Data obtained in the 1950-1955 Palomar campaign for the discovery of classical novae in M81 are set out in detail .
Positions and apparent B magnitudes are listed for the 23 novae that were found .
There is modest evidence that the spatial distribution of the novae does not track the B brightness distribution of either the total light or the light beyond an isophotal radius that is 70 \arcsec from the center of M81 .
The nova distribution is more extended than the aforementioned light , with a significant fraction of the sample appearing in the outer disk/spiral arm region .
We suggest that many ( perhaps a majority ) of the M81 novae that are observed at any given epoch ( compared with say 10 ^ { 10 } years ago ) are daughters of Population I interacting binaries .
The conclusion that the present day novae are drawn from two population groups , one from low mass white dwarf secondaries of close binaries identified with the bulge/thick disk population , and the other from massive white dwarf secondaries identified with the outer thin disk/spiral arm population , is discussed .
We conclude that the M81 data are consistent with the two population division as argued previously from ( 1 ) the observational studies on other grounds by Della Valle et al .
( 1992 , 1994 ) , Della Valle & Livio ( 1998 ) , and Shafter et al .
( 1996 ) of nearby galaxies , ( 2 ) the Hatano et al .
( 1997a , b ) Monte Carlo simulations of novae in M31 and in the Galaxy , and ( 3 ) the Yungelson et al .
( 1997 ) population synthesis modeling of nova binaries .
Two different methods of using M81 novae as distance indicators give a nova distance modulus for M81 as ( m - M ) _ { 0 } = 27.75 , consistent with the Cepheid modulus that is the same value .