Born the son of a Methodist minister in 1881, Frank Parker Day spent his youth among the fishing communities of Nova Scotia's south shore. A Rhodes scholar, he taught English literature at the University of New Brunswick, taking active service with the Canadian army during World War I and retiring as president of Union College, Schenectedy in 1927. He wrote three novels, River of Strangers (1926), Rockbound (1928), and John Paul's Rock (1932), in addition to The Autobiography of a Fisherman in 1927. He died in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in 1950.