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Voyage of Wood Duck
Artist: Patsy MacAulay-MacKinnonPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$11.95Some people say that dreams are foolish. Some people say that you can search you whole life long and never find what it is you are looking for. But long ago when dreams were more real than they are today; there was a young boy who lived by the sea. He was called Wood Duck. His people had always lived beside the ocean. Its salty water flavoured their days. Its currents flowed through their nights. The power of the sea ran very strongly in Wood Duck. In his dreams, fish swam and sea birds flew.
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Heartsong
Artist: Patsy MacAulay-MacKinnonPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$11.95Heartsong is an illustrated children’s book which tells of the loving creation of a fiddle which is passed along and enjoyed through several generations. Told in English and Gaelic.
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Storied Shores
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$19.95Cape Breton Island has many claims to fame, yet far too few people are familiar with the rich and storied past of the coastal areas of Richmond County.For centuries the Mi’kmaq, and later the early European explorers and settlers, shortened their journeys between the Bras d’Or lake and the Atlantic Ocean by means of the narrow isthmus at St. Peter’s. This portage area -eventually a canal – became a haul-over road in the mid-1650s. The portage area and the surrounding shores and waterways of Cape Breton were sites of early and prolonged interaction between the French and the Mi’kmaq during a time when dreams of expansion and empire among European nations, met head on with the realities of North America’s aboriginal peoples.The busy corridor between Chapel Island, St. Peter’s, and Isle Madame was the backdrop for a colourful and intriguing era of our shared histories. Storied Shores presents a history of that time and place – the story of the promise of prosperity and the hope for new lives and the story of the ravages of greed, rivalry, and war.
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Malagawatch Mice and the Church that Sailed
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$11.95When the Highland Village Museum adopted and moved Malagawatch Church across the Bras d’Or lake in 2003, children’s author-illustrator Caroline Stellings asked herself: “What about the church mice?”
The answer is an imaginative tale of The Malagawatch Mice who, after living under the church for generations, learn that they are about to lose the floorboards from over their heads.
Ms. Stellings’ soft watercolour illustrations and delightful rhyming narrative follow the Malagawatch Mice–and the church–to their new home in Iona.
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Pearleen Oliver Canada’s Black Crusader for Civil Rights
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$18.00In a winning new book, Pearleen Oliver: Canada’s Black Crusader for Civil Rights brings to life a compassionate and passionate African Nova Scotian, the story of her growth and activism—a book that shows how one woman’s voice changed the course of Nova Scotia’s history.
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Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 6 A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95A CHRISTMAS TRADITION IN BOOK FORM, Book 6 of Cape Breton’s Christmas is a fresh annual gathering of warmth, joy, and family love—50 well-told memories and stories shot through with sparks of humour, tears of longing, and small flames of faith. Good reading year-round, this Christmas tradition brings together Cape Breton writers—both well-known and lately inspired—presenting sparkling seasonal gems for readers of all ages. A rare collection that preserves some of the best of what it is to be human. This generous book will last.
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In the Pit A Cape Breton Coal Miner
Publisher: Breton Books$17.95A RARE, EXCITING INSIDER STORY of coal mine life in Cape Breton, filled with humour, pride, terror, and humanity.
From shoveling at the coal face and hand-lifting tons of shaker pans, to hurtling through low narrow tunnels testing a diesel during early mechanization—you are not spared the details—or the laughs!
Here are the gripping drama and rich good humour of one man’s daily work underground—a rare, personal account that opens up the culture of coal, from a man who worked 15 years in Number 12 and 18 Collieries, New Waterford.
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Sterling Silver The 25th Anniversary Edition Rants, Raves and Revelations
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95This 25th Anniversary Edition of Sterling Silver celebrates a marvellous collection of classic essays and stories by Silver Donald Cameron. Like visits with an entertaining and deeply committed friend, Sterling Silver takes on love and suicide, fear and community and craftsmanship—and a Canada in which a good life should still be possible. Cameron opened his archives of published and unpublished work—turning Sterling Silver into a rare opportunity for his fans and an extraordinary introduction for new readers. Editor Ronald Caplan has mined for treasure—and he’s brought it back alive!
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Buddy MacMaster The Judique Fiddler
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95The renowned Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster grew up in Judique, Inverness County, influenced by musical giants including Bill Lamey, “Little Jack” MacDonald, Angus Chisholm and Mary MacDonald. By 1949, Buddy performed for local square dances, and by the 1960s he played across Canada, the U.S. and Scotland, sustaining old-time music and the dance tradition. A master fiddler, his awards include the Order of Canada, the Order of Nova Scotia, and honorary degrees from ST.F.X.University and Cape Breton University. Buddy adhered to the Gaelic fiddle tradition that he cherished as much as life itself.
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A Stone for Andrew Dunphy Narrative Obituary Verse and Song in Northern Cape Breton Island
Publisher: Breton Books$17.95This rare book is about community, caring and pioneer survival. It brings to life Andrew Dunphy— a man who roamed northern Cape Breton, carried the news, nursed his neighbours—and wrote magnificent obituary poems that told their stories, comforted them in disaster, and helped their communities survive. Over one hundred years later, Ronald Caplan captured this story in its final hours. Told with the words of those who knew Andrew Dunphy — A Stone for Andrew Dunphy reveals the robust rural life that flourished as the 20th century dawned.
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Cape Breton’s Christmas, Book 5 A Treasury of Stories and Memories
Editor: Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$19.95Now an annual holiday tradition, this fifth collection of Cape Breton’s Christmas delivers a batch of memories and rich holiday stories rooted in a beloved island. Here are the moments that take you back, the stories that encourage us to be all we can be. From family gatherings to loneliness to the joy of getting home in time—from parents who give even when they seem to have nothing—this is a generous book that will last.
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Highland Settler The Classic Portrait of the Scottish Gael in Cape Breton and Eastern Nova Scotia
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95At the core of Charles W. Dunn’s pioneering work with the Canadian Gaelic-speaking community in the twentieth century, Highland Settler is the story of immigration, rural settlement, and the later dispersion to the industrial world–a thoughtful and entertaining history of an extraordinary people.
Dunn’s extensive interviews and the informed warmth of his approach make Highland Settler an essential book in the discovery of Cape Breton Island. Drawing on delightful storytelling, and local songs and poetry that settlers composed and loved, Dunn achieves a Gaelic settlers’ self-portrait as well as the historian and folklorist’s insight into the culture.
A fresh new edition of an elegant and accessible classic about folk ways vibrant in the 1940s and alive today in Cape Breton Island, with the details and historical perspective of this expert researcher.
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Folk Tale Journey Through the Maritimes
Editor: Michael Taft, Ronald CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$21.95These are the folk tales from Dr. Helen Creighton’s life journey through the Maritime Provinces, collecting songs and ghost stories and old cures–and folk tales. Helen serves as our guide, introducing us to storytellers, setting the scene of the telling–and then she lets the person tell the story just as it was told to her.
The feel of the kitchen and the fish shed still cling to these stories. Some are long, really miraculous folk tales–miraculous in detail and in that they have managed to survive. Others are the brief riddle or the tantalizing quick-telling that a folklorist can expect along the way. Helen kept it all. And taken as a whole, the reality and intensity of those rare smaller pieces reveal their value in among the more finished, well-told tales.
Both Helen Creighton and A Folk Tale Journey Through the Maritimes are Atlantic treasures. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Taft and Ronald Caplan, and a Motif Index by Michael Taft.
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Cape Breton Book of the Night (Expanded Edition) Tales of Tenderness and Terror
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$18.95THE EXPANDED EDITION from over 25 years of Cape Breton’s Magazine. This book offers a tough, caring presentation of extraordinary experience.
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Wake of the Aspy A Novel of Northern Cape Breton
Publisher: Breton Books$17.95Teeming with life and remembrance, Wake of the Aspy is a novel of family, passion, and the beauty of memory’s heart.The coastal steamer Aspy connected northern Cape Breton to the world. It was a lifeline, an escape route, and a threat to the old ways. Rooted in a woman’s hard-won independence, Stewart Donovan’s terrific, often hilarious storytelling—the sounds and rhythm and acid wit of daily life—faces with vitality the local life and its encounters with government and a tourism future. Despite expropriations, war, cutbacks and social injustice aimed at driving them out, these are survivors you still might be lucky enough to meet Down North.
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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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Song of Rita Joe Autobiography of a Mi’kmaw Poet
Publisher: Breton Books$21.95Song of Rita Joe is a book of exceptional courage and insight, the words of a gentle woman who fought for her family, justice, and her own independent voice. She faced intolerance, ignorance, and abuse, searched her inheritance for strength, and wrote poems of clarity and encouragement that continue to inspire not only her people but all people.
Finally, she was a humble woman, an honoured Mi’Kmaw elder, poet, and member of the Order of Canada.
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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
