mowat fans, the literary lion returns with an unexpected triumph. Eastern Passage marks a return to the feisty Mowat of old. In it, he throws down the gauntlet and answers the doubters and naysayers who have dogged his writing life, breaking the stubborn silence he has kept since the notorious "Saturday Night" article that appeared over a decade ago. Here, too, he relates the story of a sail down the St. Lawrence that brought him face to face with one of Canada's more shocking secrets, one most of us still don't know today. Eastern Passage is the last piece of the Mowat puzzle: the years from his return from the north in the late 1940s to his discovery of Newfoundland and his love affair with the sea in the 1950s. In this time, he writes his first books and weathers his first storm of controversy as the northern establishment tries to deny the plight of the Barrenground Inuit by discrediting Farley and his first book, People of the Deer. This sets a trail that leads straight to the character assassination he suffers 40 years later in "Saturday Night." By the 1950s, Farley's career is taking off but his first marriage is crumbling. He jumps at the chance to sail with his father down the St. Lawrence. As they approach the Saguenay River, they notice the paucity of sea life and alarming signs of disease in a beluga who swims beside their boat. From the locals, Farley hears the shocking story of the American B-50 bomber forced to ditch its Fat Boy bomb in the river a few years before. The resulting megaton explosion killed almost all riparian life in the area. It took 30 years for the area to recover. This horror forges the final tempering of Mowat the activist. By the end of the book, Farley Mowat, the writer and outraged activist we know so well, has emerged complete. As Farley ages, his courage continues to grow. This is an amazing book, funny, astute, and moving. "From the Hardcover edition."

“A poignant and tragic parable for our times . . . a powerful and anguished book.” —Globe & Mail When an 80-ton Fin Whale became trapped in a lagoon near his Newfoundland home, Farley Mowat rejoiced: here was a unique chance to observe one of the world’s most magnificent creatures up close. But some of his neighbours saw a different opportunity altogether: in a prolonged fit of violence, they blasted the whale with rifle fire, and scarred its back with motorboat propellers. Mowat appealed desperately to the police, to marine biologists, finally to the Canadian press. But it was too late. Mowat’s poignant and compelling story is an eloquent argument for the end of the whale hunt, and the rediscovery of the empathy that makes us human.

MYSTERIOUS LONGHOUSES in the Arctic, ancient stone beacons in Newfoundland - are they evidence of Europeans who crossed the Atlantic before A.D. 1000? Farley Mowat advances a controversial new theory about the first visitors to North America. Mowat's Westviking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America (1965) was highly influential in helping to establish the belief, now commonly held, that the Norse visited North America some 500 years before Columbus. And yet "a worm of unease" plagued Mowat even then, a vague feeling that he hadn't gotten it quite right. He spent the next 30 years in search of a theory that would explain inconsistencies in the archaeological evidence (such as carbon-dated ruins not left by the Inuit, but that predated the arrival of Vikings in Newfoundland by hundreds of years). Now in The Farfarers he asserts that another Indo-European people he calls the "Alban" preceded the Norse by several centuries. Throughout The Farfarers, Mowat skillfully weaves fictional vignettes of Alban life into his thoughtful reconstruction of a forgotten history. What emerges is a bold and dramatic panorama of a harsher age: an age of death-dealing warships and scanty food supply, of long, cold journeys across the night sea into unknown lands. "A spellbinding story . . . told by a master storyteller at the top of his form." -- The Globe And Mail "The book is a fascinating glimpse of yesteryear and offers brief histories on the Celts, Saxons, Vikings, Inuits, and other peoples of the northern hemisphere. Written in vigorous, picturesque prose." -- The Edmonton Sun

EYE TO EYE WITH DEATH:  THE WOLF PROJECT Hordes of bloodthirsty wolves are slaughtering the arctic caribou, and the government's Wildlife Service assigns naturalist Farley Mowat to investigate. Mowat is dropped alone onto the frozen tundra, where he begins his mission to live among the howling wolf packs and study their ways. Contact with his quarry comes quickly, and Mowat discovers not a den of marauding killers but a courageous family of skillful providers and devoted protectors of their young. As Mowat comes closer to the wolf world, he comes to fear with them the onslaught of bounty hunters and government exterminators out to erase the noble wolf community from the Arctic. Never Cry Wolf is one of the brilliant narratives on the myth and magic of wild wolves and man's true place among the creatures of nature. "We have doomed the wolf not for what it is, but for what we deliberately and mistakenly perceive it to be — the mythologized epitome of a savage, ruthless killer — which is, in reality, no more than the reflected image of ourself." — From the new Preface From the Trade Paperback edition.

Every child needs to have a pet. No one could argue with that. But what happens when your pet is an owl, and your owl is terrorizing the neighbourhood? In Farley Mowat’s exciting children’s story, a young boy’s pet menagerie – which includes crows, magpies, gophers and a dog – grows out of control with the addition of two cantankerous pet owls. The story of how Wol and Weeps turn the whole town upside down is warm, funny, and bursting with adventure and suspense.

In 1957, Farley Mowat shipped out aboard one of Newfoundland’s famous coastal steamers, tramping from outport to outport along the southwest coast. The indomitable spirit of the people and the bleak beauty of the landscape would lure him back again and again over the years. In the process of falling in love with a people and a place, Mowat also met the woman who would be the great love of his life. A stunningly beautiful and talented young artist, Claire Wheeler insouciantly climbed aboard Farley’s beloved but jinxed schooner as it lay on the St. Pierre docks, once again in a cradle for repairs, and changed both their lives forever. This is the story of that love affair, of summers spent sailing the Newfoundland coast, and of their decision to start their life together in Burgeo, one of the province’s last remaining outports. It is also an unforgettable portrait of the last of the outport people and a way of life that had survived for centuries but was now passing forever. Affectionate, unsentimental, this is a burnished gem from an undiminished talent. *I was inside my vessel painting the cabin when I heard the sounds of a scuffle nearby. I poked my head out the companionway in time to see a lithesome young woman swarming up the ladder which leaned against Happy Adventure’s flank. Whining expectantly, the shipyard dog was endeavouring to follow this attractive stranger. I could see why. As slim and graceful as a ballet dancer (which, I would later learn, was one of her avocations), she appeared to be wearing a gleaming golden helmet (her own smoothly bobbed head of hair) and was as radiantly lovely as any Saxon goddess. I invited her aboard, while pushing the dog down the ladder. “That’s only Blanche,” I reassured my visitor. “He won’t bite. He’s just, uh . . . being friendly.” “That’s nice to know,” she said sweetly. Then she smiled . . . and I was lost.* –From Bay of Spirits From the Hardcover edition.

Here is a Siberia unheard of in the West. Once the most remote place of exile in all of Russia, Mowat describes it as a burgeoning land of opportunity and growth. Granted extraordinary freedom to visit places rarely seen by any westerner since 1917, Farley Mowat and his wife, Claire, travelled more than 29,000 miles over mountains, steppes, taiga and tundra to meet the people who have chosen to make Siberia their home and livelihood. With his classic exuberance and wit, Mowat brings to life a place and a people who share the top of the world with us – their hopes and aspirations, their humour, and their dedication to the dramatic awakening of Sibir, the Sleeping land. From the Hardcover edition.

In July 1942, Farley Mowat was an eager young infantryman bound for Europe and impatient for combat. This powerful, true account of the action he saw, fighting desperately to push the Nazis out of Italy, evokes the terrible reality of war with an honesty and clarity fiction can only imitate. In scene after unforgettable scene, he describes the agony and antic humor of the soldier's existence: the tedium of camp life, the savagery of the front, and the camaraderie shared by those who have been bloodied in battle.

The northeastern seaboard of the United States and Canada, from Cape Cod to Labrador, was the first region in North America to suffer from human exploitation. In this timeless narrative, Farley Mowat describes in harrowing detail the devastation inflicted upon the birds, whales, fish, and mammals of this icy coast -- from polar bears and otters to cod, seals, and ducks. Since its first publication some 20 years ago, this powerful work has served as both a warning to humanity and an inspiration for change.

Farely Mowat's best-loved book tells the splendidly entertaining story of his boyhood on the Canadian prairies. Mutt's pedigree was uncertain, but his madness was indisputable. He climbed tress and ladders, rode passenger in an open car wearing goggles and displaying hunting skills that bordered on sheer genius. He was a marvelous dog, worthy of an unusual boy growing up in a raw, untamed wilderness. From the Paperback edition.