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March/April 1999 issue	In this issue Table of Contents Editor’s Notebook Inside Story Feature: Hunting Poachers Whale-eating bears

Grey Owl and his partner, Anahareo, characteristically stylish here in jodhpurs and buckskins, lived on Ajawaan Lake in Saskatchewan in the 1930s. They shared their cabin and canoe with a number of pet beavers.

Rawhide and Jelly Roll constructed a lodge of sticks and mud inside the cabin the celebrated nature writer Grey Owl inhabited in Prince Albert National Park in the 1930s. The two builders and squatters were adult beavers he had befriended. From his breakfast table, he could hear them fussing over their babies and sharing meals. They trooped through the cabin with the ease of family pets.

At the time, Grey Owl was "caretaker of park animals," a position created for him by National Parks officials. They hoped that his wildlife studies, his writing and the speeches he was delivering to standing-room-only audiences across North America and in England would draw attention to the cause of wildlife conservation. He proved to be a mixed blessing.

Contributing editor Dane Lanken tells us that by then Grey Owl was drinking heavily and his assumed identity as an Indian was slowly unravelling. He was revealed as a fraud shortly after his death in 1938. Still, his books have never been out of print and a new movie based on his life will be released this year. Both his work and his life story have proved of enduring interest. Park officials may have preferred the former without the latter, but they are a package.

Before Grey Owl, beavers were, for most Canadians, simply harvestable resources. His stories, photos and films of Rawhide and Jelly Roll made it impossible to continue thinking of them as a commodity. Grey Owl’s books advanced the cause of wildlife conservation and continue to do so today. Whatever their fiaws — and the weakest of his works are maudlin, romantic recollections of life in the unspoiled woods — they oblige us to contemplate the lives of creatures in the wild. Charles G. D. Roberts, poet and creator of the animal story genre in Canada, once wrote that the virtue of inviting readers to empathize with the life of the wild around us is that it can lead "back to the old kinship of earth" and release us from human selfishness.

Commercial-scale selfishness is what Ontario’s wildlife conservation officials are targeting with their new anti-poaching initiatives. Conservation officers across Canada have seen a shift in poaching activity in the last decade. Once, poachers were hunters who went out a day before the season opened. Or hard-drinking buddies hunting with a spotlight from the cab of their truck. Or farm boys who could fill your freezer with venison with no questions asked and a quiet exchange of cash. They were experienced outdoorsmen who cut a few corners and rarely got caught.

Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources now has a special unit to pursue commercial-scale poachers, the organized groups buying and selling meat and other animal parts. Senior editor Pauline Comeau tells the story of one investigation that began in a hunting camp in Northern Ontario and ended in a banquet hall near Toronto. Her account of the skills and resources deployed by the two lead investigators who built the case reveals the complexity and expense of prosecuting commercial poaching operations. A 1997 study suggested that a mere 10 percent of poachers are actually caught. Comeau’s story shows that even when poachers are arrested, the investigation can be so costly that the resulting fines seem piddling by comparison. What’s a moose worth? Or 10 moose?

Fields of new agricultural ambitions sprouted across Canada last spring. Hemp has, once again, become part of the crop repertoire of Canadian farmers. It was banned 60 years ago, tarred with the same brush as its still-illegal cousin, marijuana. Ottawa writer Phil Jenkins untangles the rich and storied history of hemp, one of the earliest crops ever grown by settlers in Canada, and sorts out the tale of how it became legal again. It is a plant that, even untended, grows "like Jack’s beanstalk," say its supporters, and it might one day replace at least some of the tobacco grown by southern Ontario farmers, many of whom have begun seeking a new, non-smokable cash crop.

— Rick Boychuk

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