The combination of dramatic setting and narrative skill that makes for a compelling tale is best exemplified in the books of Roderick Haig-Brown and Farley Mowat. These writers stand far above their Canadian contemporaries and rank high internationally.

Both Haig-Brown and Mowat have come to the writing of outdoor books almost inevitably. Confirmed naturalists who have given years of their lives to exploring the Canadian wilderness, active and dogged campaigners for conservation, they have a feeling for the Canadian land and a knowledge of it that are genuine and deep. More important, they are thoroughly professional writers who have learned how to shape their feelings rather than just express them; they know that even in children's stories a character remains vivid long after the most ingenious contrivances of plot have been forgotten. (pp. 164-65)

Farley Mowat's stories are somewhat more conventionally adventurous and less thoroughly realistic than Haig-Brown's...