Karsten Heuer, along with filmmaker wife, Leanne Allison and their two-year-old son, canoed across Canada in 2007, from Canmore, Alberta to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to visit Farley Mowat. Heuer remembers the late author in an article in the Calgary Herald:
“I first approached Farley Mowat like any aspiring writer might: I sent him a manuscript I’d been working on in the hopes he might endorse it andhelp it become a book. Not only did he oblige me, he followed up with a phonecall: “We have much to talk about,” he began. “You and your wife must come visit us on Cape Breton Island this summer.”
Nova Scotia is a long wayf rom Canmore, Alberta, but rather than drive or fly across the country, we opted to canoe and sail it, following a route that took us through the settings of many of Mowat’s books. He was 86 years old when we hatched the idea, and we saw it as a tribute to someone whose books had shaped our lives.It was also a nod to the kinds of characters he wrote about, many of whom we encountered along the way: owls on the Prairies; wolves and Inuit on Nunavut’s barrenlands; and Fin whales and Newfoundland fishermen in Cabot Strait.
The most important encounter of all, however, was when, after five months of paddling and sailing, we pulled up at Farley’s door. True to form, it wasn’t long before he and his wife Claire had us seated in the warmth of their farmhouse kitchen and were plying us with questions and drinks.”
Get the rest of the story here and see a trailer for the film that was made from the adventure, Finding Farley, here.
