Grey Owl meets Yousuf Karsh

Photograph of Grey Owl, captured by Yousuf Karsh at his Ottawa studio in 1939. His piercing gaze, aquiline nose, fine features, black hair, and dark skin made him, in the eyes of Westerners, the archetype of the wild American Indian. (c) Yousuf Karsh Archives

The impromptu meeting in Yousuf Karsh's studio

On February 27, 1936, Yousuf Karsh , an ambitious young photographer based in Ottawa, hosted the famous conservationist Grey Owl at his studio at the Laurier Hotel. In fact, he was so impressed to photograph such a prominent figure that he decided to throw a party in his honour. He planned a dinner and invited federal ministers, senior managers from the Department of Indian Affairs, and journalists. All showed up at the appointed time, all except Grey Owl.

Embarrassed by the situation, Karsh sets out to find Grey Owl. He finds him at his hotel, sitting at the bar, intoxicated, buying drinks for all the customers. He chooses to leave him to his world.

Grey Own has made a mistake in Karsh, but the portrait that results from the encounter is magnificent. Both in composition and emotion, the image is strong and convincing. Grey Olw has a direct gaze that seems directed toward the future with determination.

Karsh's magnificent photo would become the global icon of a personality who stirred passions in Canada and around the world. A few years later, the rising star Grey Owl would crash with a bang. Grey Owl's impersonation is without equal. It was a grandiose staging of romantic folklore, orchestrated by an expert communicator.

To this day, we still wonder why we wanted to believe his story so much.

True or False?

Grey Owl: A Legend We Wanted to Believe

Who was Grey Owl really?

Born in Hastings, south London, in 1888 as Archibald Belaney, Archi had an unhappy childhood with an alcoholic father. During his youth, he lived a reclusive life. He read authors who told of the adventures of Indians in America, including James Fenimore Cooper (1789 – 1851), author of stories of natives of the frontier regions of the American West, one of the first novelists to describe the history of the West. He lived in an imaginary world, with the “Indians” and the cowboys.

Young Archibald Belaney, a young man driven by his emotions, who will become Grey Owl

In the early 1900s, Bullalo Bill's Wild West Show came to his village. Between the 1880s and 1910, it was the most popular traveling show in North America and Europe. A colorful show of Wild West life was presented in big tops, with shooting demonstrations, lassoing prowess, and reenactment of armed robbery battles. Each show showed American Indians, sometimes aggressive attacking convoys and wagons, sometimes docile and friendly, like the allies of the West pacified by the presence of the white man. The "Indians" were presented in all their colors, with headdresses, horses, bows, and makeup. Archi projected himself into this imaginary world.

This show will not leave Archi indifferent. From this memorable evening, he will want to become an “Indian”.

First departure for Canada

On March 29, 1906, at the age of 18, he embarked from Liverpool for Halifax. The time had come to go and meet the wild lands he had dreamed of so much. His first months were disappointing. He worked at the Eaton's store in Toronto.

He quickly left his job and found himself in Cobalt in the fall of 1906, near the great Lake Temiskaming. It was there that he met a hunting guide who took him under his wing. He went to Lake Temagami, where there was an inn on Bear Island for wealthy tourists who came for fishing and hunting. He worked as a handyman at the inn.

Bear Island

On this island there were about a hundred Ojibwe Native Americans.

In the spring of 1907, he met the Ojibwe Native American Angèle Abouma . Grey Owl lived with her family and it was there that he learned to become a trapper, which animals to trap, how to prepare the skins, and when to sell them. He finally achieved his dream of living among the indigenous peoples of America. This is how he learned a multitude of customs. He learned to respect the animals he captured.

Angèle and Archi married in 1910 and they soon had a child.

First World War

Then came the First World War. Archie abandoned his family and joined the Royal Highlanders of Canada in 1915. He was then 27 years old.

To his battalion comrades, he tells a story that he will continue to refine until the end of his life. When asked about his origins, he says he is Métis, born in Mexico in the Rio Grande region of a Scottish father and an Apache mother. From there comes his piercing gaze, his aquiline nose and his taste for fringed jackets.

He was wounded and left the regiment to return to England. He found his aunts in Hastings, his hometown, who had educated him and met Ivie Own , whom he married without telling her that he was already married in Canada.

Return to Canada

In 1917, he left his second wife and returned to Canada.

Troubled years followed the end of the war in 1919. Archi moved from one hunting territory to another as a wandering trapper. He shared several winters with an Ojibwe family.

In 1924, he was found in full swing. He drank a lot. To show that he was a native, he dyed his hair black and darkened his skin. He even invented a war dance that he performed on request to amuse travelers.

In the spring of 1925, a warrant was issued in Sudbury for Grew Owl's arrest for drunkenness and public disorder. He fled and returned to Abitibi where he had a significant encounter that would be romanticized a thousand times. Gertrude Bernard would have the greatest influence on his life. He called her Gerty . She was a Mohawk. Gertrude was charmed but knew nothing of his previous life.

It is Archi who will introduce her to life in the forest. He works in the summer as a forest ranger and in the winter, he traps animals. Getrude, renamed Anahareo, has a hard time dealing with the snares and the death of animals in the traps, which she finds cruel.

Anahareo and Grey Owl

Times are changing: trapping is a tough job

In the winter of 1928, Archi realized that the job had changed. Beavers were becoming increasingly rare. The methods were becoming less and less respectful of the animals. In the spring, he discovered 2 little orphaned beavers. He decided to keep the baby beavers as pets.

(c) National Film Board

Archi then has a revelation: he will never again be able to kill beavers. Why others, since these beasts are about to be wiped off the map? Why not work to preserve them?

The Témiscouata sanctuary

Archi travels to the Témiscouata region to create a beaver sanctuary. A Micmac friend had told him about a magnificent forest in the Témiscouata hinterland where beaver hunting had long since ceased and the animals were abundant.

He settled at Lac à Foin in the Cabano region, in a trapper's cabin. His wife returned to Abitibi.

Hay Lake

He sometimes visited Cabano under the influence of alcohol. He was believed to be a native.

(c) National Film Board

It was there that he began to establish a correspondence with English people who allowed him to start publishing his books. His first text appeared on March 2, 1929 in the magazine 'Country Life'. It tells the story of the end of the noble trapper in the wild forests of Canada.

After this first text, Belaney changed his name and began to use the name that would make him famous: Grey Owl. He was then 40 years old.

This is where he experienced his transformation. His first public appearance was at Métis sur Mer in 1929, a vacation spot for Montreal's wealthy bourgeois families. He was invited for a talk.

He returned to his refuge in Témiscouata. In 4 months, he wrote his first book: ' The Last Frontier ', a plea for the preservation of species, including that of the beaver. Published in 1931 in Great Britain, the book was a great success.

It was then that the National Film Board deployed a film crew to Lac à Foin to film the man and his beavers.

Thanks to his growing fame, he was appointed warden of a national park in Manitoba. Following this prestigious appointment, he left Témiscouata. He had become in the eyes of the world the defender of nature. Without ambiguity, he called himself an Indian and this facade served him well.

How long would this story last?

In 1935, journalist Brit Jessop went to Témagamie, when Grey Owl was at the height of his fame, on the basis of a tip-off received at the newspaper. At the age of 18, he was a junior reporter for the 'North Bay Nugget'. It was then that he met Angel, his first wife. She showed him her marriage contract with a certain Archibald Belaney.

Back in North Bay, Jessop had a scoop for the paper, the story of an incredible forgery by a man who claimed to be an Indian and was not. The newspaper editor found the story too explosive to publish, as it would destroy the reputation of Grey Owl and his work. Grey Owl was untouchable.

Photograph of Howard Coster's Grey Owl taken in 1934 in England

After Manitoba, Grey Owl was sent to Alberta to Prince Albert Park, where the environment was more conducive to beavers. It was there that he wrote three books and continued his collaborations with the NFB.

At the end of 1935, he began a major tour of Europe. In four months, he spoke to more than ½ million people. He sometimes gave up to 4 lectures a day.

What pleases the audience is the first realization that the natural world is threatened by the progress of civilization. We understand that Grey Owl knows nature and knows how to take care of it.

His fame grew even more in Canada. His royalties brought him $30,000 a year, an amount equivalent to ½ million today. But doubts remained about him.

In 1937, he met a reporter from the North Bay Nugget who told him that he knew his true identity. This revelation deeply disturbed Grey Owl. From that moment on, he lived in constant fear of being unmasked. Added to this the fatigue of the tours and the heavy consumption of alcohol, his mental health became more and more precarious. But the facade held. We always see in him the great defender of the environment and even of the Native American cause.

Meeting with George VI

The year 1937 ended with a triumphant tour of England. The tour culminated at Buckingham Palace.

On 10 December 1937, at Buckingham Palace, Princesses Margaret and Elizabeth, aged 7 and 11, are seen with their parents, King George VI, in the Royal Drawing Room. Grey Owl stands, described in London newspapers as the Red Indian. Grey Owl says, "Nature does not belong to us; we belong to it." Images are projected of Grey Owl on a lake, paddling with little beavers. Grey Owl approaches George VI, puts his hand on his shoulder and greets him, saying, "My brother."

As soon as he returned, he began a three-month tour of the United States. The fascination was not as strong: the Americans were not following the wave.

The end of the story

His last lecture was on March 26, 1938, at Massy Hall in Toronto. He returned to his cabin in Albert Park on April 7, where he locked himself in. Three days later, he was found ill. He died on April 13, 1938, at the age of 49, from pneumonia that was easily treatable but which would prove fatal in his condition.

The North Bay Nugget's front page had been ready for 3 years. The day after Grey Owl's death, it was the first newspaper to publicly reveal the charade. The news went around the world in record time: deception, fraud, counterfeiting. Its editor and Anahareo took up their pens to defend the story they believed to be true. But it soon became clear that the Grey Owl character we wanted to believe was nothing but a lie.

The public had adopted the character. It was a speech that had great resonance, in the midst of an economic crisis, at a time when people were becoming disillusioned with the industrial world. Grey Owl had no great political project, but he described nature as in its original, ideal state, in which humans could live in harmony with wild animals. He managed to communicate his ideas in an extraordinary way because his message corresponded perfectly to the vision that the English and the Western world had of the wild world. It was said of him: "Here is a man who knows what he is talking about."

But it was all a show. He was a man who had been steeped in the literature of the Wild West, who had seen a show in his village one day and said to himself: "If this is all a show, then I want to be part of it, too."

A picture doesn't lie

The adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is here confronted with a merciless reality. Karsh's photo is vibrant with energy and depth. The gaze is piercing, direct and frank. However, the man is a lie. He lied to himself and to the world around him. He played a role that he himself believed in. The photo seems as real as the character captured by the camera is false.

To believe that a portrait communicates the soul of a character is as convincing as the performance of a con artist in front of his victim. The portrait reflects what the model can and wants to communicate, like any human relationship that populates our daily life. Richard Avedon said: “ All photographs capture reality, none of them captures the truth.”

(c) Yousuf Karsh Archives

References

The True Face of Grey Owl

The story doesn't end there, June 1, 2020

Grey Owl, known as "the most famous Indian" in his day, became known in the 1930s as a writer and an early conservationist. The man who fascinated crowds across Canada, the United States and England died in 1938. Soon the secret got out: he was not really an Indian. His real name was Archibald Belaney and he was English by birth.

With the participation of Joanne Marchesseault (biologist) and Isabelle Picard (ethnologist)

Grey Ow, 1999 , Film with Pierce Brosnan as the main actor

The National Film Board

• 1928: Beaver People

• 1931: Beaver Family

Yousuf Karsh, February 27, 1936