Archibald Belaney, better known as Grey Owl, was a Canadian writer, public speaker, and conservationist. Born in England, he immigrated to Canada and, later in life, falsely claimed to be the son of a Scottish man and an Apache woman. Shortly after his death in 1938, his true identity as the Englishman Archie Belaney was revealed.

Karsh wrote, “Not until John Buchan (then Lord Tweedsmuir and Governor General) came to the studio for a sitting and noticed my portrait of Grey Owl, did I learn that (he) was, in fact, an Englishman named Archibald Belaney… His false identity cannot, however, diminish his achievements as one of Canada’s earliest conservationists. His writings, speeches, and travels demonstrated a love of nature, the wilderness, and its animals, especially the beavers, those old symbols of our nation. He did much to convince the nation that they must be protected from man’s greed and folly. In that sense he was not an impostor but, I like to think, a prophet.”

Belaney was born on this day, September 18, in 1888 (d. 1938).