Guides of the North Woods: Hunting and Fishing Tales from Nova Scotia, 1860-1960

Matt Hartman is a freelance editor and cataloguer, running Hartman Cataloguing, Editing and Indexing Services.

This book is an evident labor of love. Parker’s father, Mal, was a
trapper and guide in Nova Scotia’s Bear River area, and Mike himself
“grew up with the guiding traditions—the stories, the skills of the
woodsman and hunter, the lore of the wilderness.” As Parker says in
his prefatory note, “the woodland guides of Nova Scotia are to the
province’s interior what privateers, rumrunners, buried treasure, and
the Bluenose are to its coast.” The Micmac Indians began the guiding
tradition in Nova Scotia; their first clients were the British officers
of the garrison and fleet stationed at Halifax. Parker details the
growth of a tourist industry in Nova Scotia during the early years of
the century, a tourist industry based on the abundance of fish and game
in the “sporting grounds” of Annapolis, Digby, Yarmouth, Shelburne,
and Queens counties. Hotels and lodges were built by native Nova
Scotians to house, feed, and outfit the Americans who replaced the
British as consumers. Moose, caribou, white-tailed deer, bear, grouse,
and pheasant were readily available, as were salmon from the myriad
lakes and rivers in the region. As sportsmen increased in number, the
Micmac guides were rapidly joined by Nova Scotians eager to cash in on
the burgeoning tourist trade—some of them employed by the lodges, some
working independently. As late as 1960, there were 1619 registered
guides in the province.

This is a work of oral history, drawing upon the experiences and
reminiscences of dozens of former and present guides, hunters, and
outdoorsmen. Parker rounds out his book with a detailed map of the
sporting grounds of the province, with archival photographs and
drawings, and with final chapters and appendices that cover the
competitions and meets sponsored in part by the Nova Scotia Guides’
Association. This is an invaluable addition to the history of Nova
Scotia.