The group was led by Andrew and Tully Merkel, whose Halifax, Nova Scotia, home became "a favourite rendezvous for writers and artists.
"[1] The historian Thomas Raddall described the group in his memoirs: In the mid-1920s some of the poets formed a sort of flying squad, calling themselves whimsically the Song Fisherman, including Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, Robert Norwood, Evelyn Tufts, Stewart MacAuley, Kenneth Leslie, Ethel Butler and other lively spirits. ...
Besides road trips, the group organized recitals and lectures, produced broadsheets, and kept in contact with Maritime poets who had moved away from the region.
When that publishing outlet was closed in 1929, the Song Fishermen officially disbanded in September 1929 with a two-day celebration including poetry, reciting, piping, Highland dancing, and a marine trip to East Dover, Nova Scotia.
[citation needed] In The Quest of the Folk, Ian McKay discusses the anti-modernist tendencies of The Song Fishermen, who "combined Scottish romance with the cult of the fisherfolk.".