Jerry Lonecloud

Jerry Lonecloud (July 4, 1854 – April 16, 1930) served as an entertainer, ethnographer, and medicine man among the Mi'kmaq people in Nova Scotia. His oral memoirs, comprising Mi'kmaw oral histories and legends, were documented from 1923 to 1929. These memoirs were later compiled into a book—Tracking Dr. Lonecloud: Showman to Legend Keeper—by ethnographer and historian Ruth Holmes Whitehead at the Nova Scotia Museum in Halifax in 2002. These recordings laid the foundation for the 2002 biography, the first known Mi'kmaq memoir. According to Whitehead, Lonecloud could "rightly" be called the "ethnographer of the Micmac nation."

Early life Lonecloud was born on 4 July 1852 in Belfast, Maine, to Mi'kmaw parents originally from Nova Scotia. His birth name was Germain Bartlett Alexis.

Lonecloud died in Halifax on April 16, 1930.

Legacy The musical group Lone Cloud is named after him. Lonecloud Island (site of a former Scouts Camp) in Fall River, Nova Scotia bears his name. The Jerry Lonecloud Trail in Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia is named in his honor. A display dedicated to him can be seen at the Nova Scotia Museum of Natural History.