[3] Mowat's advocacy for environmental causes earned him praise, but his admission, after some of his books' claims had been debunked, that he "never let the facts get in the way of the truth"[4] earned harsh criticism, while his supporters noted that the literary "exaggerations… [in] his books almost single-handedly drew attention to the plight of the Inuit and serious environmental issues, bringing about substantive changes of policy in Ottawa".

During World War II, Mowat joined the Canadian Army and was commissioned as a supernumerary second lieutenant into the Second Battalion, The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment (affectionately known as the Hasty Ps) on 19 July 1940.

On July 10, 1943, he was a subaltern in command of a rifle platoon and participated in the initial landings of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily.

During the Moro River Campaign, part of the Italian Campaign, he suffered from battle stress, heightened after an incident on Christmas Day during the Battle of Ortona, the "Italian Stalingrad", when he was left weeping at the feet of an unconscious friend, Lieutenant Allan (Al) Park, who had an enemy bullet in his head.

There, he worked as an intelligence agent in the Netherlands and went through enemy lines to start unofficial negotiations about food drops with General Blaskowitz.

The food drops, during the final 10 days before the surrender of Nazi Germany, proceeded under the codenames Operations Manna (Commonwealth air forces) and Chowhound (American), saving thousands of Dutch lives.

[10] Mowat also formed the 1st Canadian Army Museum Collection Team,[11] according to his book My Father's Son, and arranged for the transport to Canada of several tons of German military equipment, including the piloted V1 rocket Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg and several armoured vehicles.

"[24] Mowat, who was part of a four-researcher team, was fired by the chief of Canadian Wildlife Service because of complaints from the local population and lack of formal approval for some activities.

[25] Mowat's first book, People of the Deer (1952), was inspired by a field trip to the Canadian Arctic he made while studying at the University of Toronto.

Many of Mowat's works are autobiographical, such as Owls in the Family (1962, about his childhood), The Boat Who Wouldn't Float (1969, one of three books about his time living in Newfoundland), and And No Birds Sang (1979, about his experience fighting in Italy in World War II).

[2] In 1965, Westviking was published, followed 30 years later by The Farfarers, which suggests a people he called the Albans preceded the Norse to the High Arctic and the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts.

In a 1964 book review published in Canadian Field-Naturalist,[29] Frank Banfield of the National Museum of Canada, a former Canadian Wildlife Service scientist, compared Mowat's 1963 bestseller to Little Red Riding Hood, stating, "I hope that readers of Never Cry Wolf will realize that both stories have about the same factual content.

In it, Mowat again draws upon Norse sagas, the chronicles of Irish monks, and accounts of Roman travellers, as well as the works of modern historians and archeologists.

A literary gadfly for much of his long career, Mowat is happy to stir up debate and challenge academics to match the visions that he champions and defends with such vigour and relish.

"[45] In 2012, independent Canadian publisher Douglas & McIntyre announced they had created the Farley Mowat Library series and would be re-releasing many of his most popular titles, with new designs and introductions, in print and e-book format.

Mowat and his second wife Claire spent their later years together in Port Hope, Ontario, and their summers on a farm on Cape Breton Island.

[48] Mowat is considered a saint by the God's Gardeners, a fictional religious sect that is the focus of Margaret Atwood's 2009 novel The Year of the Flood.

[6][51] He maintained his interest in Canada's wilderness areas throughout his life and could be heard a few days before his death on the CBC Radio One program The Current speaking against the provision of Wi-Fi service in national parks.