How a Hastings man fooled the world into thinking he was a native American Indian.

Grey Owl was a fur trapper and woodsman who later denounced the fur trade to become one of the earliest conservation campaigners. His work was important in raising awareness and changing attitudes towards humans’ relationship with nature. He wrote a number of books and as ‘Grey Owl’ wearing full native dress, he lectured to audiences all over Europe and America.

Little did people realise that Grey Owl had learned his early woodcraft skills playing as a child in St Helens Woods, Hastings.

Grey Owl was born Archibald Stansfield Delaney, at St James Road, Hastings, in 1888. He attended Hastings Grammar School, where he excelled at many subjects, including chemistry and had a reputation for making small explosive devices in the lab that he dubbed ‘Belaney Bombs’.

He later got a job as a clerk with a timber company located behind St Helen’s Wood, but was dismissed when another practical joke involving fireworks and a chimney, almost blew the building up.

After moving to Canada in 1906, aged 17, Archie began working as a fur trapper to earn a living. He became close to the Ojibwe people of Lake Temagami in Northern Ontario. Through them he learned more about trapping and fishing. He hid his Hastings roots, pretending to be of native extraction, and served as a sniper with Canadian forces in the Great War, where he was seriously injured.

Returning to Canada he began campaigning to protect the natural environment. He gained support of the Canadian Forestry Association and the Canadian Parks Branch. Through his articles, books and tours he became a celebrity in the 1930s. He returned to Hastings on two lecture tours in 1935 and 1937.

His exploits, and the controversy around his identity was made into a 1999 film, directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Pierce Brosnan.

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