When First unto This Country, a Stranger I Came: Land, Mammals and the Rediscovery of Place

Abstract

It is a pleasure to offer my talk today in this land of mammalian eccentricity. I will discuss continuities and principles among North American storytellers who have thought with landscape and mammals and discuss what they have learned. The storytellers are: Raven Mackinaw, Cree (Alberta) elder; Grey Owl (a.k.a. Archibald "Archie" Belaney), Canada's best internationally known champion of habitat conservation, (Northern Ontario); Ernest Thompson Seton, wild animal story author, champion of aboriginal causes and conservationist (Manitoba and New Mexico); and scholar and ethno-biologist of the Arizona-Sonora Desert, Gary Paul Nabham (Arizona). I might add that Elder Mackinaw is the sole Native Canadian.