[When] a book is as dull, repetitive and simplistic as The Snow Walker too often is, one can only hope that readers will quickly learn to mistrust McClelland and Stewart's unblushing declaration that this collection of short stories "is among Farley Mowat's finest contributions to Canadian literature."

This is not to say that The Snow Walker is without virtues…. The title story summarizes what might be called the thematic heart of the collection—the noble, dignified yet troublingly fatalistic manner in which the undiluted Innuit nature chooses to meet death, the spirit of the Snow Walker. These twice-told … tales reveal many interesting aspects of Innuit life and folklore. Native myths, legends, mysteries and attitudes to love, death and animals are interwoven into the stories, as are some curious, for the most part unexplored, ambivalences to the land itself.

The problem is that, as a collection, The Snow Walker...