Showing signs of academic promise, John Norman Maclean trained for the ministry first at Pictou Academy, where academic records refer to him as "J.N. Mclean of Glenbard",John Norman Maclean (2021), Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River, page 53. a community famous as the last home and burial place of the Canadian Gaelic poet John The Bard MacLean, the former Chief Bard () to the Chief of Clan MacLean of Coll, who remains a major figure in Scottish Gaelic literature.
