MOWAT’S EARLY MUSINGS
Columns written as teen for StarPhoenix raised uproar in 1936
For Farley Mowat, getting a weekly column in The Star-Phoenix at just 15 years old took testes. Woodpecker testes, to be exact.
The young nature-lover, who would go on to widespread renown for his work as a writer and conservationist, got his first paid writing gig in the publication you now read.
The genesis of the column was a serious, adult dinner party of his parents’ which Mowat burst into, unable to contain his excitement at having found the testes of a woodpecker he had been dissecting.
One of the dinner guests was Bessie Woodward, whose husband Julius Sterling Woodward was editor of The Star-Phoenix from 1928 to 1946. Soon after Mowat received a note asking if he would like to write about birds for a weekly young readers section of the paper.
Mowat described the incident, and his subsequent short-lived column, in his book Born Naked. The dinner guests’ reactions — some were fascinated, others offended — foreshadowed those of his future readers. His column, Birds of the Season, ran for only two months. In that time he managed to scandalize local hunters (when he suggested they shouldn’t be shooting owls) and pious mothers (who were horrified at his descriptions of the underwater lovemaking practices of the ruddy duck).
The latter column, which was never published, still raised enough uproar that Mowat’s column was done for, although Woodward felt bad enough about it to pay Mowat his regular rate of $1, the book says.
Farley Mowat died last week at 92 years old, leaving behind a legacy of literature and conservation.
The following are a selection of his Birds of the Season columns: