My Discovery of Amer

In April 1985, en route to a publicity tour in the U.S., Mowat was barred from crossing the border. The Canadian author of Never Cry Wolf and other books on wildlife and conservation was mystified, for U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials refused to reveal the grounds for their action. Mowat waged a war of publicity, and it was through press accounts, rather than being informed directly, that he learned the reasons (relating to his leftist and environmentalist sympathies) for his exclusion. His brief day-by-day account of the affair, written with charm and irony, relies heavily on quotes from newspaper articles, editorials and letters of support from Canadians and U.S. citizensthe latter of whom surprised him, since he had thought of Americans as toeing their government's ""arrogant, imperialistic'' line. This ``discovery'' of Mowat's may not be news on this side of the border, but it provides an encouraging conclusion to a maddening tale of official high-handedness. October