Celebrating Canada’s outdoor heritage

Tomorrow is Canada Day and it is an opportunity for us to celebrate living in one of the best countries in the world. We are indeed fortunate to enjoy the freedom and opportunities Canada offers.

For many of us an important part of what we love about Canada is the outdoor world that surrounds us. While 150 years is certainly a milestone, and something worth celebrating, it pales in comparison to the experience First Nations people have in this country. In Nova Scotia the history of First Nations goes back 10,000 years when the glaciers covering the land began to melt. In the thousands of years that followed the retreat of ice from the land First Nations peoples began to migrate into Nova Scotia.

The first were people of the stone age culture who fished and hunted in the Debert area. They were followed by the Mi’kmaq whose survival, and culture, were shaped by the land and water. Fish were essential to Mi’kmaq survival, and their annual migrations were geared to take advantage of species when they were available in fresh and saltwater. In freshwater lakes and rivers trout, salmon, suckers, shad, smelt, gaspereau and eels were fished while in saltwater it was winter flounder and tomcod. Clams, mussels and oysters were also important parts of the diet when Mi’kmaq were on the coast.

Mi’kmaq fishers gathered at the mouths of rivers on the coast in spring and summer where they built brush weirs to fish for gaspereau, shad and salmon. Fall would find them fishing eels as the fish left lakes and rivers on their spawning run to the sea. In winter Mi’kmaq took advantage of spawning tomcod in the estuaries before moving inland to hunt moose, hare and grouse. Their very survival depended on fishing and hunting success. The fish and game, preserved by drying and smoking, had to last through the lean times if the people were to survive the long winter.

Later, French and English settlers also depended on the land and water for survival. Gradually, as they prospered, there was more time to hunt and fish for recreation.

One of the most popular species, as it is today, was Atlantic salmon. The first recorded reference to the use of hair wing salmon flies in Eastern Canada comes from Newfoundland. Joseph Bates, in his book “Atlantic Salmon Flies & Fishing” (1970) quotes Herbert Howard, a renowned angler, fly tier and angling historian who wrote that he had seen a family Bible that belonged to a Newfoundland family named Stirling. The Bible contained several handwritten entries dated between the years of 1720 and 1896. One of the entries, dated 1795, described a hair wing fly called the red cow fly and said that salmon were caught on it.

So, no matter how long you have experienced Canada’s outdoors, I hope everyone has an opportunity to enjoy, and appreciate, this day. Happy Canada Day.