Recherche dans la collection - Laya Rotenberg Kurtz fonds [textual record, graphic material]

The documents were produced during the first tour of Grey Owl in England and were accumulated and retained by Laya Rotenberg Kurtz (1915-2009) who was the assistant / secretary of Grey Owl. Ms. Kurtz met Grey Owl on the ship Empress of Britain in October 1935 as she headed to Paris in France to continue his studies. She later became his assistant / secretary for the duration of the first tour of Grey Owl in England.

The letters were stacked in date order, pages numbered and wrapped in brown paper tied with twine, in two packages, one labeled "Laya's letters to Maurice, corresp. '35-36" (with the Grey Owl references), and one labelled "Correspondence, Laya to home, Toronto, October 1935 - May 1936".

Other Canadian institutions hold documentation on Grey Owl. An extensive collection of Grey Owl correspondence is in the Macmillan Company of Canada fonds at the William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario). The fonds Harold John Fraser, at Saskatchewan Arts Board in Saskatoon, is another important source of information, and a collection of handwritten letters appear in The Green Leaf: a Tribute to Grey Owl [H. H.] (ed. Lovat Dickson, London, 1938).

BAC already has a Grey Owl fonds (MG30-D147, R2224) made up of 10 series of documents and photographs on the life of the naturalist and author. Mount Riding National Park in Manitoba, where Grey Owl worked as a naturalist in 1931, has already transferred its archives at LAC in 1995 so they could be added to the Grey Owl fonds.

The Laya Rotenberg Kurtz fonds also complements two other fonds that contain an abundant and diverse documentation on Grey Owl: The Lovat Dickson fonds (R3608) and the National Prince Park-Albert Fonds (R5747).