The Purpose of this Website
	Rationale for the Inclusion of Items

This website has been created and maintained as a service to Bear River community and its visitors. Until now, information about Bear River has been fragmented, not least because the village is split between Digby and Annapolis counties. (The river itself is the boundary.) As a result it has been very difficult for the community to develop in a coherent way.

One outcome of this is that, although several individuals and organisations have their own websites, there has been no central point from which they can be accessed. There is also a large artistic community, who put what they produce before the public in various ways, but there is no central directory to enable the public to get in touch with them. It therefore seemed to me desirable to create a single point that provided access to all the information that is available. That is the purpose of this website: not to provide the information itself but to provide links to where the information may be found.

The creation of the website has not been subsidised in any way. I do not accept advertising, and no payment is either solicited or accepted from the people or organisations listed on the site. If you would like your particulars to be included, or if you find any errors or omissions, or if you have suggestions about how the site could be improved, please email me at jrd@bearriver.uponthe.net .

Nevertheless, I have to set limits on what I can include. One of those limits is geographical. Where are the boundaries of Bear River? The surrounding area is full of worthy artists and tradespeople. At some point I have to decide who qualifies as being a Bear River resident.

In this case my criterion is the telephone number. For the purposes of this website, anybody who has a 467 telephone number is a Bear River resident. Anybody who has another number is not.

I also have to decide what categories to place people in. One of my objectives is to provide a directory of the many creative artists and craftspeople who live here; but many people are creative, and there is no clear boundary between those who are creative in an "artistic" way and those who are not. The problem is particularly acute where what is being produced has a practical use. Is a potter or a cabinet maker an "artist" or a "tradesperson"?

In the case of producers of artefacts, the criterion I have adopted is as follows.

• Those who produce for sale to the general public on the open market are "artists".
• Those who produce on commission to the specifications of a client are "tradespeople".

Some people fall into both categories and are on both lists. At present I have placed all the potters in the "Artist" category only. If anybody feels they should be on a different list, please let me know.

These criteria are arbitrary, but that is inevitable. Some decision has to be made, and since I am the organiser of this website, that decision has to be mine. More generally, on any matters concerning the inclusion or non-inclusion of information on this website, my decision has to be final.

John Downie