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Cape Breton Wonders
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$19.95Did you ever wonder why… your mother re-washed the wash?Did you ever wonder why… the lighthouse lights, or why the miners risked their lives?
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One God, One Aim, One Destiny
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$22.95The story of African settlement in Cape Breton was barely documented and on the verge of being lost. In 2006, the African Nova Scotian community in Glace Bay decided to restore a derelict meeting hall of the Universal Negro Improvement Association from the early decades of the 20th century. As part of that project, the community created a museum to recognize and celebrate the history of the black community in Cape Breton.
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Endgame 1758 The Promise, the Despair and the Glory of Louisbourg’s Last Decade
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$26.95The story of what happened at the colonial fortified town of Louisbourg between 1749 and 1758 is one of the great dramas of the history of Canada, indeed North America. The French stronghold on Cape Breton Island, strategically situated near the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, was from soon after its founding a major possession in the quest for empire. The dramatic military and social history of this short-lived and significant fortress, seaport, and community, and the citizens who made it their home, are woven together in A. J. B. Johnston’s gripping biography of the colony’s final decade, presented from both French and British perspectives. Endgame 1758 is a tale of two empires in collision on the shores of mid-eighteenth-century Atlantic Canada, where rival European visions of predominance clashed headlong with each other and with the region’s Aboriginal peoples. The magnitude of the struggle and of its uncertain outcome colored the lives of Louisbourg’s inhabitants and the nearly thirty thousand combatants arrayed against it. The entire history comes to life in a tale of what turned out to be the first major British victory in the Seven Years’ War. How and why the French colony ended the way it did, not just in June and July 1758, but over the decade that preceded the siege, is a little-known and compelling story.
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Honour Roll
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$19.95The Nova Scotia Highland Brigade sailed on the SS Olympic, from Halifax on October 12, 1916, and played a significant role in the victories of World War I, including the now-infamous Vimy Ridge.In time for the 90th anniversary of the battle for Vimy, historian James MacDonald has catalogued information about members of the Highland Brigade (85th, 185th, 193rd, 219th Battalions) killed or mortally wounded in action.The Honour Roll collates, for the first time in a single publication, the name, date of birth, family origin, vocation, enlistment details, date and where they were killed in action and final resting place and of each member. Fifteen battle maps showing troop movements are included, along with a description of Commonwealth war graves where the soldiers are buried.
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A Better Life A Portrait of Highland Women in Nova Scotia
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$22.95MacIsaac interviewed nearly 100 descendants of Highland Scots women and provides this heart-and-soul treatment of the lives of Scots immigrants from women’s perspective. She includes an extensive look at women in teaching, nursing and religious congregations. This is an exploration of the traditions and experiences in the lives of Highland Scottish women – in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and in the eastern counties of Nova Scotia where so many of them settled (Pictou, Antigonish, Inverness and Victoria counties primarily). In A Better Life, oral accounts obtained from descendants, enriched by written sources – precious archival collections and rare books – offer insight into the influences central to the cultural, religious, working, caring and devotional lives of Highland women: the dreams and realities of a better life if Nova Scotia.
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Reflections of Care
Editor: Donna Anderson Currie, Tom AyersPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$18.95Down the hall, across the street, around the corner an around the world, the education, experience and care of Cape Breton’s nurses are testimony to that capacity–in hospitals, clinics, neighbourhoods and on foreign soil.
The need to capture their experiences has resulted in these reflections spanning 100 years–from the opening of the first nursing school on the Island in 1905. By car, on foot, on horseback, by boat, snowmobile, small aircraft and helicopter, Cape Breton’s nurses have distinguished themselves as caregivers, observers, listeners and advocates. These are just some their stories.
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Cape Breton Fiddle
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$24.95In the Cape Breton Fiddle, Glenn Graham, an accomplished Cape Breton fiddler, explores the rootes of the Cape Breton fiddling tradition, an art firmly rooted in Scottish Gaelic cultural forms, through an evolution that has made Cape Breton an icon of creativity recognized throughout the world.
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Community Economic Development
Editor: Eric Shragge, Michael ToyePublisher: Cape Breton University Press$27.95Communities have long been ahead of governments in responding to changes in the economy, forging ahead with innovative grassroots projects that now make up a substantial portion of economic development initiatives.
Having made major gains in practice and having built local capacities through innovation, Community Economic Development now stands at a crossroads. In Building for Social Change, Eric Shragge, Michael Toye and colleagues from across the country offer a timely critical examination of CED practices and debates.
This book is designed for CED practitioners, for others working in community-based organizations and those being trained. There are a growing number of post-secondary programs in English Canada that educate students in CED and related fields such as regional development, yet there are not many publications that provide analytical perspectives and debate.
The goal of this book is to describe and analyze CED practice, primarily in Canada, through a wide range of subjects—the evolution of its definitions, economic dimensions and the key elements that form its context.
Building for Social Change situates CED in wide political, economic and social contexts: rich examples of the scope and practices, and some of the limits—in Aboriginal communities, as a tool to support women, psychiatric survivor enterprises, housing and worker ownerships—are explored to help spur further critical discussion and debate.
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As A’Bhraighe
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$22.95It has been said that the greatest Gaelic poets were from Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands. Those who emigrated to Nova Scotia in the 18th and 19th centuries were the living memory of clan history and tradition. Allan the Ridge MacDonald stands out as one poet who inherited and maintained an extraordinary wealth of vocabulary and a superior knowledge of clan and legendary history. In this first compilation and translation of the known Gaelic songs of Allan the Ridge in print, Effie Rankin gives all readers an insight into the life of the poet and the traditions that made him a highly regarded seanchaidh.
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Loon Rock
Artist: Dozay ChristmasPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$9.95The story of a loon and a young Mi’kmaq boy written in English and Mi’kmaq.
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Skippers Save the Stone
Artist: Hector MacNeilPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$11.95Skippers Save the Stone is the second adventure of the Skipper dogs. When they travel to Scotland, the Skippers learn that the legendary Stone of Scone has been stolen by a clan of squirrels! The only way they can save the stone is to win a boat race, but the crafty Chief McNut has a trick up his sleeve. Can the Skippers bring back the Stone of Destiny?
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Father Greg – A Life The Cabbage Patch Priest
Publisher: Breton Books$21.95Cape Breton’s renowned social activist and priest comes alive in this warm, personal biography. Crafted from Greg MacLeod’s diaries and letters, plus Doucet’s years as his traveling companion, Father Greg displays the incredible range and vigour of MacLeod’s ideas and their down-to-earth application. Through his daring range of proposals, Fr. Greg relentlessly advocated for the public good. Includes a terrific batch of photographs.
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Lifeline The Story of the Atlantic Ferries and Coastal Boats
Publisher: Breton Books$24.95Lifeline is an all-new edition of Harry Bruce’s classic telling of the roots of today’s Marine Atlantic—a history of the courage and determination that maintain the water-links of Atlantic Canada. From Newfoundland to Cape Breton, along the coast of Labrador—from Nova Scotia to Maine and New Brunswick, and across to PEI—through wind and ice, Harry Bruce brings to life a bold, brave, sometimes hilarious and often tragic history. With 40 historic photographs.
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Watchman Against the World
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95The story of Reverend Norman McLeod and his people.
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The Cape Breton Summertime Revue
Publisher: Breton Books$14.00Through Ron Caplan’s lively and revealing conversations, Mac MacDonald, Bette MacDonald [Mary Morrison!], Maynard Morrison [Cecel!], Leon Dubinsky, Gerald Taylor and Stephen MacDonald share the history and day-to-day work that created Cape Breton’s beloved stage performances of unforgettable song and outrageous comedy. The Cape Breton Summertime Revue takes you to the heart of ten years of a Cape Breton Classic. Warren Gordon’s terrific photographs are worth the price of the book.
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Silver Dart The Story of J.A.D. McCurdy, Canada’s First Pilot and the First Airplane
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95A WARM, ENTHUSIASTIC AND ENTERTAINING biography of the fearless pioneer pilot who flew Canada into the Aviation Era when his Silver Dart lifted off lake ice in Baddeck, February 23, 1909. The story of the Aerial Experiment Association — four young men around Alexander Graham Bell — that developed and flew the flimsy planes that became the legendary Silver Dart. A story of companionship, invention and courage, as Canadian aviation was born in Cape Breton Island.
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Cape Breton’s Christmas A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95FROM THE HEART OF CAPE BRETON, Christmas radiates through stories by Beatrice MacNeil, Hugh MacLennan, Tessie Gillis, Paul MacDougall, Marie Battiste, Wanda Robson, Rita Joe, Ellison Robertson, and many more. From the Christmas tree in the coal mines to a community roasting turkeys at Bernie’s Bakery; from Christmas wrecked to Christmas saved, and Christmas far from home. Cape Breton’s Christmas is a family keeper — for anyone who loves wit, celebration and the generosity of Maritimes life.
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Cape Breton Highlands National Park
Publisher: Breton Books$18.9544 EXCELLENT HIKES! NEW TRAILS! Adventures in hiking, skiing, kayaking-quirks of wildlife-affectionate appreciation of our National Park’s natural beauty-all make for entertaining and informative reading from a legendary outdoorsman, who has rewalked and updated all 44 trails. A good storyteller and retired Park warden, he weaves his adventures into facts about flora and fauna, geology and weather-and where along the road to see the evidence. Much more than a guide-for both hikers and armchair travellers!
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Celtic Colours
Artist: Murdock SmithPublisher: Breton Books$18.95The first book about celtic colours, 10 Nights Without Sleep is an insider’s years of adventure with the Cape Breton’s festival that has won the world’s praise. Both a history and an intense personal memoir, the reader rides on Dave Mahalik’s shoulder as he discovers the joy of driving some of the finest Celtic musicians around Cape Breton through full-blown autumn colours. One huge musical party, year after year, both onstage and at the nightly Festival Club where the music that stretchses to dawn and beyond — into days that end thrilled, exhausted and with breakfas before bedt. And Dave really takes you along.
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The Wedding Reels
Publisher: Breton Books$16.00Not for the faint of heart, Joyce Rankin’s new book returns to the traditional roots she mined for At My Mother`s Door. Now in The Wedding Reels she has gone more to the heart of the moments of grief and doubt that we so often carry alone, and for which we rarely have the words. Eventually, love does abide, and her loyalty to place shines through even the darkest moments life can offer. This is the intimate poetry of the storyteller — frank, clear, unforgettable.“Joyce Rankin`s The Wedding Reels is a collection of poetry whose subjects are as local as a square dance, whose themes are as universal as life itself.” — Frank Macdonald, author of A Forest for Calum.Poet George Elliott Clarke called Joyce Rankin`s best-selling first book “a hymn of survival and settlement.”
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I’m Alive. I Believe in Everything
Publisher: Breton Books$16.00“Controlled, fluid, wry and passionate.” —Halifax Daily NewsA generous serving of new and selected poems. Lesley Choyce was declared “a national treasure” by the Ottawa Citizen and “Nova Scotia’s answer to the Renaissance Man” by CBC’s Peter Gzowski. Quill and Quire found Lesley Choyce’s writing “life enhancing, life celebrating.” For a taste of this lasting collection, you can watch Lesley read the title poem “I’m Alive. I Believe in Everything,” which is available on youtube.
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Summer Preserves
Publisher: Breton Books$16.00Smart, sassy, and sexy, Summer Preserves is a solid debut collection from poet, teacher, and activist Diane Reid.In Summer Preserves, Diane Reid serves up a generous collection filled with guts and good taste. A genuine keeper.“Bursting at the seams with ideas…powered by energetic engagement.. There is, at the core, a control and serious attention to craft.” —Matt Robinson, whose poetry collections include A Ruckus of Awkward Stacking, No Cage Contains a Stare that Well, and Against the Hard Angle.
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Stud Horse Boy
Publisher: Breton Books$14.95From the truck’s horn and the stallion’s whinny, The Stud Horse Boy is called from school for adventures breeding horses that made farm life and woods work possible in Eastern Nova Scotia. The boy is torn between boiling anger and admiration for his one-eyed, alcoholic father. Will he become his father? How do you act amidst the eroticism and smutty jokes? How do you find the courage to live? A wonderful storyteller, Darryll Taylor remembers with great good humour, shockingly realistic scenes, and passionate respect. The Stud Horse Boy is today’s story-a teenager coming of age in difficult and changing times.
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Special Link – Early Childhood Inclusion Quality Scale
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95This workbook is a tool for assessing inclusion quality in early childhood centres and for helping centre move toward higher quality inclusion. The Scale provides a picture of sustainable and evolving inclusion quality—an emerging issue as more children with special needs attend communitybased centres and as inclusion pioneers leave their centres and a new generation of directors and early childhood educators take on the inclusion challenges.
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Marguerite Gallant A Legendary Acadian – Une Acadienne Legendaire
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95A Friend to all, this unique Acadian comes to life in a delightful new book. Marguerite Gallant is remembered as awoman brave enough to go her own way, to dress as she wished, and to live life to the fullest. Having grown up inpoverty, she struck out in the world, serving as a companion to families in the United States.
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Talking Cape Breton Music – Expanded Edition
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Conversations with People who Love to Make Music
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Woman From Away
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95Born in 1910 Montana, Tessie Gillis in the 1950s came with her husband Joe to Rear Glencoe in Inverness County to live the hard,satisfying life of rural Cape Breton. Illness finally gave her the opportunity to write, and her friend and editor Evelyn Garbary helped her bloom into one of Cape Breton’s finest writers.
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Talk Back
Publisher: Breton Books$14.95It’s been 10 long years since TALKBACK was shuffled off the airwaves, although it was the most popular and highest earning radio show in Cape Breton’s history. For thirteen years, Dave Wilson hosted TALKBACK. This book is his chance to help us all remember, and to sign off on his own terms.
