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Queens County A History in Pictures
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$24.95Queens County: A History in Pictures offers the definitive look at the county and its people. Since 1929, the Queens County Historical Society has been collecting photographs of the people, industry, landscapes and events of Queens County. To date, the collection contains more than 40,000 photographs and thousands of artifacts.
Over the years, many historical figures, including baseball legend Babe Ruth, renowned author Zane Grey, and famed Chicago financier Thomas Howell, have come to fish, hunt and discover the riches of the area’s land and sea. This collection captures that history like never before. You can almost hear the call of the wild and the roar of the ocean.
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You Might Still Be From Nova Scotia If…
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$19.95MICHAEL DE ADDER is back! Six years and multiple national and regional newspaper awards later, Michael de Adder is back home where he belongs. If you thought you laughed and sighed with recognition in the original, get ready for a rip roaring snorter of a treat with You Might Still Be From Nova Scotia If…. As de Adder proves again, this is a province that is proud of who it is and likes nothing better than a good laugh, especially at itself.
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Turning Points 15 Pivotal Moments in Nova Scotia’s History
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$22.95Paul Bennett tells the history of Nova Scotia through 15 key turning points. From Nova Scotia’s problems with Confederation to wartime Halifax, the Springhill Mining Disaster, Viola Desmond and Ray Ivany’s ‘Now or Never’ report, Bennett recounts these decisive moments that have shaped the province’s destiny.
With rarely seen photography, Bennett shows how these turning points helped define the Nova Scotia we live in today. Each episode helped forge the province’s identity, change its trajectory, and shape its collective sense of purpose.
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Nova Scotia Book of Lists
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$19.95Humans love lists. As humourist writer H. Allen Smith once wrote, “The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists.” That infatuation with lists continues here. From Nova Scotia’s great collector comes a masterful collection of lists that will start family arguments, provoke a wry smile, or just generally entertain on a cold winter night or in the dog days of summer.
In The Nova Scotia Book of Lists find out:
•Joe Canada’s Top10 qualities that define a “real” Nova Scotian.
• Natalie MacMaster’s wish list of the Top 10 Nova Scotians she would like to perform for.
•Jimmy Rankin’s 10 favourite songs ever performed by a Nova Scotian.
•JC Douglas’ list to Top 10 bands or performers to ever come out of Nova Scotia.
•Dan Soucoup’s list of Nova Scotia’s 10 best books.
•Darryll Walsh’s Top 10 haunted places in Nova Scotia.
•Len Wagg’s 10 best places in Nova Scotia to photograph.
•Joan Dawson’s 10 most memorable back roads she’s ever travelled in Nova Scotia.
•Michael de Adder’s list of the top Nova Scotians that a political cartoonist likes to draw.
•Michael Haynes’ list of Nova Scotia’s best trails.
•Pete Luckett’s 10 top choices of Nova Scotian products he likes to see on a menu when he dies out.
•Gerry Doucet’s top 10 fishing holes in Nova Scotia. -
My Nova Scotia Home Nova Scotia’s best writers riff on the place they call home
Editor: Vernon OicklePublisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$19.95In this no-holds barred look at the province, writers captivate and capture the true essence of Nova Scotia. From these personal accounts of life here, the writers reveal the great joys and small pleasures but also the schisms, foibles, and missed opportunities of a life made in Nova Scotia. By revealing themselves, they make the province larger, more welcoming, more interesting, and certainly more colourful. This book is proof positive that life really is a search for home.
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Listening for the Dead Bells
Publisher: Island Studies Press$18.95Mysterious lights, howling dogs, ringing sounds in the ear: these omens of death are part of a treasury of supernatural beliefs transmitted through centuries and across the Atlantic Ocean. Part memoir, part oral history—the author reflects on stories about bad fairies, witch control, ghosts, second sight, divination, healing incantations, attitudes toward death, and other links between Prince Edward Island and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.
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Fairy Dells and Rustic Bowers The Creation of Victoria Park, Truro NS
Publisher: SSP Publications$14.95The development of Truro’s magnificent Victoria Park is a very compelling read. Full of romance, little known facts (the Olmsteds, of New York’s Central Park fame were involved) and vintage Notman photographs, Joe Ballard’s study is an eye-opener.
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Transatlantique
Publisher: Art Gallery of Nova Scotia$12.00Transatlantique considers the development of the Art Deco aesthetic in Paris and Halifax evidenced in prints and drawings of fashion and costume designs from both cities, with particular attention given to the work of George Barbier. A special feature of this publication is the eight images of works in the exhibition that have been printed on high-quality paper for possible removal and framing.
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Ta’n Wetapeksi’k Understanding From Where We Come
Editor: Leah Morine Rosenmeier, Tim BernardPublisher: The Confederacy of Mnlnd.Mi'kmaq$34.95At the centre of the Mi’kmaw homeland, the Debert, Nova Scotia archaeological sites continue to be the touchstone not only for North American archaeology, but for human history. This book contains the proceeding of the 2005 Debert Research Workshop and includes the written contributions of presenters and brings together an international group of scholars and experts in a wide range of disciplines.
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A Light in the Field
Publisher: SSP Publications$16.95A Light in the Field features the historic architecture of lighthouses, fishery buildings, barns and mills on Prince Edward Island.
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Historic Churches of PEI (2nd Ed)
Publisher: SSP Publications$16.95Originally published in 1986, Historic Churches of Prince Edward Island won the Award of Merit, from the PEI Heritage Foundation. The book includes photos, floor plans, and descriptions of pre-1914 churches, from simple rural structures to the splendor of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Charlottetown. Not intended as a history text or a manual of preservation, the author hopes that the book will prove useful in conserving the past.
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Famous Nova Scotians
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$10.95Heroes from the province’s exciting past including Membertou, Portia White, and Jack Gray.
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Nova Scotia in Your Pocket
$9.95A photographic tour of some of Nova Scotia’s most popular and historic sights.
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Dictionary of Newfoundland and Labrador
Publisher: Downhomer$19.95This unique reference book combines definitions with illustrations, pronunciations and clever turns of phrases that reflect the colour and rhythm of the style of English commonly used in Newfoundland and Labrador. It includes 3,496 words, meanings, pronunciations and possible origins of words; 564 saying and expressions; folklore; weatherlore; a guide to celebrations and customs; and much more.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Jeanne Dugas of Acadia
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$14.95Born of Acadian parents at Louisbourg, Jeanne Dugas (1731-1817) and her husband Pierre Bois were among the founding families of the Acadian village of Chéticamp in 1785. Descended from one of the three most prominent families in Acadia, Jeanne Dugas and her family lived for more than thirty years under the threat of capture and deportation by the British militia and attacks by pirates and privateers.
In this historical fiction, we follow Jeanne Dugas’s trials and tribulations from Louisbourg to Grand Pré (NS), to Port Toulouse and Mira (Cape Breton), Île-Saint-Jean (PEI), Remshic (NS), Restigouche (NB) and back again – often more than once. Finally captured by the British militia, she and her family were imprisoned for three years on George’s Island, where three of her four children died. When released, they sought refuge on Île Madame (Cape Breton) and finally to the area now known as Chéticamp.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Cape Breton Weather Watching
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$28.95Supported by stunning photographs of every imaginable weather phonomena familiar to us all, and diagrams that illustrate just how the weather works, Danielson bring’s Cape Breton’s natural history to life.
