Never Cry Wolf

In the beginning Farley told about how he got to Canada and how he had many troubles with

In the beginning Farley told about how he got to Canada and how he had many troubles with flights and the things he brought to travel around with while there. So he had to change out much of his gear with the locals and eventually got to Canada. While there he studied the wolves for a long time, about two and a half years. That is what he did for much of the book just studying wolves. Farley had come to like the wolves and name them. The wolves were like a family to Farley and he kind of started to love them without ever even coming in contact with the wolves. To find out the rest you will have to read the book for yourself.

Some things that I disliked was I couldn't get into the beginning of the book and it wasn't very good in the beginning but, that was probably mostly what I didn't liked about the book. Overall it was a book well worth reading and I enjoyed reading the book.

Farley Mowat’s famous book, Never Cry Wolf, was both a fascinating read and a revival of my childhood. Originally published in 1963, the book was later adapted into a film in 1983. When I was possibly five or six years old, I watched the movie version of Never Cry Wolf with my mother and older brother. Needless to say, prior to reading the book, I had completely forgotten about the movie considering the fact I was so young when I viewed it. By pure chance, I happened upon this book in my parents

Farley Mowat’s famous book, Never Cry Wolf, was both a fascinating read and a revival of my childhood. Originally published in 1963, the book was later adapted into a film in 1983. When I was possibly five or six years old, I watched the movie version of Never Cry Wolf with my mother and older brother. Needless to say, prior to reading the book, I had completely forgotten about the movie considering the fact I was so young when I viewed it. By pure chance, I happened upon this book in my parents’ bookshelf while looking for something to complete my outside reading assignment, and as I began to read, I realized that the story seemed strangely familiar to me. As I got deeper and deeper into Mowat’s writing, I could distinctly remember specific scenes from the movie and I felt a slight sense of joy as a few of my childhood memories came back to me.

My fond memories of the movie aside, the book truly was interesting. Mowat writes of his personal journey into the Canadian wilderness to ascertain the reason for the declining caribou population, and whether or not it is due to wolves feeding upon them. In 1948, Mowat was assigned to carry out such a task by the Canadian Dominion Wildlife Service. The work is professed to be non-fiction, but there is some debate on such statements. However, I would rather not get into such a debate, and would like to believe that Mowat did write solely his experiences. Regardless of whether or not the most accurate descriptions were provided, the book was highly successful, and to be quite honest, I could care less if parts were false; it was a fantastic story.

Ultimately, Mowat’s goal was to dispel the irrational fears that society had placed on wolves. I, and most other people, imagine wolves to be savage creatures, which are both extremely dangerous and unfriendly towards humans. However, Mowat writes, “On three separate occasions in less than a week I had been completely at the mercy of these 'savage killers'; but far from attempting to tear me limb from limb, they had displayed a restraint verging on contempt, even when I invaded their home and appeared to be posing a direct threat to the young pups.” This passage is self-explanatory; in Mowat’s own personal experiences, he came face to face with multiple wolves and survived, even when he had invaded into their territory. Furthermore, from Mowat’s perspective, he deduced that the wolves were not the cause of the caribou population decline. In fact, Mowat witnessed that instead, wolves would more often than not eat small animals like mice and hares, or if they were to attack a larger animal, it would be an aging deer. Though it was not impossible for a group of wolves to kill a caribou, it was not their most common source of food.

One of the best aspects of Never Cry Wolf was Mowat’s sense of humor. On more than one occasion, I found myself smiling at the situations that Mowat was presenting. For instance, when trying to set up his radio provided to him, Mowat realizes that he has been given the radio of a forest ranger, thus having an insufficient working range for his purposes. Regardless, he is able to get the radio working, but can only manage to make contact with an amateur operator in Peru, who could not speak any English, while Mowat was unable to speak any Spanish. Another humorous incident, for me at least, was when Mowat began to territorially mark around his tent by urinating, to mimic the wolves. The reason I found this funny was because I had a flashback to the movie, where the actor playing Mowat sort of awkwardly went about his business, encircling his tent.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading Never Cry Wolf. Even without having seen the movie, I’m sure I would have loved this book, despite no longer being able to experience all the flashbacks of my childhood. It is a relatively short read and does not contain any overly complex vocabulary. Therefore, I believe it is accessible to most readers, and I hope that others would appreciate the story as much as I did.