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Company Store J.B.McLachlan and the Cape Breton Miners, 1900-1925
Publisher: Breton Books$24.95With all the passion and forward thrust of a terrific novel, The Company Store is John Mellor’s winning story of Labour’s Wars in Cape Breton Island. A much sought after book, it has been too long out of print, and it remains a good place for the general reader to start in digging into this essential story in the making of the character of industrial Cape Breton. The company store itself stands as a powerful symbol for the entire system against which the miners fought-a system wherein the company owned the mines, the homes, the stores and often even the ministers and priests-all with the goal of profits for shareholders and of keeping the workers indebted and in line. And when all these failed, the governments sent in the troops against the workers!
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The Keys
Publisher: Breton Books$14.95Theresa O’Brien was born in Ireland and writes in Glace Bay, Cape Breton. This compelling first collection presents O’Brien as an accomplished storyteller.
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Magnificent Obsessions
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$17.9514 provocative chapters by writers who go a little further out, a little deeper, and bring back treasures for the rest of us. Each chapter stands on its own and each on is part of the portrait of Cape Breton Island. Magnificent Obsessions is essential and utterly enjoyable bedside reader.
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Sister to Courage
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95In Sister to Courage, Wanda takes us inside the world she shared with Viola and ten other brothers and sisters. Through touching and often hilarious stories, she traces the roots of courage and ambition, good fun and dignity, of the household that produced Viola Desmond.
Tough and compassionate, Viola shines through beyond the moment she was carried out of Roseland movie theatre for refusing to sit I the blacks-only section. Viola emerges as a defender of family and a successful entrepreneur whose momentum was blocked by racism.
With honesty and wit, Wanda Robson Tells her own brave story, giving new life to two remarkable women and the family the loved.
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Canada’s Forgotten Arctic Hero
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95This is the terrific true adventure of an unjustly forgotten Cape Bretoner, Canada’s first photographer of the High Arctic. George Rice emerged as a leader on an American Arctic expedition and died a herosearching for food for his starving comrades. This gripping and painful story is told through George Rice’s previously unpublished diaries. Packed with humour, pathos, and magnificent description, this book is a powerful historic and literary event, masterfully presented by Jim Lotz who, seventy-five years later on Operation Hazen, served in the footsteps of the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition.
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Rise Again Book Two
Publisher: Breton Books$23.95Robert J. Morgan has been Senior Historian at the Fortress of Louisbourg and Professor of History at Cape Breton University.
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For the Children
Artist: Burland MurphyPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Born in 1932, in Whycocomagh, RITA JOE lived a hardscrabble existence, from foster home to foster home, experiences that helped her decide to admit herself to Shubenacadie Indian Residential School, a place most Mi’kmaq people had come to dread. It was a rare example of the child choosing Shubie, “to better myself,” to get an education. That same determination compelled her to write about her personal combination of traditional Mi’kmaw spiritualism and Catholic faith, carrying forward her ‘gentle war’. Her last poem, unfinished, was found in her typewriter when she died in March 2007.
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Rise Again
Publisher: Breton Books$21.95The first full-scale history of Cape Breton Island in nearly 150 years!
RISE AGAIN! Is the story of Cape Breton Island told by beloved historian, archivist, and teacher Robert Morgan. From the geological roots to Mi’kmaw life before discovery, the planting of French Louisbourg, and the island’s first economic boom, this is a rich and accessible new book.
Morgan takes us from the battle for control of the island and Britain’s deliberate schemes to withhold opportunities for significant growth, through the opening of Cape Breton to provide a new home for the Loyalists, the forced marriage of the Colony of Cape Breton to the Colony of Nova Scotia and with it the birth of the never-ending Separatist movement. Book One takes the reader through the 19th century and sees Cape Breton as a new home for the Acadians, the Irish, and the Scottish, preparing the ground for the second economic boom as world markets were found for Cape Breton’s coal and then steel. A marvellous book, built to last. -
Archie the Pit Rat Hero
Artist: Louise Brooking-McDowPublisher: Breton Books$16.00This is the story of the friendship between a Miner named Milton and a Pit Rat named Archie—and how Archie became a hero.
Based on the stories miners tell about rats in the coal mines, Dave Muise, a miner’s son, tells the story of Archie the Pit Rat.
Louise Brooking-McDow’s paintings bring Archie’s underground world to life.
An Enchanting book for early readers, and those lucky enough to read with them.
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Cape Breton’s Lillian Crewe Walsh
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$12.95Ghost of Bras d’Or, Kelly’s Mountain, The Wreck of the John Harvey or The Brave Belleoram Boy, The Lady of the Loom, Susan Emma Pynn, Cape Breton’s Winter Port, and 42 more.
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Views from the Steel Plant
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$21.95Jimmy Hines is just one of the many voices that tell stories of Cape Breton’s 100-year adventure in Steel. Told with passion and conviction, Views from the Steel Plant is a proud, vigorous collection of memories of steel plant life. Along with historic photographs, here are stories of racism, bigotry and brotherhood-women who did the dirtiest work, keeping the plant alive while the men were at war-the fight for union and the community protest to save the embattled plant. Steelworkers talk about the skill and courage, about hard work in a hot, threatening and very productive twentieth century industry.
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That Bloody Cape Breton Coal
Publisher: Breton Books$17.95Rennie MacKenzie is the author of ‘In the Pit: A Cape Breton Coal Miner’.
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L’histoire des tapis «hookés» de Chéticamp
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95An esteemed Canadian folklorist, Father Anselme Chiasson’s award-winning books include the songs, tales and history of the Acadians of Cape Breton and the Magdalen Islands.
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The Cape Breton Giant
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95James Gillis was born on July 11, 1870, at Strathlorne, not far from the residence of John MacIssac, Donald’s son. In early childhood he moved to Upper Margaree. He attended school there and later on became proficient enough to teach.
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Ships and Men
Publisher: Breton Books$21.95A new collection of some of the best writing from Capt. John Parker, including the life and death of his deep-sea commercial vessel (St. Clair Theriault) and his classic history of wooden shipbuilding throughout Cape Breton Island.
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Harvest Train
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95One of Canada’s great adventure stories, when young men went west to work on the booming grain farms of the Prairies. Here are some of the stories and tales
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As True As I’m Sittin Here
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$17.95The wit and good humour—ghost tales-comebacks and outrageous happenings—over 200 Cape Breton stories by 34 storytellers, collected by Archie Neil Chilsholm.
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Chéticamp
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95An esteemed Canadian folklorist, Father Anselme Chiasson’s award-winning books include the songs, tales and history of the Acadians of Cape Breton and the Magdalen Islands.
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The Story So Far
Publisher: Breton Books$12.95These stories take the reader from the sparse, tense writing of the prequel to Glace Bay Miner’s Museum, through the author’s other stories drawn from his Cape Breton home. A critically acclaimed success.
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Highland Heart in Nova Scotia
Publisher: Breton Books$14.95A new edition celebrates 50 years of a remarkable Cape Breton classic. A wonderful, exuberant, rich, overstated and humble piece of writing, which tries to tell us of the peace and invincibility and raw humour of Celtic Cape Breton.
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Glace Bay Miner’s Museum
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95In a colliery town, sirens from the mine can mean cave-ins, explosions, or, as in the Westray disaster, sudden death.Sheldon Currie, author of The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum was born in Reserve Mines, Cape Breton, and judging by the headlong intensity of this novel, he still hears those sirens.The story begins as shy, awkward Margaret MacNeil meets a strapping miner named Neil Currie. She’s already had her father and a brother die in the coalpits, but she hopes that Neil will be more lucky.
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Pursuing Equality Women in Newfoundland and Labrador
Editor: Linda KealeyPublisher: Acadiensis Press$9.95The story of the women’s suffrage movement and other struggles for social reform in Canada’s oldest province. A pioneering work, originally published by the Institute for Social and Economic Research, now available again at a low price.
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Prince Edward Island Images of the Night Sky
Publisher: Acorn Press$29.95Prince Edward Island is celebrated the world over for its pristine beaches, charming villages, and scenic vistas. While many books have celebrated the Island’s beauty over the years, no book has focused solely on photographs of the Island at night.
For long-time residents and first-time visitors alike, these unforgettable images are an important celebration of the unparalleled charm of this Prince Edward Island.
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Historic PEI : Vintage Postcards of Prince Edward Island
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95Throughout Canada’s early days, Prince Edward Island was a thriving province with a strong tourist industry. Historic Prince Edward Island portrays the quaint lifestyle and the busy industry that Canada’s smallest province had to offer. With unique messages to friends and family, these early postcards paint a picture of history not available in history books.
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Island at the Centre of the World The Geological Heritage of Prince Edward Island
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95Prince Edward Island has a history. But its story begins far, far beyond the birth of the nation, the arrival of European settlers, the Mi’kmaq, or even the first humans. Its story is older than the Island itself, which was born of climate change and rising seas just 7,000 years ago.
The red cliffs of the Island have their origins in a world before the dinosaurs, in a time some 290 million years ago. Its red soils, and the sands and dunes of its shores, are reborn from the rocks of this primeval world. The rocks of the island province were deposited as rivers coursed their way through the tropical heart of Pangea, a giant landmass formed by moving continents. The part of the Earth that would one day become Prince Edward Island lay at the centre of this world, and felt the heat of the tropical sun, its intense monsoon rains and withering dry seasons. This was the beginning of the Age of Reptiles that preceded the dinosaurs, and the landscapes, dryland forests, and animal life of that time are all recorded here across Prince Edward Island, from Tignish through Malpeque Bay and Hillsborough Bay to Annandale. Consider too, that people—the L’Nu’k, or Mi’kmaq, witnessed the birth of this Island thousands of years ago. All of this has been our best kept secret. Until now.
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Summer in the Land of Anne
Artist: CarolynPublisher: Acorn Press$22.95Six-year-old Elspeth’s mother has a surprise in store for her daughters. She’s taking Elspeth and her eleven-year-old sister on a surprise vacation. When she starts reading Anne of Green Gables aloud to the girls, they catch on–they’re going to Prince Edward Island!
Elspeth proudly dons her Anne hat on the ferry, ready to explore the Land of Anne. Although she knows she’s really visiting Lucy Maud Montgomery?s house, she feels like she recognizes everything from the books and is thoroughly enchanted. At first devastated that Montgomery’s first house was torn down by Montgomery’s uncle, Elspeth sees signs of life–chipmunks living in the old cellar.
Elspeth’s imagination is ignited. No longer satisfied with pretending to be Anne, Elspeth is instead inspired to become more like Montgomery: famous writer Elspeth of Cavendish, writing about the world she loves.
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Acadian Women of Prince Edward Island Three Centuries of Action
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95From the time of their arrival on Isle Saint-Jean in the early 1700s,Acadian women played a major role in the survival of the colony.Over the generations, they have been active in the home and in the community. They have nursed, taught, worked, sung, prayed, and served. Integrated into a well-documented text with numerous photographs, their testimonies provide a history of the Acadie of Prince Edward Island. This book relates how that history was lived by Acadian women and influenced by their action and determination.
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You Know You’re an Islander When….
Publisher: Acorn Press$14.95<
You might be an Islander if…
- You cried when Stompin’ Tom died
- You still give directions based on the purple house on St. Peter’s Road
- You were born knowing how to break down a lobster
A book about the Island for Islanders.
“Prince Edward Island is far more than postcard vistas, bountiful food and literary heroines with red hair. This book is full to the scuppers with everything that makes it unique and colourful!” – Chef Michael Smith
“Brilliant!” – Brad Richards, 2 time Stanley Cup Champion and PEI’s best hockey player ever.
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Door to the Past Abandoned Properties of Prince Edward Island
Publisher: Acorn Press$19.95If you have ever gone for a drive around rural Prince Edward Island, you would have noticed that the rural landscape is littered with abandoned buildings. Tony Gallant began to get curious about these properties and started investigate them, looking for signs of thier past. He began to not only photograph the homes, buildings or barns that have been abandoned on P.E.I, but post what he found on his Facebook page. The result is a curious collection of images of the homes and what is left of the former inhabitants, leaving the reader to only imagine the stories they hold.
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Prince Edward Island: Landscape and Light
Photographer: John SylvesterPublisher: Acorn Press$29.95In 2014, John Sylvester is celebrating his 30th year of photographing some of Canada’s most remarkable places. This book is a retrospective of his main inspiration — Prince Edward Island. It includes much new material, but also includes many beloved classic images that have graced the pages of his previous books. Prince Edward Island: Landscape and Light takes us on a journey showcasing John Sylvester’s approach to photography, not only making images at the edge of day and night, but also the nature of photographing on an Island, where both the landscape and the light inspires his spectacular work. Â
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Charlottetown: Then and Now
Photographer: W.Blair MacDonaldPublisher: Acorn Press$19.95D. Scott MacDonald’s father, W. Blair MacDonald had a keen interest in the changing landscape of Charlottetown, and documented a number of these changes with his slide camera. Instilled with a keen sense of history at an early age, Scott and his family have always treasured the work that their father did to preserve Charlottetown’s history. So, over 50 years later, Scott has nowretraced his father’s steps to record how the city has changed over that time. Standing in the exact spot where his father stood, Scott has captured how the streets and buildings of Charlotttown have changed and remained the same. Scott has also researched the history of the buildings he protrays, both back to his father’s time and much earlier. The result is a fascinating glimpse into why and how even a small city can change so much.
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All is Clam A Shores Mystery
Publisher: Acorn Press$22.95It’s Christmas at The Shores. There’s no snow yet, but there are so many outdoor lights that the tiny coastal village can be seen from space. Apart from Ian Simmons’ place, and he’s considered odd, there’s only one house in the village that isn’t lit up. It’s been dark for years. That’s about to change. Wild Rose Cottage is about to come to life, and death, once again. Meanwhile, the villagers wish for snow to complete the Christmas portrait. When it comes, it’s with the body of newcomer, Fitz Fitsimmons, a former acrobat turned bully and drunk. Mountie Jane Jamieson has seen murder here before, but none where she’d rather not catch the killer.
