Maritimers Ashore and Afloat, Vol. 2: Interesting People, Places and Events Related to the Bay of Fundy and its Rivers

Richard Wilbur is supervisor of the Legislative Research Service at the
New Brunswick Legislature, and the author of The Rise of French New
Brunswick.

Like the first volume, this historical collection depicts events and
personalities from the upper reaches of the Bay of Fundy, an area local
boy Spicer returned to after a distinguished career in the New Brunswick
and federal public service. Based on well-known histories, lesser-known
(even obscure) accounts, personal interviews, and correspondence, these
stories span the past 100 years, from the last great days of wooden
shipbuilding to lobster fishing in the 1990s. Taken together, they
capture the flavor and spirit of the Fundy region.

Spicer’s eclectic choice of material probably stems in part from
source limitations, as well as from his own expertise and preference. In
“Profiles of People,” for example, he portrays Rev. Silas Rand, a
missionary and Micmac grammarian; the daughter of a lighthouse keeper on
Isle Haute in Minas Channel; a rural schoolteacher; a local strongman
from the village of Morden; the renowned New Brunswick scientist Abraham
Gesner, discoverer of kerosene; and horticulturist Charles Prescott, who
introduced many apple varieties to the Annapolis Valley.

Spicer’s research skills are revealed at their best in “Portraits
of Two Communities and an Institution,” in which he examines the
once-thriving wooden shipbuilding areas of Canning, N.S., and
Dorchester, N.B., providing lengthy lists of the ships that were
built—including for each the details of when and by whom it was

built. He has also uncovered the story of Acacia Villa School, a late
19th-century institution in Hortonville, N.S., that graduated Robert
Borden, the Conservative prime minister during World War I. In the final
section, Spicer introduces Molly Kool, the first North American woman to
become a master mariner. In all, this is a valuable collection of
Maritime history.