Grey Owl. The name evokes one of the most intriguing characters in Canada’s past, the Englishman Archie Belaney, who reinvented himself as a “Red Indian” to dramatize his urgent concern for the conservation of the natural world. But did his purpose justify this misrepresentation?

Featuring a New Introduction from the Author

Twenty-five years ago, award-winning Indigenous poet Armand Garnet Ruffo released this compelling long poem to reassess the contradictory life and personality of the infamous Grey Owl. At once both humorous and tragic, Grey Owl weaves archival research and reminiscence, documentary, metafictional and lyrical forms, along with personal family connection to offer insights into the man and his mission. In accessible, dramatic language, Ruffo raises difficult questions about voice and appropriation, Indigenous culture, human rights and the environment.

“In a series of poems the contradictory elements of Grey Owl’s personality can be related with a deftness and lightness which prose might not have been able to capture.”
“Ruffo narrates the Grey Owl story simply, cleanly, and smoothly. . . . The poet is at his best when he condenses complex personal history into his own deeply considered meditations or dramatic summaries.”
“Armand Ruffo is definitely a writer with a future, a writer to be watched.”
“A powerful evocation of Canada’s most famous fake. In a virtuoso orchestration of poetry, fiction, reminiscence, letter, news report, Armand Ruffo captures the contradictions of this ne’er-do-well who recreated himself out of his own impossible romantic childhood dreams.”