Memoirs of a Lightkeeper’s Son 2nd edition
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95William (Billy) G. Budge was born in 1948 in the small fishing village of Neil’s Harbour on the northern tip of Cape Breton. In 1955 his father accepted the position of lighthouse keeper on St. Paul Island, a rugged and forlorn mountain in the sea. Positioned at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, this island is subject to violent gales, snowstorms and is often shrouded in fog. Early seafarers called it the “Graveyard of the Gulf” due to the vast numbers of ships and countless lives that were lost along its shores.
Billy moved to St. Paul Island with his parents and younger sister in September of 1955. For the next five years they lived at the southwest light station in almost total isolation. His family quickly learned to cope in a world without neighbours, electricity, schools, or any sports activities. They lived off the land – hunting ducks along the coast, berry picking, and jigging cod on the sea. Almost daily there were hardships to overcome and problems to be resolved. Life on the island was one of both tragedy and triumph. Billy tells his story of survival on that lonely rock. Sense the lush green of the island in summer in the midst of a crystal blue sea and feel the harshness of winter while buried under snow and surrounded by drift ice.
Share with Billy the excitement of unexpected guests, the arrival of a supply ship as well as the sadness of sickness and loss. Experience the many technical problems such as a fire in the lighthouse and learn how the entire family worked together to restore service.
The Smeltdog Man
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95“I brushed the crumbs off of the fish and back onto the counter, threw the smelts in the frying pan while I got the eggs out of the fridge and cracked one.”
The Smeltdog Man is the story of how a Cape Bretoner marshalled his accidental invention, a marijuana-induced, munchie-inspired Smeltdog, into the most successful fast food franchise in Canada. As president of his newly formed Good Karma Corporation, he tells the tale of how his business empire grows beyond his control, turning him into a billionaire.
While the business booms and the narrator’s wisdom is being constantly tapped for new ideas and strategies, he consults his Granddaddy Blue, whose pragmatic mixture of horse-trader economics and 1960s hippie ideals provide his grandson with the guiding principles and necessary scams he needs to survive in the corporate world.
From the simplicity of its origins to the ecological disaster of its success, The Smeltdog Man details the influences of country music on our narrator’s understanding of himself, the longing of unrequited love and the accumulation of wealth possessing more zeros than our hero can count.
Never Speak of This Again
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95It is 1917 and Nellie, seventeen years old and pregnant, has just returned to Cape Breton from Boston to find her lover. Instead of a safe haven, she encounters rejection and humiliation and is told to clear out and never speak of this again. Nellie’s story reflects the lives of many Nova Scotia women who found their way to Boston. Her world becomes a matter of daily survival, while so many in the world, including the stranger from Truro, try to survive the catastrophic chaos of WWI and the Spanish Flu. Never Speak of This Again takes the reader from eastern Canada to western Canada, to Europe, and back again.
Lucy Cloud
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95Filled with engaging characters, with their unique and lively Cape Breton voices, Lucy Cloud follows the fortunes and heartaches of a family with secrets and the intense longing to live fully. Anne Lévesque delivers an authentic tale of a time and a place, where people must be strong and inventive to make a good life.
A Giant Man from a Tiny Town A Story of Angus MacAskill
Artist: Christopher HoytPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$13.95Angus MacAskill, known far and wide as the Cape Breton Giant, travelled the world performing for crowds, but never stopped longing to return to the place he loved the best: his Cape Breton home.
Grandfather’s House Returning to Cape Breton
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Grandfather’s House is Clive Doucet’s follow-up to My Grandfather’s Cape Breton, published in 1980 and continuously in print. Now a grandfather himself, Doucet muses about this role. While he believed as a child that to be a grandfather was to own a farm by the sea, he now realizes that his job as a grandfather is to tell stories. In doing so, he traces the history of the Doucets back to Acadie, then to the early years of the Cape Breton village of Grand Étang and to modern-day Ottawa.
Doucet’s musings are interspersed with poetry, short stories, and with summer adventures with his grandchildren in Grand Étang. He paints a loving portrait of his grandfather’s village and the people, past and present, who make it a vibrant community. The themes of resilience and rejuvenation permeate the memoir, which is both rooted in nostalgia and filled with hope for a more sustainable future.
Me & Mr. Bell
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$11.95It’s 1908, and ten-year-old Eddie MacDonald shares Alexander Graham Bell’s passion for solving problems and for taking long walks in the fields above Bras d’Or Lake.
But whereas Bell is renowned by many for being the smartest man in the world, Eddie is just a local farm boy who struggles to learn to read and write. After a few chance encounters, the elderly Bell befriends the young boy, and takes an interest in his struggle—encouraging Eddie to celebrate his successes and never give up.
When Bell’s long ambition for manned flight culminates in the Silver Dart soaring over Bras d’Or Lake, Eddie is inspired to find solutions to his own challenges.
A Giant Man from a Tiny Town A Story of Angus MacAskill
Artist: Christopher HoytPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$22.95When Angus MacAskill was still just a boy, he began to grow…and grow…and…grow! Known far and wide as the Cape Breton Giant, Angus was loved by his neighbours as much for his beautiful singing voice as for his renowned strength. But as much as Angus loved his little town of St. Ann’s, Cape Breton, he decided to leave and seek fortune and adventure.
With heartfelt text from critically acclaimed author Tom Ryan and meticulously researched and joyful illustrations from Christopher Hoyt (A is for Adventure), A Giant Man from a Tiny Town tells the story of a remarkable man who travelled the world performing for crowds, but never stopped longing to return to the place he loved the best: his Cape Breton home.
My Grandfather’s Cape Breton (new edition)
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$20.95This is the timeless story of a young boy and his grandfather. It is a voyage of discovery that starts for both of them when young Clive arrives one summer at his grandfather’s farm in Cape Breton. Clive, with all the uncertainty of approaching adolescence, has only the vaguest impression of what a cow looks like and what is expected of him. Under the gentle guidance and wry wit of his Acadian grandfather he learns how to gallop a horse without falling off, how to save the hay crop from from an approaching storm, and how to assist with the birth of a calf. This is a story of Grand Étang, a humorous, sensuous vibrant place, and of a boy growing up wise one summer in Cape Breton.
Cape Breton Facts and Folklore
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Cape Breton is famous the world over for its senic trails, Celtic music and traditions, strong Mi’kmaq community, and unique dialects. Called Unamakikia by the Mi’kmaq, Ile Royale by the French, and Eilean Cheap Breatainn in Scottish Gaelic, the island of Cape Breton is a colourful blend of cultures and history. After the slow decline of the coal and steel industries following World War Two, Cape Breton became a major tourist locale, with such draws as Fortress Louisbourg, the largest eighteenth-century restored fortress in North America and a national historic site; the Cape Breton Highlands, with stunning views and winds that can reach up to 220 kilometres an hour; and the Cabot Trail scenic drive, which attracts thousands of people every autumn to take in the stunning views and foliage.
Cape Breton Facts and Folklore is full of fun and interesting facts about the people, places, and events that shaped this fascnating island. Includes photos of some of the island’s prominent places and personalities.
Louisbourg: From its Foundation to its Fall
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$29.95The only complete history of Louisbourg.
“J.S. McLennan’s Louisbourg From Its Foundation To Its Fall is in several ways a remarkable book. To begin with, it is because of its continuing popularity. Though it was first published many decades ago, it remains the standard work on the 45 year history of the French settlement at Louisbourg. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of detailed studies have been done on Louisbourg since McLennan’s appeared, each one illuminating some theme or aspect of life there, but none has replaced it as the authoritative chronicle of the town’s history.” –A. J. B. Johnston, Historian and Author
Historic Baddeck
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Historic Baddeck takes us on the town’s journey of early discovery and later growth, from the first few houses set among Atlantic aboriginal wigwams to what Baddeck is today–a magnificent summer escape and thriving lakeside village. Author Joceyln Bethune has paired some of the town’s most captivating historical images and presented them with compact and interesting vignettes of the region’s past.
Part of the Images of Our Past series.
Historic Glace Bay
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95**Updated in 2014**
The history of Glace Bay is intimately linked with the development of its coal mines. In this historic series book, Carole MacDonald examines coal as the fuel used to build and maintain Glace Bay and its inhabitants. Poor working conditions, irregular employment, and companies set on increasing their profits at the expense of the miners are all documented. Historic Glace Bay also covers the lives of notable residents, housing, hospitals, churches, schools, transportation, sports, and the community’s contribution to the arts.
Cape Breton Tastes
$22.95Mouth-watering recipes from twenty eight of Cape Breton’s best restaurants.
Cape Breton Tastes presents but a sample of the food available on the island of Cape Breton. If the recipes from local restaurants don’t whet your appetite, then the vivid colour photographs of these dishes surely will. Featuring restaurants from all over the island map-from Ingonish to Arichat-this book is your guide whether you are looking for a bowl of chowder and a homemade biscuit or a hearty meal of lamb, pork,
or roasted goose. Of course, don’t leave without tasting the wondrous bounty of the island’s seas and rivers, or one of the fine desserts worth lingering over. Whatever dish you choose, you won’t be disappointed.
This book features twenty-eight different restaurants from around the island, and includes recipes for starters, soups, meat, seafood, pasta, and desserts.
Historic North Sydney
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95North Sydney has an exciting history. Once the fourth-busiest seaport in North America, the little town was also known as “Canada’s Gateway to the (European) World” when an underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe was successfully laid, with the end of the cable in North Sydney. Because of its transport and communications advantages, the town played a vital role through both world wars.
Historic North Sydney is divided into chapters by topic. Rainnie Gillis uses historical images and extensive research to explain transportation, business, the Newfoundland Ferry Service, and public service in North Sydney, among other subjects.
Historic North Sydney is a much-anticipated addition to the Images of Our Past Series.
Italian Lives, Cape Breton Memories
Editor: A. Evo Dipierro, Sam MiglioriPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$27.95Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, is most often associated with a version of Scottish culture that has evolved in its own unique ways. Though worthy of celebration, that perception tends to overwhelm the realities of everyday life experiences by people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. A strong and vibrant Italian presence on the island, for instance, dates back more than 150 years.
Italian Lives, Cape Breton Memories conveys the rich and varied experiences of Italians living in Cape Breton in their own words?the immigration experience; work experience in the home, the steel plant and the coal mines, and life in business, politics and other areas of endeavour. As ethnographers, editors and analysts, Sam Migliore and Evo Dipierro help illuminate a variety of other important and sensitive subjects: the treatment of Italians during the Second World War; the maintenance of a sense of cultural identity and traditions; and the sorrow of watching family and friends leave the island for employment elsewhere.
First published in 1999, and long since out of print, Italian Lives, Cape Breton Memories is now re-released for a new generation.
Cape Breton Fiddle Companion
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$27.95Celtic music scholar and musician Liz Doherty is no stranger to Cape Breton music – in fact she has made a study of it. Doherty’s exposure to, and research of, the island’s music traditions was the germination for this encyclopaedia on the Cape Breton fiddle: the history, the people, the tunes, the recordings.
Reeling Roosters and Dancing Ducks: Celtic Mouth Music
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$19.95Though puirt-a-beul are popular with both Gaelic-speaking and non-Gaelic speaking audiences, this book offers the first comprehensive study of the genre. Heather Sparling considers how puirt-a-beul compare to other forms of global mouth music and examines its origins, its musical and lyrical characteristics, and its functions.
Sparling brings together years of research, including an array of historical references to puirt-a-beul, interviews with Gaelic singers in both Scotland and Nova Scotia, observations of puirt-a-beul performances on both sides of the Atlantic as well as on recordings, and analysis of melodies and lyrics. Her Nova Scotia viewpoint allows her to consider puirt-a-beul in both its Scottish and diaspora contexts, a perspective that is too often absent in studies of Gaelic song.
McCurdy and the Silver Dart (New Edition)
Artist: Patsy MacAulay-MacKinnonPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$11.95McCurdy and the Silver Dart recounts the thrilling story of J. A. McCurdy, Canada’s aviation pioneer. Born in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Douglas McCurdy had a unique childhood during which he assisted world-famous scientist and inventor, Alexander Graham Bell in fascinating and frequently dangerous experiments conducted with kites and airplanes. He was the first person to fly an airplane in the British Empire. Later he became a barnstormer and daredevil pilot, taking part in some of the earliest air races. He was the first person to fly out of sight of land and the first pilot to receive a wireless message while airborne.
Cape Breton Railways: An Illustrated History An Illustrated History
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$24.95Cape Breton’s rail lines are perhaps best known for their substantial roles in the coal and steel industries-and their decline as those industries faded away. Yet, despite their prominent connections to coal and steel, railways played many other important roles in the life of the Island. From transporting mail and freight to giving Cape Bretoners the ability to travel to and from the Island, they were important to the community culture. This book looks at those railways in the contexts of what was happening on and beyond the Island.Cape Breton’s railways were shaped by factors such physical geography, availability of both capital and customers, and the distribution of population and industries. In response to those factors, railway builders and operators often had to make difficult choices and try to deal with factors they could not control.
Necessaries and Sufficiencies
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$24.95The year 2011 marked the 250th anniversary of coming of New England and Irish Planters to Cobequid, Nova Scotia. Necessaries and Sufficiencies is a well-researched glimpse into the migration, settlement, religion, education, occupations, health and daily life of these settlers. This microhistory traces the evolution of New England and Irish peoples into a cohesive society with common social, political, cultural and material standards. While the distric’s pro-American response at the outbreak of the Revolutionary War pitted Cobequid against the King’s Government, moderation on both sides led to the assimilation of the Planers into the fabric of Nova Scotia and Feisty Cobequid became loyal Colchester.
In the Blood
Photographer: Gary SamsonPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$28.95A representative set of individuals from Cape Breton provides personal narratives about life and culture on the Nova Scotia island. Cape Breton is a region known for its music (well represented here); its Scottish, French, and Mi’kmaq heritage; and its spectacular scenery, including that along the Cabot Trail through Cape Breton Highlands National Park and around Bras d’Or Lake. While traditional culture has a vibrant existence on Cape Breton, the island also faces serious economic and social challenges. With traditional mining, shipping, farming, and fishing industries depressed, tourism, though significant, is a less-than-adequate replacement as economic engine and the island has faced an ongoing decline in population. A cross-section of Cape Bretoners reflected on these issues and the sacrifices they make and joys they find living in such a culturally and scenically rich place. Among the better-known of them are Ginette Chiasson, Alistair MacLeod, Rita Joe, Buddy MacMaster, Joella Foulds, Bob MacEachern, Keith Brown, and Mary Jane Lamond.
Getting It Done
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$24.95It’s often said that the future of Cape Breton depends on the vision and initiative of her sons and daughters. But when we go on a quest for leadership –what is it we’re looking for? Originally conceived as a series for CBC Radio and now adopted to book form, Getting It Done is an exploration of effective leadership through the experiences of people who have “been there.” From cabinet ministers to CEOs, a Juno winner to an Olympic medalist and two former premiers, Steve Sutherland delves into the habits and philosophies of some Cape Breton’s most prominent and influential figures. Featuring exclusive material that didn’t appear in the original radio interviews, Getting It Done is a compendium of insights about how these leaders got where they are, and what they do to make things happen.
Distinction Earned
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$19.95Distinction Earned highlights the accomplishments of significant Cape Breton fighters like George “Rockabye” Ross (about who MacDougall has also penned a play), Tyrone Gardiner, Blair Richardson and Francis”Rocky” MacDougall and trainers like Johnny Nemis. Between 1965 and 1967 five national boxing champions in different weight classes were from Cape Breton.Paul MacDougall has collected dozens of interviews from participants, enthusiasts and their heirs, from which has evolved this account of an amazing sporting record.
Elizabeth Lefort Canada’s Artist in Wool
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$24.95The Cheticamp rug hooking tradition is prized the world over. The most celebrated fibre artist from this tradition is undoubtedly Elizabeth LeFort (1914-2005). LeFort’s remarkable talent for portraiture in wool resulted in purchases and commissions the world over; her work hangs in Rideau Hall, Buckingham Palace, the White House and the Vatican.
Daniel Doucet followed her life and her career for many years, with this biography in mind. Photographs of many of her pieces are complemented by photos of many of the public highlights of her career.
Malagawatch Mice and the Cat Who Discovered America
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$14.95The Malagawatch Mice are well settled in their believed church, now at the Nova Scotia Highland Village in Iona, Cape Breton. But they are not alone–Henry, a stray cat with a mysterious past has taken up residence in the church and the mice are convinced that life will never be the same.
Yet, there is something familiar about this cat and, determined that there must be some good in him, Grandpa sets out to prove to Henry that he is much more than a no-good stray.
A monument in Halfway Cove, on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore, acknowledges that Prince Henry Sinclair of the Orkney Islands made the first transatlantic crossing and landed there in 1398, almost a century before Columbus. The monument describes his landing in Chebabucto Bay, and the fact that he spent a year exploring Nova Scotia, with the help of the kind Mi’Kmaq people.
Discovering Cape Breton Folklore
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$24.95For more than two decades, Richard MacKinnon—Canada Research Chair in Intangible Cultural Heritage, Cape Breton University—has researched Cape Breton’s rich cultural heritage: from protest songs to company houses, from co-operative housing to nicknames, from log buildings to cockfighting.In Discovering Cape Breton Folklore, professor MacKinnon revists some of his research and exposes us to some new.
Famhair/Giant
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$15.95No contemporary work from a sole author of Gaelic poetry from the Nova Scotia perspective been published in this province – until now. Cultural identity, sense of place and expression are important elements in the work of any artist. This book of contemporary Nova Scotia Gaelic poetry spans the landscape of Gaelic Cape Breton, the eastern Nova Scotia mainland and indeed the broader collective consciousness of Nova Scotians within the confines of their own province and in the wider, diverse, multi-ethnic, North American reality.
Dance to the Piper
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$23.95Barry Shears is a native of Glace Bay, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and an acknowledged expert on the history of traditional piping in Nova Scotia and its intrinsic connection to the Gaelic language, music and culture. An award-winning musician, Barry has performed at concerts and festivals throughout North America, as well as in Scotland and Europe. He has previously published several books of bagpipe music and history.
Percy Willmot: A Cape Bretoner at War
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$23.95When Britain went to war with Germany in August 1914, Canada and the rest of the British empire followed without question and without being asked. By the time the Great War finally ground to an end in November 1918, 619,636 Canadians had enlisted in the struggle. One of them was Percy Willmot.Percy wrote frequently to his sister, no matter where he was or what was going on and he was a gifted writer, whose sparkling personality still clearly emerges more than eighty years later.Willmot’s letters tell us much about the experiences of thousands of soldiers: progress of the war and daily experiences of the men, sometimes pointing out the contrast between the beauties of nature and the unspeakable horrors of modern warfare. They remind us of the intense intimacy of the shared experience of the trenches, perhaps especially for someone like Percy, serving in a unit with many comrades from his own community.
Tokens of Grace
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$19.95Beginning in the 17th-century Scotland, when Covenanters met in open defiance of religious repression, open-air communions –the Sàcramaid – evolved to become the social and spiritual highlight of the year. Primarily a mixture of prayer and religious and kinship feasting, open-air communions were an expression of core communal values and basic kin and religious loyalties.
Particularly between 1840 and 1890, but well into the 20th century as well, the sacramental season and its open-air communions was a dominant symbol in the lives of Cape Breton’s Scots Presbyterians. Whole communities, numbering in the thousands, converged for this great religious occasion, taking part in as many as five days of exhaustive preparatory self-examination.
