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River of Dreams: The Saga of the Shubenacadie Canal

By  Donna Barnett 

Photographs by Donna Barnett
Nimbus Publishing Ltd
Soft Cover 128 pages

Cost $22.95

ISBN 1-55109-407-X

An Engineering Feat of the 20th Century

reviewed by Ronnie Scullion

River of Dreams follows the turbulent history of the construction of the Shubenacadie Canal - a dream barely realized, considering the canal enjoyed only ten years of full operation compared to the almost ten decades of planning and construction.

Donna Barnett guides us across each winding waterway, across the decades of proposals, revisions and dreams, and gives us deeper connection to the people who fostered this dream, whose ideas were forged in the wood and stone that lines the canal routes to this day.

It is a studied and thoroughly researched telling of the building of the canal, from the birth of an idea through the various manifestations and proposals that carried it forward. Little pictorial documentation has survived to tell the story - no photographs or sketches remain that show the stone masons skillfully laying the first foundations or the barges that later graced the canal waters. Barnett instead has relied on archival information, piecing together the story from the minutes of the many meetings of stakeholders and from the letters and correspondences of the engineers, detailing the proposed locks.

It reads as living history, the characters and key players are sketched with a pen for detail and realism. The reader is transported back in time and can imagine him or herself reviewing the carefully sketched plans, bound in leather, prepared by George Baldwin or attending a weekly board meeting of the Inland Navigation Company.

Barnett's skill with the pen is matched with her accomplishments as a photographer. Close ups of the remnants of the canal construction coupled with scenic shots of the route fill the pages with vibrant colour. The book is a fine achievement of outdoor and nature photography interspersed with aesthetically presented architectural plans, surveys and maps.

Barnett's photographs display the emerging pastels of sunrise along the river, an unusual glimpse of running shad in the shallow mudflats and the multi-coloured fall palette gracing the route.

With River of Dreams Barnett has vividly captured and retold a vibrant part of our Nova Scotian history. It is a book worth reading and rereading and one whose images evoked in pen and captured with a camera will colour our recollections.

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