I was born in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia and was raised by my parents in the village of Pleasant Lake. It couldn’t have been a better spot for a wildlife artist to get a start.

On one side of the village there were huge saltwater marshes and creeks alongside the Tusket River. On the other side there was a series of small interlocking lakes that meandered for miles through meadows and barren lands.

There was so much wildlife all around me; thousands of geese would congregate on the marshes when migrating and in the spring I would join in with others in the village to dip the river for the gaspereau that came to spawn.

As a young teen I attended camps and learned how to handle a canoe. My first summer job was planting, picking and caring for strawberries until I had enough saved to buy my own canoe. This little craft ended up taking me for miles on the waterways of N.S., where I could observe the wildlife.

After receiving a scholarship from N.S.C.A.D. (Nova Scotia College of Art and Design), I headed for the city of Halifax, and over the next four years studied drawing, painting and printing (especially lithography).

In 1971, after finishing college, my wife Linda and I were eager to go and live among the natural beauty near her home in Baddeck on Cape Breton Island. It was here among the bald eagles, foxes, otters and other abundant wildlife that I began my career as a wildlife artist.

During the 1970’s, I created images by doing woodblock prints and oils, which were shown in local and national galleries. During the 1980’s I had the good fortune to be contacted by Alma Houston, owner of the Houston North Gallery in Lunenburg, N.S. Alma’s husband James had spent many years in the Arctic, introducing printmaking to Inuit and she had traveled world wide promoting their work. She returned to Nova Scotia with her son John and opened the gallery. It was an honor for me to have such a person interested in showing my work. With the help of John, who is a master printer, I produced 13 life-size woodblock images of birds and animals. These works were shown from coast to coast in Canada.

Although, there was plenty of natural beauty, little opportunity existed for making a living solely from art so I took whatever jobs came my way. Over the past thirty years I have worked in the woods, at the local yacht yard, loaded big pulp boats from Russia, drove the bookmobile from one end of Victoria Co. to the other and one year had the opportunity to help build the full scale replica of Alexander Graham Bell’s hydrofoil. After all this, I was able to join up with some local carpenters and this is the work that supported me for the past number of years.

In 1988, I took a break from my art career to care for my ailing parents, who passed away in 1996. Since 1996, I have returned to oil painting and am now making Metal Wing Sculptures. This summer of 2001 I’m excited to be opening The Flying Squirrel, an in-home studio gallery. The public will be able to view an artist at work and get to enjoy the beautiful view from my home near the Highlands of Cape Breton.