"Grey Owls friend.
I was wondering when you say Grey Owl's friend, do you mean you acually knew him, to talk to etc.??"

Sadly no, but I would have found him fascinating to talk to. I discovered Grey Owl when I was about 11 years old, through a biography of him in my local library. It was one of those moments when something changes you. I deeply admired his outlook on life and I respected the fact that he chose to turn his life around, that he recognised his faults and he tried to make amends for them.

I called myself his 'friend' on here, merely because I was prepared to stand up for him, as I felt that some would come in with destructive and negative comments about him. I also called myself that because he was one more person who led me into a love of animals, nature and a realisation that people can turn their lives around and in so doing, change the lives of others and make a big impact on the world around them, for the better.

He became 'Grey Owl' in every sense of the word. He did a great deal of good. He got people to think, to see a different way, to realise what was happening, what could and would happen if things didn't change.

To call him a liar and a cheat is wrong. He fought hard to find the good in himself and those who, strangely, still seek to destroy that, should spend their time trying to find the good within themselves.

I'm sure he would want his message to be heard loud and strong again in this world right now. We need many more 'Grey Owls' at present, people who are prepared to stand up and say what is wrong in this world. He could have been like thousands of others and continued his life from the bottom of a bottle, ruining lives, killing animals and blaming everyone else for his problems along the way. But he did not do that. He got down to the bottom of life, and then he clawed his way up again, to the top, taking many with him, changing things in a positive way.

Yet now, here we all sit, at the bottom of life again, where apathy has come to rule a world that somehow has ceased to care. Where consumerism has replaced conservation in the list of important words.

Grey Owl started his life as one man, he ended his life as another. But without the first part of his life and the problems within that part, he would not have found his way to the second part of his life.

He simply became the person he was meant to be, for the reasons that were meant to be, that is all.

We each have our own destiny to fulfill. Not all of us reach it in this lifetime. Grey Owl reached his. He was Grey Owl He will always be Grey Owl.

Thank you for making a short film about him Dwayne. I hope that somehow your film finds its way into our schools, to our children, for they need wisdom passed on to them, they need to know that we all need to care far more than we do.

They need Grey Owl, perhaps now more than ever before.