Bush Friends All Around - Mark Robinson Algonquin Park Ranger 1917-1924

<p>From 1907 through to 1936 author naturalist and soldier Mark Robinson served as an Algonquin Park Ranger. His service included working twice as Chief Ranger as well as twice as Acting Park Superintendent. Throughout these years Robinson scrupulously maintained a daily diary documenting early life in the Park. These diaries are an essential evocative record of Canada's environmental social and military history during a time of unprecedented change.</p><p>This second volume of three devoted to Robinson's diaries opens in April 1917 as Robinson returns to Park duties after 20 months of military service in Canada England and France. The volume includes Robinson's experiences searching for and supervising examination of painter Tom Thomson's remains the Park program to cull deer to meet wartime urban needs for meat the introduction of wartime conscription and the Spanish flu epidemic. In 1922 Robinson would be promoted to Chief Ranger and subsequently to Acting Park Superintendent. The volume closes during the summer of 1924 when Robinson is suddenly suspended from all Park duties for what he guesses is insubordination.</p><p>The diaries offer unique insights into the people wildlife technologies and society of Algonquin Park's early decades and Canadian life of the 1910s through to the 1930s. Robinson's encounters with artists authors socialites provincial Cabinet ministers and criminals punctuate his notes regarding significant social political and technological changes such as the introduction of radio telephones and airplanes; the granting of voting rights to women and prohibition; when a Park Ranger's duties included enforcing a Sabbath ban on playing billiards.</p><p><em>---</em></p><p><strong>Editor Gregory Klages PhD</strong> is author of <em>The Many Deaths of Tom Thomson: Separating Fact from Fiction</em> (<em>National Post</em> non-fiction bestseller Writers' Trust of Canada Best Books 2016). Klages was Research Director for <em>Death On A Painted Lake: The Tom Thomson Tragedy (2008)</em> part of the international award-winning Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History Project. His writing has been published in the <em>American Review of Canadian Studies</em> <em>Asian Review of Canadian Studies</em> <em>Ontario History</em> <em>Saskatchewan History </em>and the anthology<em> Archives & Canadian Narratives.</em></p><p>---</p><p><strong>This 350-page volume includes:</strong></p><p>· Over 200 annotations providing biographical information for key personalities explaining terminology providing historical context and identifying contemporary geographic place names where these have changed from Robinson's era.</p><p>· A biographical essay about Robinson</p><p>· Essay on Algonquin Park history and policies</p><p>· Editor's notes</p><p>· 8 photos 1 map</p><p>· Excerpts from Robinson's published writing</p><p>· Excerpts from letters received by Robinson</p><p>---</p><p>A triumph of Canadian storytelling and an endlessly fascinating read the Robinson diaries are at once historical record wilderness guidebook and an autobiography of adventure. This book is far more than a journal; it's a companion. Whether you read a few lines or many pages at a time Mark's diaries immerse us in one of the most iconic environments in Canada. His words bring to life the waters and hills of Algonquin their mesmerizing calm the insignificance of man the colossal power of the natural world. That feeling is restorative and therapeutic and even a few lines can transport the mind.</p><p><em>Jeff Lehman Chair Muskoka District Council (2022-present); Mayor City of Barrie Ontario (2010-2022)</em></p>