Nap Michano

Nap Michano recalls that you could trap anywhere in the old days, and that his area between the Pukaskwa and the Cascade went back eighteen miles; "They go by the height of the land ... like the Pukaskwa area - I take in all the water draining to the Pukaskwa".

Places: Cascade Falls

He worked for Talarico and Purvis Fisheries.

Nap was hired by the General Timber Company to be one of the first in an area to lumbered and travel through evaluating it's resources. At the time it was nicked named, "cruising. He describes it as such: "Say you cruise a swamp and you take a little square place like this, you know, maybe an eighth of a mile square... they take one tree and see how many blocks they can get off that tree, say seven or eight blocks, eight foot stuff. Well, then, they count say it takes six trees to make a cord of wood - well, they measure that little place and then they take the square and they know exactly how many cords of wood in that square, and then they take the whole swamp and go around whether it is a mile square or two mile square. They figure out exactly how many cords of wood is in there say one swamp is 500 cords or 1,000 cords. So that's what timber cruising is. And then they cruise for which tow to get the wood out of the swamp in the easiest way." Operating out of the Heron Bay Depot for the General Timber Company, Nap Michano cruised in the Pic watershed, camping in the bush and making about $90 a month. With reports such as this coming back to the depot, actual planning of the development of a cutting area could take place.

Places: Heron Bay

Would guide parties into the bush for $15 to $20 a day. At that time there used to be a lot more yachting along the coast. Referring to Otter Cove he said: "All along the shore here. It used to be in the cove, say about twenty or thirty years ago, it was no trouble to count five or six yachts a day. But they kind of disappeared as the fish disappeared from the lakes." Michano would take tourists from these boats into the bush for four days a week, visiting interior lakes for fishing. He commented: "I hated guiding. I'd sooner starve than guide. I don't know if they make a living because the season's too short for it. Well, take moose hunting you might get a month out of it, and the fishing in the spring you might get a month. So that's two months. You are not going to quit a job just to go guiding for two monthers. (Michano, II,iv, 569-756)."