Bill Miller is a true son of the Tobique. His family lived along this river for four generations going back to when the river was the only way to get around this remote corner of New Brunswick. To Bill, the Tobique River is magic, that there’s no other river in the world like it.

Once the Tobique was sportsman’s paradise when the mighty Atlantic salmon returned every year to the river to spawn. Bill’s great-grandfather built a twenty-room hotel in Nictau that attracted guests like John D. Rockefeller and Babe Ruth and the money poured in. But that’s all gone now. Over the past generation the salmon population collapsed and the Tobique economy with it.

There is still some economic activity going on like Bill’s business that is now about the oldest canoe company in Canada building hand-crafted wooden canoes. Bill’s grandfather founded the family business during a time when the best way to get upstream was by pushing against the riverbed with a long pole. But the Tobique is a shallow river with lots of rocks so the canoe had to be flexible and strong and easy to handle. It is those characteristics that have made the canoe coveted by the connoisseurs of canoes.

But Bill and others who live along the Tobique wanted more for their beloved river. With the traditional jobs on the river disappearing and young people moving away, they wanted to put the river back on the map and bring back the visitors. So they came up with a unique annual event, “Fiddles on the Tobique”, a boisterous celebration of traditional music, canoes, and the beauty of the Tobique.

It all started a decade ago with two canoes and one fiddler. At the last event there were eight hundred canoes and kayaks and once again the river is drawing thousands of visitors from near and far.

This show follows the weekend event where music and river lovers celebrate their passions together.

Link: http://www.geocities.com/billmillercanoes/millercanoe.html
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