Post by Lady Trapper on Mar 11, 2007 14:21:42 GMT -5
Left to right, top row: Louis Peters, John Peters, John McEwan, John Louis; left to right, below: John Labrador, Malti Pictou, Eli Pictou. These men guided a group of sports fishermen into the interior of Digby County, presumably in early May, as the leaves are not yet showing on the trees and bushes, yet there is no snow on the ground. Late April and early May are the best times for going after trout in this area. This picture, one of a series documenting the expedition, was taken at the beginning of the trip, which most likely took place in 1899. Another photo in the set shows Boundary Rock with the year '98 carved in its side, and members of the expedition standing on or around it.
One of these guides, John Louis, was a Mohawk who, with his brother, snowshoed to Nova Scotia in winter, looking for a bride. His brother went to Pictou. John ended up in Bear River and married a Mi'kmaq girl, Mary Charlotte Glode, who had run away from her home in Queens County to stay with her sister, Hannah Michael, in the first house at Bear River which John Louis reached. [Ellen Louis Robinson to R. H. Whitehead, personal communication, 1987.]
The photographer has identified one of these guides as "Malti Pictou," not only on this photo, but on subsequent shots taken during the same expedition. Sarah Harlow, however, says that "the picture of the guides [shows] her father Simeon Pictou, not Malti (his brother). Richard [McEwan] agreed it was Simeon...." [Bonnie McEwan to R. H. Whitehead, 18 November 1987?]
"Louis Peters, (top left in the [same] picture) his father on his right, was a well known and much sought-after hunting and fishing guide in the Bear River area. His son Henry is well known throughout the U.S.A. in the Sports Show business. Louie also took part and won many events in the Guides Sports in the early part of the century. In one event in particular, canoe tilting, he held the canoe so expertly that the tilter usually won....John Labrador (left bottom in photo) was an extra strong Indian who lived at Labrador corner, back of the Bear River Reservation. [Watson Peck, "Old Indians I Have Known," Digby Courier, 29 January 1986.]