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His new biography tells the story of New Brunswick's most controversial politician. His novels - including Nights Below Station Street and Mercy Among the Children - have earned him cred as "the bard of Miramichi." So how does David Adams Richards define the region he writes about for outsiders? And where does he send visitors to see "his" town? This interview launches a new series asking people famous for their connection to place about where they come from.

Your writing is inseparable from New Brunswick's Miramichi Valley. Does a sense of place come first and then the story follows?

I'm never really sure what comes first. I'd probably say the characters come first. But of course the characters are associated with that region of the world, so the land is always present. But mainly it's like Yoknapatawpha County by Faulkner, or Hardy's Wessex, or in a way Alice Munro's small-town Ontario. It's where I feel most comfortable expressing my vision of the world, if you want to call it that.

So, like fans in search of William Faulkner's South, where should readers go to find David Adams Richards's Miramichi?

Downriver toward the bay, toward Escuminac and Tabusintac. Downriver is where I spent my youth. And there's all kinds of restaurants with French cuisine and fish - salmon, lobster, whatever.

Upriver too - Doaktown, Blackville, Renous - is just gorgeous. Anywhere up there people will be able to find what the culture and the people of the river were like. There's salmon pools, canoeing, fishing lodges and hunting lodges.

Anything that has to do with that would be a place where the people I write about spend their time.

Miramichi is also brimming with historic sites, including the manse and house of Lord Beaverbrook - the press baron and Churchill adviser whom you write about in your new biography. What do these places tell us about the man?

It's a grand house, a wonderful house.

It was built in 1879 for Max Aitken's father, who became a Presbyterian minister at the church - something which Max rebelled against when he was 11 years old. That was one of Max's main problems, rebelling, which led him into all kinds of directions. Some of them weren't very savoury.

But the manse itself became a library after Beaverbrook donated it. Max would get books and send them over. It held first editions from H.G. Wells and Rudyard Kipling.

In the Beaverbrook house, there's a player piano that he bought in England. Stanley Baldwin had one at 10 Downing Street, so Aitken bought one himself.

What sets the Miramichi apart from other tourist draws in the Maritimes - Halifax or Fredericton?

I think there's far more sense of self on the Miramichi than in Halifax.

You know, I was listening to a Liverpudlian yesterday talking about the difference between Liverpool and other parts of England, and how Liverpool is in some ways so insulated and isolated, and in other ways so fiery, and they have a sense of who they are. Well, the Miramichiers have a tremendous sense of who they are, and I think it comes from their Celtic background. And there is a certain, definite sense of self there that you don't get in the bigger cities in the Maritimes or in other parts of Canada.

It's kind of like Cape Breton - it has a uniqueness that can't be specified, but is there and is directly felt when you go there.

You've actually lived in Toronto for the last decade.

I live in Toronto and we go home to Miramichi every summer. I'm there four or five months of the year. I fish down there. It's one of the great fly-fishing rivers of the world.

Where do you go to fly-fish?

I fly-fish all over. The salmon come up various tributaries at various times of year, so a person might start fishing the northwest Miramichi in June, then switch to the little "sou west" Miramichi later on. The Renous and Bartibog are better for salmon in the fall. Any place on any one of the tributaries is a fine place to spend a day. One could go to Quarryville and watch fishermen cast for salmon. That in itself - to watch someone hook a fish - is almost as much fun as

fishing.

Do you use a guide?

I don't need a guide - and I stay at camps of friends or run the rivers in a canoe. But if you're coming to fish from outside the province you will need a guide - and the price is reasonable for a licence.

What about bait. Got any secrets?

There are also many good fly shops. But any garage or service station will have flies tied by local fly tiers - and these will be the ones to use. Butt bugs and green machines, black ghosts and butterflies are very good. And so are bear hairs and undertakers. These flies are all designed by locals and will attract salmon.

Is there some landmark in Miramichi that captures the spirit of the river for you?

Forty kilometres from Chatham is the small village of Escuminac. There you will find a monument to fishermen who gave their lives in June, 1959 - 35 men and boys were lost in the most violent storm ever to hit the water. It was an

incredible night of tragedy and heroics that has never been fully documented and should be.

Now that you split your time between Miramichi and Toronto, do you feel like you've left this place behind?

Well, you can tell by my accent, I'll always be a Maritimer. I do have a couple of historical books that I intend to write that have nothing to do with the Miramichi, and I'll probably start on them, knock on wood, in the next year or two. But I'll always be a Maritimer and Miramichier, no matter where I go or what I write. That's kind of the pact you make.

Guy Dixon is an arts reporter with The Globe and Mail.

David Adams Richards's Miramichi primer

Born in 1950 in Newcastle, N.B., now within the City of Miramichi, David Adams Richards has won the Governor-General's Award in both fiction and non-fiction and was co-winner of the Giller Prize in 2000 for his novel Mercy Among the Children. His latest work is a short biography of Lord Beaverbrook, part of the new series Extraordinary Canadians. Herewith, his tips on where to hang out in Miramichi:

A Miramachi primer

The food

"At any restaurant at any given season, I'd go and get the lobster. And I'd visit the wharfs and the local shops where you can buy fresh seafood."

DAVID'S PICKS: The Wharf Inn in Newcastle (1 Jane St.; 506-622-032) - where he orders, yes, seafood. Or for "the best milkshakes," try Kingsway Restaurant (367 King George Highway; 506-622-1138).

The nightlife

"They once had more bars per capita than anywhere else in Canada. That is not the case now, but there are still lots of bars to go to."

DAVID'S PICKS: The Black Horse Tavern (83 Newcastle Blvd.; 506-622-1201) for a beer or to the Lo Tide (Waterfront Development Rd.; 506-622-6502) just a few blocks away. "Either one will give you the feel of a small, close-knit town."

The souvenir

"Of course, souvenir shops will let you buy local artifacts. And many people like to bring back fishing flies or even lobster traps."

DAVID'S PICK: He'd head to Red Bank - an aboriginal heritage site called Metepenagiag - to something from "our first people's past."