The Bear River Reserve was established around 1820 on a tract of land straddling the border of Digby and Annapolis counties. During much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, life on the Reserve was difficult for Mi’kmaw families as the government provided few supplies and little help. Many of our people were forced to beg, or became sick and died of diseases like tuberculosis and smallpox.

We held fast to our traditional, seasonal way of life, as guides during the fall and winter months; working on the log drives in the spring, and making annual trips to the coast to fish and hunt porpoise in the summer.