Clarence
Barrett's “Companion” is one part guidebook, one part memoir of
his travels in the park, and one part scientific journal. If you
travel the park counter-clockwise as I did you don't get an
opportunity to pick it up until after you've driven the entire
highway through the park. It should be available at the Ingonish end.
The book is well edited and exhaustive in its coverage of hiking
trails, official and unlisted. Ideally the book should be read before
one enters the park gates—there aren't any; as I peruse it becomes
an exercise in armchair travel and self-education.
The
practice of giving the people whose homes were expropriated to create
a park first priority in job hiring ensures that park staff have a
certain love-hate relationship with the place.
There
is a section of colour photographs at the centre of the book on
polished paper. I do with the author had opted to show half as many
photos in half page blow-ups as the present collage style doesn't due
justice to his photography. One or two full-page portrait oriented
photos would have been nice as well.
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