This angler bought a Nova Scotia Island to fish for tuna—and wound up declaring war on the USSR

THE FALL OF OUTER BALDONIA

While Arundel’s micronation prevailed during what became known as the “Baldonian Incident” with the U.S.S.R., it couldn’t survive the declining tuna population around the Tusket Islands. As the fish disappeared, Arundel’s trips to the island became less frequent, and the Baldonian Navy and its angler-admirals soon disbanded. On December 28, 1973, Russell the First, the Prince of Princes of Outer Baldonia, and ever the staunch conservationist, sold the island to the Nova Scotia Bird Society for the princely sum of $1.

As the former president of the birding association, David Curry, said during an interview following the sale, “Russell Arundel was a truly conservation-minded man; a conservation pioneer.” Arundel died in 1978, and obituaries in the Washington Post and other national publications highlighted his vast conservation efforts, and ties to a little known principality called Outer Baldonia.

In 2015, ownership of the island was transferred to the Nova Scotia Nature Trust, which invited the Arundel family to visit in 2019. There they found the once-proud citadel of shelter and hijinks eroding in the harsh Atlantic weather, with little more than the stone walls remaining. One of the few identifiable markings connecting the structure to Outer Baldonia was an inlaid letter A—for Arundel—still visible above the fireplace mantel.

Wendy Arundel, one of the family members who took up the invitation to visit the island, says the true legacy her great-uncle left behind lies not in the ruins themselves, but in “the friendships forged, and the magnitude of fun they all had inventing new ways to run a micro-kingdom, on an island reigned primarily by migratory birds.” All hail Prince Russell.

Craig Mitchell previously wrote about Babe Ruth’s Canadian fishing and hunting adventures at www.outdoorcanada.ca/babeincanada.