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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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Watchman Against the World
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95The story of Reverend Norman McLeod and his people.
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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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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.
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Archie, le rat de mine-un heros
Artist: Louise Brooking-McDowPublisher: Breton Books$14.95C’est l’histoire de l’amitié qui existe entre u mineur, Milton, et un rat de mine, Archie –et de la façon dont Archie est devenu un héros.
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Down North
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$12.95A terrific and moving read!
These voices confirm the tenderness, good humor and rich story telling of Cape Breton Island. Down North stands as a solid tested play–whether on stage or among friends. And then, it encourages you to “Make this play your own!”–a unique and compelling invitation.
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George Orwell’s Friend
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$14.95Born in British Columbia, Paul Potts (1911-1990) lived most of his life based in London’s Soho district, a friend and confidant of many ultimately famous writers. His circle included Dylan Thomas and T. S. Eliot, Elizabeth Smart and Sean O’Casey–and of course George Orwell, a constant friend. George Orwell’s Friend includes autobiography and poetry, an intimate portrait of George Orwell, and the classic anguished memoir of love and vulnerability?elements that rarely find words, and even more rarely find the words of a man. Along with Potts’ intimate essay about George Orwell, ‘Don Quixote on a Bicycle,’ editor Ronald Caplan reclaims the thoughtful work of a passionate, unusual Canadian.
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The Neighbours are Watching
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95Tony MacKenzie is a beloved historian, teacher and storyteller. He has written three bestselling books, The Irish in Cape Breton, The Harvest Train, and Scottish Lights. The Neighbours are Watching is Tony’s first foray into what might be called “fiction”- but readers will recognize the stories as undoubtedly “true.”
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Inclusion Voices
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95This rare book lets child care directors across Canada speak to us directly about the vision of full inclusion of children with special needs, the challenges that their vision has faced, and some of the strategies and techniques each has used to survive. The portrait is not all victory, and the future is not assured. Irwin is able to compare recent conversations with visits she made to those same child care centres ten years earlier. The result is evidence-based storytelling and an accessible book that will be of particular value to practitioners, directors, government decision makers, parents and people in related fields.
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Molly Poems
Publisher: Breton Books$12.95The Molly Poems and Highland Elegies contains rare poems written in tribute to the paintings of Molly Lamb Bobak, Canada s first woman war artist. Each poem, while inspired by Bobak s work, takes its own unique direction. And the Highland Elegies section offers powerful new poems that evoke more of the Maritimes world of Donovan s successful first collection, CAPE BRETON QUARRY.
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Acadian Tales from Cape Breton
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95An esteemed Canadian folklorist, Father Anselme Chiasson’s award-winning books include songs, tales and history of the Acadians of Cape Breton and the Magdalen Islands.
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Acadian Lives
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$21.95The Cape Breton Acadian comes alive in this new collection of conversations with remarkable people in an extraordinary place-Acadians of Cape Breton Island. In their own words, this book is a marvelous introduction to their humour, passion, work life and heritage. From fishing life to the cooperative movement, from daily life to sorcery and celebrations-their words and photographs open a door to an intimate portrait of this unique, little-known world. Acadian Lives is a tribute to the tenacity, pride, ingenuity and wit of one of Cape Breton Island’s undeniable treasures. In English, with some French tales and songs.
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Tighten the Traces
Publisher: Breton Books$12.95Celebrating over 500 performances worldwide, Breton Books is proud to offer Robbie O’Neill’s extraordinary play in book form, along with photographs and memories of the lead character, the beloved Leo Kennedy of Canso, Nova Scotia. A tribute to terrific storytelling, Tighten the Traces is first of all a good, enchanting read. Here is the voice of Leo Kennedy, whose outrageous humour and fierce persistence overcame cerebral palsy and a suspicious world, to win him a living as a door-to-door salesman in eastern Nova Scotia. You’ll split a gut laughing, with tears in your eyes. Performed from Guysborough schools to the London stage, in Scotland, Australia, the World Exposition in Vancouver and as a CBC Television Special, Tighten the Traces has earned high praise and an ACTRA Best Acting Award for its writer/actor, Robbie O’Neill.
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Scottish Lights
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95A wonderful collection of essays by the best-selling author of The Harvest Train and The Irish in Cape Breton. A popular public speaker, A. A. (Tony) MacKenzie brings that same brisk, informed voice to Scottish Lights, casting new light on the Celtic heritage of Cape Breton and Eastern Nova Scotia. He takes us to pioneer settlements and to the heart of Gaelic tradition, to the battles and passions of heroes and bards and scoundrels, both the well-known and those nearly forgotten.
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Chéticamp (French)
Publisher: Breton Books$19.95Long out of print, Chéticamp is an award-winning treasure chest of the history and folklore of an extraordinary people and place the Acadians of Cape Breton Island. For this newly designed and expanded edition of the prize-winning classic in its original French, Anselme Chiasson has written an additional chapter bringing the history up to date. Written with clarity and love, and hailed as a rare local history with wide appeal, Chéticamp is a passionate, informative and entertaining guide to this little-known corner of the Maritimes.
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The Midnight Murder
Publisher: Breton Books$16.95In his short, vigorous life, McKinnon was the courageous editor of three Cape Breton newspapers, and a successful novelist. He fearlessly found a voice in the Boston literary world. Then he became a Methodist minister and tried to burn his “evil” novels. He died at 33-after a life as romantic and passionate as any of his characters.
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Cape Breton Christ
Publisher: Breton Books$12.95An extraordinary, brave and provocative story told in the form of poetry that reads like a brisk, short novel. Denise Aucoin’s Cape Breton Christ is rare, risky, lighthearted and down-to-earth writing that challenges and encourages us all.
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Pattie Pitter She Hates Litter
Artist: Jeffrey DommPublisher: Breton Books$7.95Pattie Pitter HATES LITTER. She picks up everyone’s candy wrappers and pop cans. But no one wants to help. So, Pattie quits. Soon the school is filled with garbage and the schoolyard is buried. NOW everyone is ready to help!
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Hidden Heritage
Publisher: Breton Books$14.95From 1629 to the 1821 settlement of Rev. Norman McLeod, St. Ann has a rich and diverse history. Captured here with zest and detail.
