Devil in Deerskins: My Life with Grey Owl (First Voices, First Texts, 1)

Anahareo was a gifted writer, environmentalist, and activist. She was also the wife of Grey Owl, a.k.a. Archie Belaney, the internationally acclaimed English-turned-Indian writer and speaker who dazzled audiences with his stories of life in the wilderness and his posthumous outing as an imposter. Devil in Deerskins is Anahareo’s autobiography up to and including her marriage to Grey Owl. In vivid prose she captures their extensive travels through the bush and their work towards environmental and wildlife protection. Here we see the daily life of an extraordinary Mohawk/ Algonquian woman whose independence, intellect, and spirituality had direct influence on Grey Owl’s conversion from trapper to conservationist. Though first penned in the 1940s, Devil in Deerskins’s observations on indigeneity, culture, and land speak directly to contemporary audiences. Devil in Deerskins is the first book in the First Voices, First Text series, which publishes lost or underappreciated works by Indigenous artists. This new edition includes a critical introduction by Sophie McCall and reintroduces readers to a very important but largely forgotten text by one of Canada’s most colorful and talented Aboriginal writers.