Introduction

A writer returns to Nova Scotia, and finding it almost unrecognizable, sets out to capture the essence of his ancestral province--a place as strange and wild as anywhere on the continent.

John DeMont visits places as diverse as a Buddhist abbey; the first free black settlement outside Africa; an island that harbours pirate treasure; and a backwoods barndance where the music of 18th-century Scotland lives on. He visits tuna smugglers and moonshiners; the brooding painter Alex Colville; spiritual seekers from Japan, the US and Europe; and Anne Murray's greatest Austrian fans. He also races yachts with summer residents; patrols the coast for drug smugglers with the Mounties; and casts for salmon with the wisest fishing guides.

A road book with a difference, and an endearing search for home, The Last Best Place is wry and wise, as quirky and lively as Nova Scotia itself.