From Atlantic Books Today 99, spring 2024

Vernon Oickle is one of those writers who have a nose for bestselling books. At the heart of his dozens of nonfiction and fiction books, this proud Maritimer delights in detailing the particularities of East Coast Canadians, including, for example, their lives, slang, superstitions, history, art, music, food, culture, and overall “celebratables.”

This spring, he celebrated the publication of his 35th book, Through Rain, Sleet, or Snow: Mailboxes in Rural Nova Scotia.

A lifelong resident of Liverpool, N.S., Oickle is also a multi-award-winning journalist, with a community newspaper career that spans 33 years and includes expertise in every form of journalism, including photography. In the spring of 2020, Oickle was inducted into the Atlantic Journalism Awards Hall of Fame. Currently, he is a columnist for the South Shore Breaker and owner and operator of Privateer Promotions and Communications.

These enviable achievements aside, anyone who can list on his CV that he is “a resident ghost storyteller” at a fine South Shore resort is obviously living a good life.

So what was it about mailboxes in rural Nova Scotia that caught his imagination?

“I was driving down the road one day, saw a cool mailbox, and took a photo,” says Oickle. “Then I saw another one, took another photo, and the pictures starting piling up. Then I thought, ‘Hey, these are unique, these are pieces of art. I should turn this into a book.’”

By word of mouth and via social media, Oickle started asking people to send him the locations of unique, handcrafted mailboxes. Information poured in from around mainland Nova Scotia and the island of Cape Breton. He started driving to remote mailboxes under the guidance of his constant navigator: his wife Nancy.

“We must know every backroad in the province,” laughs Oickle. “We made ‘a day’ of our explorations. It’s been fun!”

Twelve years after he took that first photograph, the gorgeous, full colour “mailboxes book” is now a reality. It showcases different categories of mailboxes, along with their history, and an index of locations.

The stories that accompany the images are compact and informative, with Oickle’s love of small towns and rural life adding warmth to the people on the pages.

“The mailboxes are a dying art form,” he says. “Plastic has taken care of that.”

As curator and author Ray Cronin writes in the book’s foreword, “That is why a collection of photographs such as this one is so important – it records authentic folk expressions that many of us have either never seen, or at least never really looked at … we can slowly peruse these pages, and enjoy the ready wit, the inventiveness, the honesty and the authenticity of our neighbours.”

“So many Atlantic Canadians live in rural settings,” says Oickle. “In those small communities we know each other. We celebrate each other’s successes, and share our sorrows. We [settler Canadians] also like to know where we’ve come from, our heritage and culture.” His books feed this curiosity and bolster a sense of belonging, Oickle believes.

One of his titles, How to Talk Nova Scotian, was the bestselling book in Nova Scotia for 2018. Oickle clearly knows, and appreciates, his audience. He also gives a nod to his closest circle, saying, “My wife and my family are so supportive.”

As for fiction, he says, “I wanted to not work with facts for a change, to create my own worlds, characters, and people.” His Crow series, based on the old British nursery rhyme, “One Crow Sorrow,” etc., has been as popular as his non-fiction books, and shares commonalities.

“People like the mystery, intrigue, crime, and human relations that I write about,” says Oickle. “I have readers emailing me to know when the next Crow title is coming out. The feedback is motivating! That’s why you do it. It’s gratifying.”

Brandy Berry, manager at the Coles bookstore in Yarmouth, is delighted that Oickle has a new title this spring.

“We love having Vernon in for signings,” she says. “He’s such a sweet guy, so genuine and fun.”

And the man sells books.

“Oh, yes, it’s always a great day at the store,” says Berry. “We put out all his titles and he sells those, in addition to the new title. And a big shout-out to Nancy, who organizes his book-signing schedule so well. They are busy!”

Oickle also saw a spring publication for Eight Crows for a Wish, the eighth in the series, and plenty of promotion for Through Rain, Sleet and Snow.

“I love what I do,” says Oickle, who has plans for many more books. “My imagination is always percolating.”