Watched carefully by their guides, anglers have been casting flies over the Miramichi River for at least a century and a half, hoping to catch the king of fish, the wily and fierce Atlantic salmon. Today's guides are living encyclopedias, with techniques for canoeing, fishing and managing "sports" passed down from generation to generation. They are also men and women of the Miramichi — strong, kind and shrewd, and proud of their knack for yarn-spinning. No one knows Miramichi fishing guides like Wayne Curtis — he has been one himself for 37 years — and no one is more skillful at enticing guides to share their best stories. In River Guides of the Miramichi, he introduces more than 20 guides. With sensitivity and humour, he outlines their lives and — mainly in their own words — repeats their yarns. All the biographies are illustrated with photos of the guides, their canoes, rods and other equipment, the fishing camps where they work, and some of the "sports" they educate and entertain so vividly.

Wayne Curtis was born in Keenan, New Brunswick, in 1943. He was educated at the local schoolhouse and St. Thomas University where he majored in English. He has won the Richards Award for short fiction, The Lieutenant Governor's Award, and the CBC Drama Awards. Wayne's stories have appeared in literary journals: The Cormorant, The Fiddlehead, Pottersfield Portfolio, The Nashwaak Review, The Antigonish Review, The Dalhousie Review, New Brunswick Reader, New Maritimes and the anthologies Atlantica, Country Roads, The STU Reader, Winter House, The Christmas Secret and Winter. His short stories have been dramatized on CBC radio and CBC television.

In the spring of 2005, Wayne Curtis received an Honorary Doctorate Degree (letters) from St. Thomas University. In 2014 he was awarded the Order of New Brunswick. In 2018 he received the Senate Sesquicentennial Medal from the Canadian Senate and in 2023 he received The Queen's Platinum Jubilee Award. Wayne has lived in southern Ontario, Yukon Territories and Cuba. He currently divides his time between his cabin on the Miramichi River and his apartment in Fredericton, New Brunswick. Our Christmas Guest is his twenty-second published book.

Wayne Curtis' profile page