It would make a good trivia question: Which Canadian film out-grossed The Sting, The Godfather, American Graffiti, and Serpico in its first week in New York?

The film was Cry of the Wild, by Canadian filmmaker Bill Mason, and when it opened in 35 New York theatres in January, 1974, it made nearly $1-million in its first week, and $8-million in total during its run across the United States and throughout Canada.

Film buffs know of Bill Mason for his film celebrations of the Canadian wilderness; canoeists and wilderness lovers know him as the first among equals in Canada’s tradition of wilderness exploration by canoe. But outside these specialized groups, few Canadians know anything about him, or his part in presenting our world so hauntingly to us.

James Raffan, a professor of outdoor and experiential education at Queen’s University, was a friend of Mason’s and brings his own authority as a canoeist and writer on environmental issues to this excellent, un-hagiographic biography. He shows how Mason’s roots in non-conformist religion fed into much-loved wilderness books such as Song of the Paddle and award-winning films such as Wilderness Treasure, Paddle to the Sea, Death of a Legend, and Cry of the Wild, in which the filmmaker wedded his passion for the wilderness to his simple, direct, and heartfelt beliefs, to produce a body of work that is at once unmistakably Canadian, profoundly but not didactically religious, and artistically subtle, inventive, and beautiful. For Mason was, as Raffan demonstrates, above all else one of the best filmmakers Canada has produced.

Raffan’s book discovers a complex, driven, but hugely generous and decent man who conquered adversities of all kinds, achieved a lot, and enjoyed his position – Trudeau was a family friend and Disney coveted his talent enough to offer him an important position. Mason died of cancer in 1988, knowing that his life and work had influenced generations of Canadians, not to mention hosts of others outside these borders, and had helped put the environmental agenda on the front burner in national and international life.

Raffan counts himself privileged to have shared in Mason’s life and experiences, and has repaid the debt with a fine, balanced, and memorable account of someone Canada is the poorer without.