 First Edition cover | |
| Author | Farley Mowat |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Samuel Bryant |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Travel, sociology |
| Published | Feb. 26, 1952 (rev. 1975) (Little, Brown) |
| Publication place | Canada |
| Pages | 344 |
| ISBN | 978-0-316-58642-9 |
| OCLC | 419715 |
| 917.940049 | |
| LC Class | 52-5023 |
| Followed by | The Desperate People |
People of the Deer (published in 1952, revised in 1975) is Canadian author Farley Mowat's first book, and brought him literary recognition. The book is based upon a series of travels the author undertook in the Canadian barren lands, of the Keewatin Region, Northwest Territories (now the Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, west of Hudson Bay. The most important of these expeditions was in the winter of 1947–48. During his travels Mowat studied the lives of the Ihalmiut, a small population of Inuit, whose existence depended heavily on the large population of caribou in the region. Besides descriptions of nature and life in the Arctic, Mowat's book tells the sad story of how a once prosperous and widely dispersed people slowly dwindled to the brink of extinction due to unscrupulous economic interest and lack of understanding.