Wayne Curtis: A 2021 Tribute for the Order of Canada
Contributed by Cynthia Losier
(Note: Cynthia Losier wrote the following letter nominating Mr. Curtis for the Order of Canada award. Unfortunately, he wasn’t recognized as a recipient. Still, Cynthia and I felt that Wayne needs to be acknowledged by the larger CanLit community, so I’m sharing some of her letter here, with her kind permission. It has been edited for posting. - James)
Wayne Curtis was born on a farm in Keenan, New Brunswick, an area that claims the main Southwest Miramichi River as its sacred trust. His family enjoyed a life that hadn’t changed much since the first settlers were given land grants there. The landscape was unspoiled and close to the scenic ones first described with “true Canadian eyes” by Canada’s Confederation Poets and Group of Seven artists. Curtis acknowledges the impact of this landscape on his youth in his memoir, Long Ago and Far Away:
“Growing up in the countryside left the mind free to receive an impression of the world as a whole. Everything there was college”.
Against this idyllic backdrop, Wayne Curtis makes an important and unique contribution to Canadian Literature. He tells stories of his lived experience in rural New Brunswick since the 1940s through a body of work that includes fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, memoirs and nature writings. He has a traditional and nostalgic look backward at the rural lifestyles and livelihoods of his family, friends, and neighbours, who make their living by lumbering, fishing, and farming. What distinguishes Curtis’s writing is his use of personal knowledge and experience to describe the social, economic and environmental impacts on these people related to the demise of family farming, the decline of Canada’s 300-year-old forestry industry, and the devastation wrought in nature by climate change and over-fishing. Given his understanding of the issues, Curtis is perfectly poised to verify the hardships faced by people whose lives and incomes depend on seasonal employment and the declining interest in resource-based industries. Curtis’s truthful, emotionally powerful and poetic stories are remarkable and unique in the Canadian literature context and should be taken seriously by those who study our country’s literary foundations. Curtis’s pen transforms the challenges faced by people born in poor, small and rural communities in New Brunswick to Canadian and universal level status and concern. This is a singular perspective in Canadian literature that also serves the practical purpose of creatively recording and preserving rural Maritime history. Writers and critics alike acknowledge that no one is telling this part of the Canadian story so persuasively, imaginatively, as well, and for as long as Wayne Curtis.
Curtis’s evolution as a writer is a remarkable story in itself, given the fact that his starting point had been to leave school after grade nine to work in the woods with his father—a generational expectation in his family and a common income source for survival in his community. His later coming-of-age, during the transition between the conformity of the 1950s and the youth rebellion of the 1960s, was a time in New Brunswick when social, cultural and religious distinctions could limit opportunities. Although a university degree still opened doors to a lifetime career—without one, Curtis was forced, like many of his generation, to try his luck in Ontario. A 20-year-old Curtis departed in 1963 for St. Catharines, where he made ends meet for six years in blue-collar jobs—the most lucrative, a position at General Motors. It was in St. Catharines, that Curtis had his first real writing experience as a love letter writer to the girlfriends of the Miramichi lads who shared his boarding house. By 1969, Curtis was married and had a young son, a catalyst that influenced his decision to return home to New Brunswick. It was after this, when Curtis was well into his thirties, that he decided to hone his writing and storytelling talents by embarking on formal education. This journey—from GED to three years of a college arts degree through night school at Saint Thomas University in Fredericton—took 10 years. This extraordinary commitment was a sign of the trust he had in his decision to become a writer, and more importantly, his determination to become a “good” writer. It involved exceptional courage and sacrifice, as there were few opportunities to make a living in rural New Brunswick and no funding support available for novice writers. A family man first, Curtis always had to have a day job, which included 25 years at a furniture store in Newcastle, supplemented by 14 years as a seasonal river guide in Keenan. Anglers worldwide flock to Keenan to fish Atlantic salmon, so life as a guide on the Miramichi River was not dull. Besides providing creative inspiration and fodder for his many books that feature river life and fly-fishing, Curtis piloted many world-famous personalities, including Ted Williams, the legendary Baseball Hall of Famer and Lee Wulff, the outdoorsman who revolutionized salmon fishing.
There is a sparse book distribution system in New Brunswick, and for years Curtis has driven his books all over New Brunswick to the small bookstores and rural outlets that would accept them. Because it shows the tenacity involved in this door-to-door book delivery system, it is interesting to note that Curtis’s first book, Currents in the Stream published in 1988 and long out of print, sold 6000 copies in its early runs through this method. Curtis had little literary acknowledgement or financial success for his early work. It is only in the last few years that Curtis has gained any success for his courage, labour and talent. He credits two adventures in this long history for sustaining and inspiring him. The first was a literary excursion to a writers’ retreat at the University of Cienfuegos in Cuba in 1999. A highlight was the time spent with Captain Gregorio Fuentes, Hemingway’s personal boat captain and model for Santiago, the cursed fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea. Curtis celebrated this experience in his essay, “The Real Old Man and the Sea,” first published in Fly-Fisherman (USA) and later in the National Post and NB Reader. The second high point was his time as a writer-in-residence at the Pierre Berton House in Dawson City, Yukon in 2002 where, because of his affinity with nature, the stories Curtis produced echo the landscapes that Group of Seven artist A.Y. Jackson painted 70 years earlier.
Curtis’s Non-Fiction and Nature Writing
Curtis’s nonfiction and nature writing talent is touted as the best in Canada by many including Senator David Adams Richards, who writes in his letter of support:
He is a great writer, one of the finest non-fiction writers our country has had the good fortune to produce, neglected as so many writers from the east have been for far too long. … His books about growing up near Blackville in the 40s and 50s are as fine as any reminiscent literature in North America …
Norman MacLean is noted for writing A River Runs Through It; yes a fine book. I agree. Wayne Curtis has written Long Ago and Far Away, as good or better a book. I say this with no slight to one only a long overdue accolade to the other. He is a master of dispelling what is false about our preconceived notions by simply telling the truth. And this truth will make him known and revered long after his pen has been put down.
Good writing about nature requires solitude, an innate sense of place, and the ability to observe without influencing or interfering. How we make meaning from our relationships with the living ecologies surrounding us is of interest to many fields, including aesthetics, spiritual ecology and activism. Philosopher Immanuel Kant describes the “artist’s” heightened involvement in such encounters as “disinterested delight”.1 This is a state of consciousness where the mind observes “beauty” on a transcendent level so intensely that it is immune to analysis and beyond the experience of most people. In this regard, Curtis’s works, especially his creative memoirs and personal essays, have been compared to major nature writers such as Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson and Roderick Haig-Brown.
Biologist and naturalist author, Dr. Harry Thurston notes shortcomings in the nature writing of Thoreau and Haig-Brown that favour Curtis.
Thoreau shows us how “to be in Nature,” while Haig-Brown shows how “to act in Nature”. I would suggest Wayne Curtis shows us how to both be and act in nature. As a professional guide and expert angler, Curtis is more than qualified to tell us how to fish and hunt—how to survive in nature—but he also brings a kind of mysticism to the page akin to Thoreau’s.2
Martin Silverstone, the former editor of the journal Canadian Wildlife also acknowledges this genius in Curtis’s nature writing and laments his late discovery of it:
Truly great nature writers are hard to come by because to be one, you need to understand your place in the natural world. Curtis’s writing has the simple directness and intimacy of Aldo Leopold; the warmth and optimism of Thoreau; and the reasoned urgency of Carson. If only I had known Wayne Curtis back then, perhaps Canadian Wildlife would have been a bigger success. [Of Earthly and River Things] brought me back to the last hectic days at Canadian Wildlife, where … we hoped writing like Curtis’ would fall onto our desk, like a gift from heaven.3
Obvious throughout Curtis’s writing is his particular love of the Miramichi River, beside which he grew up, and where he and members of his family fly-fished salmon and guided sports fishers from all over the world for decades. This detail in Curtis’s biography has resulted in a strong following for his writing among sports fishers and naturalist groups. Curtis’s lifelong involvement with the River and the flora and fauna surrounding it has given his writing distinctive status in the Canadian writers’ catalogue for other reasons. Novelist, editor and arts journalist, Nancy Bauer writes of its impact on her:
I was so moved by Wayne Curtis’ Of Earthly and River Things: An Angler’s Memoir and its vivid and truthful rendering of the environs of the [Miramichi] River that I wondered if I could attempt something similar. I set out to do just that. To be thus inspired by another writer’s words is my ultimate tribute to that writer.4
Curtis is a vigorous defender of the natural world and has lent his time, energy and talent to many like-minded organizations, publications and causes. His championship of the Miramichi River and its Atlantic salmon has earned him respect and awards from environmentalist and conservationist groups, including the Atlantic Salmon Hall of Fame Award (1995), the Atlantic Salmon Federation Conservation Award (1999), and the Miramichi Salmon Association Conservation Award (2005).
Curtis’s histories, memoirs and essays have also played a significant role in commemorating Maritime people and places; protecting and preserving historic sites and folk traditions; and documenting significant changes in the area and its natural environment. Curtis’s essay, “The Mill” tells the story of the downturn in New Brunswick’s forestry industry in the 1990s, and the drastic effects it had on employment with the subsequent mill closures. It is also no small compliment to acknowledge the economic reality that Curtis’s nature writing and sports fishing books have brought many tourists and salmon fishing enthusiasts to New Brunswick.
Curtis’s Fiction Writing
Curtis’s idyllic youth and exposure to nature in Keenan have had a lifelong effect on his memory. It is impossible to ignore the uniqueness, depth and power of this bond in his novels, short stories and creative memoirs. Curtis’s deep respect for nature’s transience and beauty permeates all. Because of this, his fiction reflects an urgency to capture compelling moments about the meaning and mystery of life in a natural environment before it is altered forever by circumstances that would make it impossible to have a nature-dependent lifestyle or to even remember what such an existence is like. Taglines such as pastoral, idyllic, and nostalgic are often used to describe the tone of Curtis’s fiction writing. There is a notable absence of the solemn and gritty realism that permeates much of popular writing. Curtis’s fiction is realistic in more subtle and symbolic ways.
Thematically, Curtis‘s fiction explores the paradox inherent in transforming a life-sustaining natural environment, in the name of “progress,” into something that is unfamiliar, soul-destroying and life-altering. This tension between past and present, and between the natural world—which Curtis aligns with truth, beauty and goodness—and progress is a recurring theme. The symbolism inherent in this contradiction is especially obvious in Curtis’s fictionalized memoirs, Long Ago and Far Away and Of Earthly and River Things, and his novel, One Indian Summer. All are set in the time when family farms in Canada were vanishing and rural areas were being developed for industrial and tourism use. Curtis’s preference for New Brunswick’s historic nature-dependent lifestyle is enshrined as a staple in his writing. His reverence for this way of living is more than a superficial time stamp for the good old days: it is a profound statement about what is positive and enduring about this existence, and what the advantages were and are of having a worldview in which expectations are simple, the future is fairly predictable, and humans and nature are in harmony. This overarching focus in Curtis’s writing is deliberate and is part of understanding his unique contribution to Canadian literature.
Curtis’s fictional landscapes combine the distinctive knowledge of a long-time observer of nature with an intuitive understanding of how the natural world interacts with the human one. He uses his relationship with the earth and his intimate understanding of the personal and cultural intricacies of his own time and place, and the manners and complexities of New Brunswickers, to develop the motivations, idiosyncrasies and psychological relationships of his fictional characters. They are Maritimers. The rural lifestyle related to fishing, logging and hunting imbues his characters with their distinct essences—their hearts and minds, and their cultural, emotional, spiritual and psychic identities. Curtis models many of these stories on the family and community life of the farmers, fishermen and loggers he grew up with in Keenan. By disentangling and tidying their stories, as well as using his own, Curtis transforms what is particular and distinctive about their lives and the rural world where they live to a profound and universal level. Curtis’s characters are typically placed in situations that force them to come to terms with changes that threaten their lifestyles and livelihoods. Caught between two worlds (rural and urban; past and present; every day and perpetuity) they explore what is sacred and in need of saving, and what must be abandoned to survive a changed reality. They fight the age-old battle between ambition and leaving home, and the constrictions of family, friends and the nostalgia of place—a double bind, where going is as hard as staying. This is a common struggle of many who grow up in poor, small and rural communities.
Stories focusing on cultural characteristics, collective memories and specific feelings associated with particular places and times have long defined successful Canadian literature. One needs to look no further than Nova Scotia writers Ernest Buckler and Alistair MacLeod to understand the importance of these fundamentals in grounding stories and abstracting truth from the details in them. Curtis who is often compared to Buckler and MacLeod is considered by scholars of Maritime literature to be a master interpreter of the time, place and landscape modalities. Professor Anthony Tremblay has written extensively about Curtis’s work in his online New Brunswick Literary Encyclopedia, as well as in a support letter for Curtis’s successful nomination for the “New Brunswick Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in English Language Literary Arts” (2019)
The breadth and importance of his cultural achievement have rarely been emulated in New Brunswick. Both are discernable in his genius at capturing the exact local colours of our place. Not since the Fredericton School of the Confederation Poets (namely, Charles G. D. Roberts, Bliss Carmen and Francis Sherman) has a New Brunswick writer so expertly evoked the many dimensions, moods, contours, and attitudes of our home province. At his best, he is as good as Ernest Buckler in Oxbells and Fireflies, which is the highest achievement possible for a writer of place in Canada. Curtis writes with such authority and care about his sacred trust—the upper waters of the Miramichi in central New Brunswick—that we are brought into the heart of a three-dimensional world that lives fully in the mind and heart. …
Wayne Curtis is our great poet of landscape, his evocations of lands and rivers are every bit as lyrical and finely honed as those of our poets. He is thus as important to New Brunswick as figures such as Alistair MacLeod and Jack Hodgins are to Nova Scotia and British Columbia. Recognizing that MacLeod said in an early review that Curtis “limns the contours of place so that it may live for others as it does for him”. His talent, honed by years of discipline, is indeed that significant.5
After reading Curtis’s 1991 short story, “The Fight,” about a young man in love with a married woman, Canadian literary critic, Louis Dudek wrote, “we will be hearing a lot more from Wayne Curtis before he is through”. Wayne Curtis has continued to write in the 30 years since Dudek’s prediction. He has woven a complex tapestry of personal history and place into the fictional imaginings of short stories and novels that describe the Maritime psyche, and the social, cultural and economic factors that affect its people. He is a major talent in the use of autobiography, memory writing and personal essays to bring public focus to the important factors affecting Canada’s changing natural environment and the realities of rural living. Curtis’s talent for creating art out of the fabric of his life experiences and the courage and trust that this implies is what good storytelling is all about. In this regard, Curtis is celebrated for his New Brunswick focus and Miramichi storylines, and as the Province’s finest contemporary landscape writer and master of time and place. Curtis has authored 20 books, 10 of which are fiction, seven (7) are nonfiction and three (3) are memoirs. He has also contributed articles to literary journals, magazines and newspapers, and authored two (2) privately commissioned historical works. To date, Curtis’s writing career spans more than 50 years.
Curtis is a traditionalist in an age that doesn’t much care for tradition and subtle symbolism. This may account in part for the fact that he has not yet garnered the national recognition he deserves. With his formidable writing skill and storytelling talent, Wayne Curtis might also have enjoyed wider recognition and greater financial success, had he positioned himself in one of Canada’s major publishing centers. Instead, he chose to live and write in New Brunswick for the simple reason that he loves the Province, its rural lifestyle, its people and its history. Through the power and poignancy of his writing, Curtis has represented all of these things with integrity, dignity and style, and in literary ways that position him at the pinnacle of the country’s writers. The summary fact is this: Wayne Curtis has written unabashedly and masterfully about what he knows with a singular and unique Maritime voice for over 50 years, and is worthy by all accounts to receive the honour of the Order of Canada as defined by the “Member (CM)” category, which “recognizes outstanding contributions at the local or regional level or in a special field of activity”.
Wayne Curtis’s fiction writing won the David Adams Richards’ Award for Short Fiction (1993), as well as, the CBC (Drama) Literary Award (1996), which led to the made-for-TV movie, “The Dance” (1998). ). His short stories have also been dramatized on CBC Radio. In recognition of his contribution to Canadian literature, Curtis was awarded an Honourary Doctor of Letters from St. Thomas University (2005), the Order of New Brunswick (2014), the Canadian Senate Sesquicentennial Medal (2018) and the New Brunswick Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in English Language Literary Arts (2019). ). In 2022, Curtis was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal. Curtis’s documents and letters have been collected and held by the University of New Brunswick: Archives & Special Collections since 2001.
Cynthia Losier is a retired librarian. Her passion for Maritime writing grew from reading Canadian literary critic and historian Dr. Desmond Pacey’s book, Creative Writing in Canada, while a student at the University of Toronto in the 1970s. In it, she learned about the major role New Brunswick writers Sir Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carmen and Francis Sherman played in defining an initial and unique literature for Canada. All three were associated with Fredericton High School (FHS) where Losier later became a librarian. Roberts and Carmen attended FHS as students, and Sherman and Carmen later taught there. While at FHS, Losier hosted local writers to read from their works and speak about their creative process—among them, the well-known writers Alden Nowlan, Fred Cogswell, Raymond Fraser and Wayne Curtis. Losier has long advocated for New Brunswick writers through financial grant structures and non-monetary avenues that would allow them to advance their careers in other ways.
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. “Immanuel Kant: Aesthetics . 2.a. The Judgement of the Beautiful.”
Quoted from Dr. Harry Thurston’s letter of support for this nomination
Martin Silverstone, Review of Of Earthly and River Things, Wayne Curtis. “Rum Rock: It Isn’t A Place, But A Time As Well. Let This Book Take You There,” Atlantic Salmon Journal (Spring, 2013): 10.
Nancy Bauer’s 2018 letter of support for Wayne Curtis’s nomination for the NB Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in English Language Literary Arts 2019.
Dr. Anthony Tremblay’s 2018 letter of support for Wayne Curtis’s nomination for the NB Lieutenant Governor’s Award for High Achievement in English Language Literary Arts (2019).
A literary life well conducted.
River People is a collection I cherish.