The Last Guide: A Story of Fish and Love

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Frank Kuiack may have been the last fishing guide to work in Ontario’s
Algonquin Park. Certainly he was one of the strongest contenders for
that title. Through the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, he catered to
Americans who came to the huge park to experience a taste of wilderness.
That taste included canoe trips with Frank doing the portaging, making
the campfire meals, and leading the way to spots where fish could be
caught in staggering quantities.

Frank was a survivor. Born poor, he started working when he was a
child, always scrambling for any job that paid a few bucks. When he
wasn’t guiding, he might be working in logging camps or the mines.
With the hard-scrabble life came booze. (We’re given details of his
descent into and final triumph over alcoholism.) Poverty, lack of
education, excessive drinking—not a pretty picture. But always there
was the lure of the pure Algonquin lakes, the clean wilderness, and the
fish—bass, speckled trout, and the huge “lakers.”

Ron Corbett’s storytelling style packages and contrasts the wholesome
atmosphere of the semi-wilderness lakes with the underbelly of a
guide’s way of life. He lets us see the delicate early morning mist
and the glistening colors as a bass breaks the surface, to feel the
weight of the antiquated backpacks. He doesn’t spare us a sniff of the
rot-gut, life-destroying home brew.

As a portrait of Kuiack, the book is gritty yet gentle, nostalgic
without becoming maudlin. It documents a career and lifestyle that has
disappeared, and a legendary period in the life of Algonquin Park that
has now passed into history. The biography will appeal to everyone who
has an interest in Algonquin Park and to those who dream of the ultimate
fishing experience.