- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Viking Canada (AHC) (Dec 6 2001)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0670911410
- ISBN-13: 978-0670911417
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #372,924 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
Ask any good journalist what the best part of the job is and he's likely to say the serendipitous moment when one story turns into another. A few years ago, the Ottawa Citizen's Ron Corbett set out to write a tale on wolves in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park. A chance encounter at a gas station led him to the front door of Frank Kuiack, who, Corbett was told, knew a good deal about the park's wolves. When Corbett went to meet him, he learned something remarkable about Kuiack. He was the last of the old-time fishing guides still working full-time in the park. "Kuiack's life," he writes, "seemed to be a counterpoint to the many changes that had taken place over the years, not only around Algonquin Park, but elsewhere in Canada." Corbett explores those rush-toward-the-21st-century changes in this lyrical narrative of a fishing trip via canoe through the park with Kuiack. It would turn out to be the old man's last journey as a guide. By using the guide as his centrepiece, he weaves together a marvellous anecdotal history of the park, its fishing, and legendary guides like Basil Sawyer, Sam Beaver (friend and guide to The New Yorker's E.B. White), and Tom Thompson, who once lived in Algonquin's wilderness and seems such a part of its geography. Corbett writes: "While [the changes] led to the slow disappearance of the fishing guides in the Algonquin Highlands, Kuiack never abandoned the calling. Today, he is the last practitioner of a business, a trade, an art, that will die with him." Which makes the serendipity that brought Corbett and Kuiack together just that much more fortunate. Because of their meeting, something that would have otherwise been lost has now been preserved with great care and real affection. --Jeff Silverman
About the Author
Ron Corbett is a columnist and feature writer with the Ottawa Citizen. A life-long resident of Ottawa, he has travelled often to Algonquin Park for camping and fishing trips, first as a young boy and now as a father of three young children. He has taught magazine writing at Carleton University's School of Journalism and has had his work published in En Route, Ottawa Magazine, Ottawa City Magazine and Metro Magazine. This is his first book. He admits to being a poor, or consistently unlucky, fisherman.
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Journalist retells the life of a Canadian fishing guide,
By Gillian Clarke "GForce" (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Last Guide (Hardcover)
This is the story of Frank Kuiack, one of the last men to earn a living as a fishing guide in Algonquin Park, Ontario. It is an unusual and remarkable book, part journalism, part a novelistic recreation of the man's life growing up as one of 16 children in the Algonquin highlands of the '30's and '40's, and his working life thereafter. The writing is tone-perfect and the story is a page-turner. This is not a sentimental lament for bygone days but a clear-eyed, honest story about a man who made his share of mistakes in life, while history happened around him.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Last Guide,
By Robert Hocking (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Last Guide (Hardcover)
I'd known of this book for several years and only read it when it was given to me as a gift. What a wonderful book. Very well written. Great story. Takes me back to some great memories of Algonquin Park and Frank! Highly recommended if you love fishing, love the Park, and yearn for the sound of the wind in the pines.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful Journey!,
By
This review is from: Last Guide (Hardcover)
What a gem of a book this is! A marvelous blend of history, biography and social-economic commentary...with many wonderful fishing tales mixed in for good measure! If you love Canadian history, read this book. If you love a good story, read this book. And if you love fishing, read this book! It is a highly readable book that breathes new life into an era of Ontario history that most have long forgotten. Bravo, Ron Corbett!
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