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Paddling the Tobeatic
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$32.95The rivers of southwestern Nova Scotia flow in and around what is known locally as the Tobeatic which refers to the Maritimes Provinces’ largest expanse of wilderness, all of which lies in southwestern Nova Scotia. Whether you are interested in involved, week-long wilderness excursions or in fair-weather day-trips, you’ll derive much satisfaction from exploring the rivers of southwestern Nova Scotia.
Blending wit with rugged pragmatism and interspersing fasc inating tidbits of local and natural history, paddler and back-country explorer Andrew Smith has created the definitive guide to canoe routes of the Tobeatic. Packed with a wealth of information, including route maps and diagrams of rapids and other difficult river sections, this invaluable guide speaks to both the seasoned canoeist and the casual outdoor enthusiast. Like the best guidebooks, Paddling the Tobeatic inspires its readers to get out and experience Nova Scotia’s natural treasures first-hand.
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RESET: breathe Journal
Publisher: Acorn Press$21.00The RESET:breathe journal is a compilation of all things ‘feel good.’
Everyone was born with the right to live their life feeling the best they absolutely can but sometimes we just forget how.
Each day you will be asked to track the things that contribute to us feeling our best. Things like top priorities, sleep, energy and movement. The journal finishes with challenges and blank pages.
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Ancient Land, New Land Skmaqn – Port-la-Joye – Fort Amherst National Historic Site of Canada
Publisher: Acorn Press$24.95The Mi’kmaq have inhabited Epekwitk (Prince Edward Island) for millennia. At this site, known in Mi’kmaq as Skmaqn, or “waiting place,” the Mi’kmaq met the French in the 18th century to renew their friendship and military alliance at a time when the French and British empires were fighting for supremacy in North America.
As Europeans settled on what had become to be known as Isle Saint Jean, the major European players were France and Great Britain, each of whom started constructing forts and sending soldiers, warships and settlers. A key strategy of the French was to establish a close alliance with the Mi’kmaq, one that was maintained by missionaries. Thus Skmaqn became the French fort Port-la-Joye. The French saw it as the most strategic location as its harbour was large, sheltered, and easy to defend because of the narrow entrance through which any enemy ships would have to pass.
One of the first permanent French settlements on the island, Port-la-Joye was the seat of colonial government and a port of entry. This site was surrendered to Great Britain in 1758 and renamed Fort Amherst, the British organized the deportation of more than 3,000 Acadians.
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The Life of Boston King
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing Limited$14.95In the summer of 1783, at the end of the American Revolution, several thousand Black men, women and children left New York City with the British Army, bound by ship for Nova Scotia. Now uniformly called “Black Loyalists”, regardless of their status at leaving New York, theirs is a rich and fascinating history. One of the most well-documented of these Black Loyalists was a man named Boston King, born a slave to Richard Waring, a rice-planter in South Carolina.
King experienced a religious revelation while in Nova Scotia, and became a Methodist preacher; he went to Sierra Leone in 1792 to spread the Gospel; and from there was invited to England to study at a Methodist school. While there, he wrote the story of his life and conversion. This was published in the Methodist Magazine of the times.
Thus survived one of only three autobiographies of a Black Loyalist, full of details of the Loyalist settlement of Nova Scotia. It is reprinted here as “Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, a Black Preacher,” edited by Ruth Holmes Whitehead and Carmelita Robertson. An introduction by Ruth Holmes Whitehead presents new research findings about King’s life, and her Afterword examines particularly his life as a slave on the Waring Plantation, near Charleston, SC. Whitehead and Robertson revisited the ruins of two Waring plantations, where King would have worked as a child and young man, and photographed the dirt road, still running through one plantation, down which he would have ridden away to freedom.
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Wild Green Light
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95Wild Green Light is a collaboration that brings together the poetry of acclaimed author David Adams Richards and award-winning writer Margo Wheaton. Drawing upon a fiercely shared passion for the natural world—as well as a literary friendship that has spanned more than two decades—each of these New Brunswick-born writers pays powerful tribute to a rapidly disappearing rural way of life. Atmospheric and spare, these poems take us into a world of deep woods, abandoned fields, kitchen tables, and back roads.
The book is divided into two sections, representing the unique voice and perspective of each author. Wheaton’s section consists of two elegant lyric poems, as well as a fifteen-part sequence written in a poetic form known as “ghazals.” Sorrowing and precise, the poems in this sequence survey the remains of her working-class childhood home, a once-thriving place, ravaged by family alcoholism and despair. Both celebratory and grieving, these poems grapple intensely with larger issues of working-class poverty, limited choices, and the chaotic legacy of addiction.
The book’s opening section gathers together twenty lyric poems by Richards, each one steeped in his own direct, visceral experience of his beloved Miramichi. Bold, plain-spoken, and elegiac, these deeply felt poems explore the grand terrain of love and loss and are marked with the same purposefulness, acuity, and compassion that appear in Richards’ fiction.
Alike and different, these two writers share a devotion to the physical landscapes of New Brunswick and call us to fiercely cherish the beauty of rural life and experience.
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Unspoken Truth Unmuted and Unfiltered
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95With strength and resilience, Africans have persevered through the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and were able to rebuild a life after slavery while enduring the inhumane conditions of the civil rights Jim Crow era forced upon them by the African diaspora. The lack of acknowledgement of the generational trauma these events have had on their descendants continues to create further injury. Even today, barriers prevent their healing and transition from survival to a thriving existence.
Unspoken Truth is a bold collection of poetry highlighting the generational pain of Africans living in the diaspora. Through her poems, Bowden creates a panoramic view of the terrible conditions they endured for centuries. Deliberately, with dignity, she brings the trauma stories of African Nova Scotians told around kitchen tables for decades to the homes of readers while restoring the balance of humanity and royalty from which the African journey began. Despite all odds, they were able to preserve their lineage and lean on the resilience buried deep in their souls while passing this pride, culture, and strength on to future generations so they may one day fulfill the hopes and the dreams of the former slaves.
This collection seeks to spark the necessary conversations the larger society needs to engage in around the perseverance of systemic racism, a society now grappling to make the connections between historical trauma and current-day conditions of inequality. It summons the conscience of every reader to acknowledge the truth and reconcile it with their own dissonance. The poems pay homage to the ancestors, honour the elders, and provide inspiration for the youth so they can heal from this historical inheritance and build upon their own narratives.
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A Calf for Olive
Publisher: Chocolate River Publishing$10.95Olive is devastated when she overhears a kid at school making fun of her for wanting to raise a calf for the 4-H calf competition. They think she can’t possibly do it because she has cerebral palsy. But, with the love and support from her family and friends, Olive develops a strong bond with a Jersey calf and draws on her problem-solving skills to get her calf ready for the fall competition.
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Disaster at the Highland Games
Artist: Nathasha PilottePublisher: Chocolate River Publishing$15.95Kate doesn’t think she needs to practice her Highland dancing to get ready for the Highland Games. Practicing at home isn’t as much fun as dancing in class. She’s good enough already, and everything will be fine. Or will it?
This high-energy picture book by author and Highland dance teacher Riel Nason showcases Highland dancing and the Highland Games culture and is brought to life by the whimsical illustrations of Nathasha Pilotte.
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Petit Pico
Artist: Nathasha PilottePublisher: Bouton d'or Acadie$9.95“Crick, crack, crickety-crack! A baby chick is born.”
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Memories on the Bounty A Story of Friendship, Love, and Adventure
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95In 1960, Roy Boutilier and twenty-four fellow Nova Scotians set sail for Tahiti aboard the newly built replica sailing ship Bounty. The ship stayed in Tahiti for almost a year while MGM Studios filmed the epic historical drama Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando.
Roy’s year on Bounty and his experiences in Tahiti are themselves the stuff of movies. But it took a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease for Roy and his long-time friend, Janet Sanford, to realize that a fascinating story would be lost if someone didn’t capture those memories.
And so began a series of Monday-morning meetings as Roy and the author embarked on a race against time. Memories on the Bounty goes far beyond re-telling Roy’s story; it explores the boundaries of memory, the challenges of storytelling, the pain of saying goodbye, and the enduring bonds of friendship.
With dozens of never-before-seen photos from Bounty’s maiden voyage and her time in Tahiti, Memories on the Bounty is a touching story of adventure, love, and loss.
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Titanic True Stories of Her Passengers, Crew, and Legacy
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$25.95This book tells the lives of the passengers on the Titanic‘s ill-fated voyage, and shines a spotlight on the vessel’s lost treasures, its celebrated send-off from Belfast, its animal passengers, the iconic music and movies inspired by the story, and the many, many tales of heroism and bravery that arose from this tragedy. Richly illustrated with archival photographs and newspaper clippings, as well as a comprehensive index, timeline, and suggested further reading, this all-ages book presents an accessible, fascinating history of the world’s most famous ship. Includes over 50 black and white photos.
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Titanic
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing Limited$24.95This book tells the lives of the passengers on the Titanic‘s ill-fated voyage, and shines a spotlight on the vessel’s lost treasures, its celebrated send-off from Belfast, its animal passengers, the iconic music and movies inspired by the story, and the many, many tales of heroism and bravery that arose from this tragedy. Richly illustrated with archival photographs and newspaper clippings, as well as a comprehensive index, timeline, and suggested further reading, this all-ages book presents an accessible, fascinating history of the world’s most famous ship. Includes over 50 black and white photos.
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Working from Home for a Harmonious Life
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95Since Luc Desroches began working from his home office in 2016, he has been writing about how the move has allowed him to create a more harmonious life for both himself and his family. This book was mostly written pre-COVID-19, when working from home was more the exception than the rule. With almost every employee on the planet being encouraged to work from home where possible, COVID-19 has made the necessary transition from office to home more important than ever. Although there’s an explosion of teleworking articles with best practice tips, the author delves much deeper into the personal experience as he reflects on the values and teachings of the Mi’kmaq people who have worked from their homes for over ten thousand years.
The deeper messages of the book are perennial, which is what we need as we face unprecedented challenges. Now is an opportunity for millions of people to make a more informed decision on whether they should continue working from home or return to their pre-COVID workplaces. Now is a potential tipping point that could lead to a happier and healthier life for the individual and for society as a whole.
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One Strong Girl
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95One Strong Girl is a mother’s vivid account of what it is like to lose her daughter, India, to a rare debilitating disease. The story is a bold description of what it means to deal with deep sorrow and still find balance and beauty in an age steeped in the denial of death. At ten, India climbed the highest on the rope at gymnastics, yet by sixteen was so weak she was unable to even dress herself. The narrative follows the six-year fight for answers from the medical community. Finally, after the genetic testing of India’s DNA, it was discovered there were two mutations on her ASAH1 gene, a deadly combination. Today her cells are alive in a research lab at the University of Ottawa. This is a legacy that cuts both ways, a point of pride and pain. One Strong Girl is a story of what it’s like to outlive an only child. It describes the intensity of loving a dying child and most importantly, the joy to be found, even amidst the sorrow.
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The Tides of Time
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95Set in northeastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, The Tides of Time: A Nova Scotia Book of Seasons paints vivid portraits of contemporary labourers whose harvests mark the rhythms of the seasonal year. Each of the twelve monthly chapters tells the story of a labour unique to that month, including jobs like tuna fishing, cranberry farming, maple syrup production, sheep farming, beekeeping, lobster fishing, and foraging for wild mushrooms. Stewart revitalizes an older, contemplative view of the sacredness of time. In keeping with the genre of nature writing, her book offers a meticulous way of looking at the world as she blends first-hand observations of seasonal change with stories of the labourers. The Tides of Time offers a refuge from the rush of urban life. It turns to the seasons, rural life and literature for an alternative mode of time, which is fluid, rhythmic, and gentle. The symplicity is there—close at hand.
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Louisbourg or Bust A Surfer’s Wild Ride Down Nova Scotia’s Drowned Coast
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95A rickety surf rig on wheels. A guide named Don Quixote. No cellphone. Louisbourg or Bust is RC Shaw’s spandex-free pilgrimage up a haunted coastline. Fuelled by Hungry Man Stew and blind optimism, Shaw battles potholed hills and remote waves en route to the Fortress of Louisbourg.
With a Nova Scotia road map in one hand and a fat copy of Don Quixote in the other, Shaw hatches a plan. He builds The Rig, a Frankenstein-inspired bicycle-plus-trailer to haul his camping gear and surf stuff. Then he circles Louisbourg with a black Sharpie and vows to take the fortress back from its malevolent tourist occupiers. Finally, on a clear June morning, he kisses his family goodbye and creaks off down the road in search of adventure for adventure’s sake. No cellphone, no safety net. Just the restless pulse of the Atlantic Ocean as it rips and tears at the coastline of the Eastern Shore.
As the lark gets real, Shaw is forever changed by the gnarly soul of Nova Scotia’s fogbound, fading coastline.
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It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time Ten Years of Misadventures in Coffee
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95Annabel’s coffee adventures took her from a wet, dreary market in northern England to the Canadian Prairies via a PhD in Central America. She gradually mastered the art of juggling a start-up business, her thesis, and a five-month-old baby at the same time, and negotiated emigration bureaucracy, a few disastrous business relationships, and the brutality of Canadian winters. This is the real story of coffee entrepreneurship, with all the grim, impossible, frustrating, and messy bits left in. Because they all seemed like a good idea at the time.
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Salt Fires
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$19.95Salt Fires is a volume of poems that embrace and reflect our human consciousness: our awareness, our blindness, our Shadow, our mythologies. They invite us to look at ourselves in ways that often are disconcerting, sometimes startling. Love of land infuses Salt Fires. Intimately inhabited and passionately shared, Nova Scotia’s farms, woods, and shores reveal themselves to be our Earth in microcosm.
A suite of Sable Island poems closes the book and affirms this notion—Sable Island, a strip of sand in a vast ocean, impossible, yet somehow here, like our planet, rich in life and beauty. This is the work of a mature poet who examines moral blindness and human frailties by inhabiting the experiences of the poems’ speakers with vulnerability and honesty. Accessible, clear, and alive with music, the poems inform and incite.
