A well-known New Brunswick adventure guide is getting an update just in time for summer weather.
Nicholas Guitard’s Waterfalls of New Brunswick has received an updated edition, featuring 60 new falls and updated descriptions of old favourites.
Eleven years ago, Guitard and a friend set out to find a waterfall based on a drawn map, but were unable to locate it. That’s when he took to the internet to try and find directions, but there was very little information online.
“It sort of tweaked my interest (to ask) why can’t I do this? I can write a book and introduce waterfalls to New Brunswickers,” he said.
A few months later, Guitard and his pal found the site they had set out looking for. At that point, he wanted to put together a resource for New Brunswickers looking for a similar adventure.
“I’m sure my high school English teachers are probably wondering ‘where’d this guy come from?'” Guitard said with a laugh. “People call me the Waterfall Guy.”
It’s now been more than 10 years since the Waterfall Guy released the first edition of his New Brunswick nature guides.
Since then, he’s turned ‘waterfalling,’ as he calls it and writing about his adventures into a fairly busy post-retirement hobby.
“When I retired I told the president as I was walking out the door ‘I’m made for retirement,’ and I certainly am. I’m enjoying life,” said Guitard.
Over the past year, there’s been a renewed interest in Waterfalls of New Brunswick during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“(People are) staying closer to home and realizing there’s much to see within New Brunswick,” he said. “And the need to stay away from groups of people, what better way than to grab a guide, or go on the internet to get information, and go on a hike.”
In addition to the creative and physical benefits to waterfalling, Guitard has also found it’s helped him meet people across the province, and it’s also helped bring him closer to the province’s history.
Recently, a reader touched base and the pair went for a trip to a waterfall near Pokiok Brook.
“He was telling me the history of his grandfather and grandfather’s brother who ran lumber camps up along the river and into the Pokiok Brook area,” Guitard said. “He was telling me how close his family is to the area.”
That’s not unusual for one of Guitard’s waterfalling trips. Some of his expeditions have brought him out to the remnants of abandoned lumber camps.
“You’ll find old pottery, and utensils, that have been there for probably 40 or 50 years, just left there when the camps closed.”
