THE LITTLE PEOPLE

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21418, 9 March 1935, Page 17

THE LITTLE PEOPLE

THE STORY OF A STRUGGLE TO SAVE Pilgrims of the Wild. By Grey Owl. Lovat Dickson Ltd. 283 pp. (12/6 net.) Although the existence and work and passion of Grey Owl are known through his periodical writings and the films, the man's full story is unknown except to the readers of his autobiography, "Pilgrims of the Wild." The Pilgrims are the man, son of a Scot and an Apache, guide, trapper, soldier, and now a famous forest warden, and his wife, Analareo, Ojibway princess, lipstickwielder, most enduring of workers, and indomitable traveller. They travelled into the wilds of Canada seeking sanctuary where they might foster a colony of beaver. The conversion of Grey Owl from careless destroyer to passionate defender of the beaver is the most fascinating part of the book, always excepting the direct descriptions of the activities of his subjects. The pilgrimage was bitter and difficult. Once or twice it failed, and all chance of survival of man or beaver seemed gone, but some spiritual force drove the man to persist in saving ji pair of the Little People, and suddenly, by his own unconscious efforts, all his difficulties were removed. He became a writer. Although he was soundly educated, English as a literary medium was at first beyond him, for he had in daily intercourse been obliged for years to use an Indian dialect. When he began to turn to writing he had his knowledge of the Bible, Shakespeare, and Emerson, traces of whose influence can be detected throughout his work. He began to amass words, using the only form of machinery to which he overcame his aversion—a wireless set. He absorbed the vocabularies of book reviewers, news reporters, politicians and others whose trade is words. These elements were mastered by his genius, by the simplicity and unity of his purpose and life, and by his acute sympathy with his subject—wild creatures in their home. Grey Owl became particularly adept in characterisation, as his amusing portrait of the Munchausen, Joe Isaac, amply reveals. All his natural descriptions have life and vigour and understanding. Thus, his first two beavers, weighing less than half a pound apiece, "tramped sedately up and down the bottom of the canoe with that steady, persistent, purposeful walk that we were later to know so well," and the old beaver, Rawhide, whom he gravely wounded, almost to the death, in the capture, "by his very quiet insistence, this inflexible yet calm determination. this exercise of some unexpected latent power within him, overcame one by one the obstacles imposed on, him by his new environment, and found his place at: last, and eventually took control and became no more a suppliant but a leader." The real power of (he book is its representation of conflict. First, the conflict in the man to supplant his habits of destruction and callousness by habits of preservation and compassion. Then the conflict with men and the elements to make his pwn home and to save and protect the Little Peonle.