.

My favourite was Campbell Brook. That was the only place where my grandmother, my sister and I would go as younger children to picnic.  It was a short walk along Bell Lane with a basket of goodies as only Grammy could provide.  We would go to our favourite pool and swim in the cold water and watch the water striders play in the back water.  There was the wild mint, the frogs, and the odd snake.  Those were my wondrous years.

When I became older, I was bent on becoming familiar with every stream and their nooks and crannies within walking distance. I embarked on my journey of discovery.  Baltzer's Brook came from the still water and Lake Katy in back of Bear River East.

The east branch of the Bear River used to meander through its steep valley, and sourced from Frozen Ocean Lake.  It had been a great Salmon stream for eons but the Nova Scotia Power Commission had damed the lake and installed a four mile pipeline down to the new generator station at the head of the tide, called "Gulch Power Development".  No salmon ever went up this stream again .

The west branch of the Bear River was the largest tributary, and it came from John Paul's Hole in back of Morgan Town, and eventually sourced from Lake Jolly.  This was the only stream that was dark, and filled with Tannic acid from the rotting leaves and evergreen needles deep in the woods.  It wasn't very good fishing but I did manage to catch the biggest trout I had ever seen in a hidden side pool just below an old decrepit wooden dam site.  It measured 12 1/2 inches, and I sold it to the Darris brothers for 75¢.   Daddy Franklin Brook came down though a series of waterfalls and originated in Burn's Lake.  It was my second favourite.

Campbell Brook offered the best fishing.  At its lower end, there were deep pools of cold water with occasional water falls.  There would usually be a trout or two in every pool.  This was the place where I would sneak up on sleeping trout and try to grab them with my hands as I imagined the Indians once did. Sometimes I would stand on a wooden bridge and watch a pair of three foot long Eels work their way upstream, searching for trout.  They would work as a team as they  snaked along, one to a side, delving into every corner and hideout, then go on upstream to the next pool.

When they got to Jim Harris Pond, they would stay until they were mature, then go back down the brook to the ocean, south to where they were born in the floating mass of vegetation known as the Sargasso Sea.  After spawning, they would die.  Their offspring would make the journey back to the same stream their parents had matured in.

The trout could sense them so they quickly darted out of sight as they were quicker and perhaps keener than the Eels.  The eels were mostly scavengers.  They dined on the dead and the dying.  Down at the bridge in the middle of town, we used to watch them come upstream with the tide.  There would be lots of  bones thrown into the river when the tide was out, under Alley's meat market.  The Eels would grab the chunks and shake them.  Sometimes, they fought over a piece of meat.  It was fun watching them and sometimes we would catch Eels on a line and hook.

There also were the baby eels, who had just come up with the tide.  They stayed in the shallow water, and were relatively easy to catch with a small net or tin can.  No one I knew ever ate the Eels.  The French people on the shore between Digby and Yarmouth had a business barreling the Eels and shipping them overseas to Europeans who did eat them.

Above the Morgantown Road, about three miles upstream, it became a swampy trickle, mostly underground.  Way back in the swamp, it sourced from Jim Harris Pond.  It was actually a small lake with a black bottom but sometime ago someone started calling it a pond and it stuck.  There was a raft and a small boat we could use.

One day, Raymond Morine and I traveled up the brook intent on finding  the headwater pond.  We fished our way pool after pool going upstream.  When we came to the marsh, we had to put away our fishing rods, as the way would be almost blocked by myriad Alder bushes.  In the Maritimes, Alder bushes are the scourge of brook fishermen.  They love the water, so they crowd along the banks of the stream and make it nearly impossible to cast out into the water from any vantage point.

I had gone this route before but it was unmarked and it was easy to get disoriented.  Central Nova Scotia, south of the Annapolis Valley, is a table land with no hills.  The highest thing you will find in the woods there is a Pine tree.  We had gone into the swamp about a mile before Raymond proclaimed we were going in circles.  Confident in my ability to lead, I replied that we were gong in a straight line.

Suddenly, up ahead I spotted a watch hanging from an Alder branch.  As I came up to it, I realized "Hey, That's my watch!!"  There it was-  the expansion strap and all.  I had not even noticed when it came off my wrist.  Well, I felt rather sheepish about that, and I had to admit we were indeed going in circles.

So then we started going from bush to bush sighting as we went along to ensure we were not circling, and after an hour, we made it to the pond.  Soon, we found a boat and paddled across the pond to the other side where there was a big rock to fish from.  We pole-fished there for a couple of hours and then decided to go back home through the woods to the Sissiboo Road, where we would have better walking to get back home.

At first, there was a clear path but after awhile it petered out, and we were again struggling through unmarked woods.  Going by the sun, we headed north where we knew the road crossed.  Finally, we hit the dirt road after dusk, and then decided turning right was the obvious choice, as Bear River was to the east.

After about half an hour, we came upon a hermit's cabin.  Neither of us knew him, but I went up to the door and knocked.  He came to the door, and I asked him if Bear River was in the direction we were headed.  The reply was in the affirmative - to our great relief.

The elderly gentleman invited us in for tea so we struck up a conversation.  I had an inspiration, and I asked him if he knew my father, William MacGregor.  He replied he did.  I was amazed as my father had left the village for Halifax eleven years earlier.  I was thrilled that this elderly gentleman had actually known my father.  I never forgot him, although I am sure I would not have recognized him years later if I had met him again.  It wasn't his face that struck me, it was the fact he had known my Dad.