This masterful social and environmental history raises questions about how decisions being made about the natural world today will shape the cities of tomorrow. In 1865, John Smoke braved the ice on Burlington Bay to go spearfishing. Soon after, he was arrested by a fishery inspector and then convicted by a magistrate who chastised him for thinking that he was at liberty to do as he pleased “with Her Majesty’s property.” With this story, Nancy Bouchier and Ken Cruikshank launch their history of the relationship between the people of Hamilton, Ontario, and Hamilton Harbour (aka Burlington Bay). From the time of European settlement through to the city’s rise as an industrial power, townsfolk struggled with nature, and with one another, to champion their particular vision of “the bay” as a place to live, work, and play. As Smoke discovered, the outcomes of those struggles reflected the changing nature of power in an industrial city. From efforts to conserve the fishery in the 1860s to current attempts to revitalize a seriously polluted harbour, each generation has tried to create what it believed would be a livable and prosperous city.

Set against the backdrop of over one hundred years of world history, Take a Walk on the Bright Side begins with the story of Eugene Bright's restless, entrepreneurial grandfather, Tom Bright, who uprooted his young family in 1907 to travel west and build a homestead in Saskatchewan. A few years later, he moved on and started over again in Montana, only to flee the United States when a confrontation with a neighbour turned dangerous. Tom was a colourful character who was married six times - twice to the same woman. Eugene's father, Ray Bright, left home at eighteen to work as a cowboy in Montana before marrying Lottie Sampson and settling down in Ontario to start farming. Although Lottie did not want any children, they had four boys and four girls. The family lived without running water or electricity, but they "ate like kings" according to a hired man. Eugene and his brothers and sisters walked across neighbouring fields to a one-room schoolhouse run by an outstanding teacher. Eugene worked hard on the farm and at school, and he went on to attend bible college and university, beginning a thirty-one-year career as a teacher, a school principal and a "master" at a teachers' college. Told by the decade and extensively illustrated, Take a Walk on the Bright Side is a multi-generational tale brought to life by a keen observer.