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A Distorted Revolution How Eric’s Trip Changed Music, Moncton, and Me
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95In this narrative history and memoir, journalist, musician, and Monctonian Jason Murray follows the rise of the band that put the Maritimes on the map.
Eric’s Trip was a band defined as much by its DIY ethos as its low-fi, discordant music. The four-piece formed in an early-’90s Moncton basement and in a few short years, went from recording themselves on a four-track and selling cassettes at local record stores to signing on Seattle’s Sub Pop records, opening for Sonic Youth, and touring internationally.
Twenty years after the band’s breakup (1996), A Distorted Revolution is the ultimate nostalgia trip. Through personal recollections, interviews with band members and others integral to the early 90s scene, this highly anticipated book offers a rare glimpse inside the band’s formation, success, and ultimate unravelling. Includes over 20 images.
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Mersey River Lodge A Window on History and Nature
Photographer: David Burns, Farhad VladiPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$28.95The area defined by Nova Scotia’s Mersey River has been home to many: the Mi’kmaq, the English, the French, the Black Loyalists, even pirates and rum-runners. A location renowned for its natural splendour, in 1930 the Mersey River became home to anouther important resident: the Mersey Folk Lodge.
Originally intended as a respite for friends and family, and potential business partners, of Liverpool’s Bowater Mersey Paper Mill, the Mersey River Lodge has since become a tranquil retreat for both personal and professional excursions.
Written by Halifax historian Blair Beed, with breathtaking photographs by David Burns and Farhad Vladi, this beautiful keepsake celebrates the history of the Mersey River area, its industry, its people, and the lasting cultural legacy of the Mersey River Lodge.
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Who’s a Scaredy Cat ? (revised edition) A Story of the Halifax Explosion
Artist: Marijke SimonsPublisher: Nimbus Publishing$12.95This is the story of two families in Dartmouth at the time of the Halifax Explosion, December 1917. Flossie Wright is a prankster, taking pleasure in practical jokes. Isobel Morton, whose father is listed as missing in the war, dislikes Flossie’s jokes, and is ridiculed by the other girl. Although Isobel knows she is a not a “scaredycat,” Flossie’s jibes still hurt. Can Isobel prove her bravery and win Flossie’s friendship in the terrible days that follow the Halifax explosion? Who’s a Scaredy-Cat? is an enjoyable, historically detailed novel now back in print. Includes black and white illustrations by Marijke Simons.
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A History of Disaster (2nd edition) The Worst Storms, Accidents, and Conflagrations in Atlantic Canada
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$17.95A History of Disaster chronicles 43 of Atlantic Canada’s most deadly disasters, many well-remembered and none ever forgotten. Included are not only the region’s iconic disasters like the Halifax Explosion and the Springhill mine collapses, but also lesser-known events, such as the 1977 Saint John jail fire. Photos and illustrations of the aftermath reveal the heartbreak and bravery that accompanied these life-altering catastrophes. Now in a new size.
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The First Violin The life and loss of the Titanic’s violinist John Law Hume
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$15.95In Halifax’s Fairview Cemetery lies the body of John Law Hume, first violinist of RMS Titanic. As the ship sank that tragic night in April 1912, legend has it that the band played on right to the very end. The First Violin tells the story of the construction and sinking of the great ocean liner on her maiden voyage and also recounts the fascinating life and loss of the ship’s violinist John Law Hume. Written by Hume’s great-niece, Yvonne Hume, the book traces the first violinist’s early years in Dumfries, Scotland, the events that led him to play on board the Titanic, and the doomed voyage across the Atlantic. The book also recounts the chaotic aftermath, with the recovery of bodies and the eventually identification in the Halifax graveyard of body No. 193: John Law Hume. This illustrated edition includes over 100 photos, diagrams, and letters documenting the tragic story, and includes a short foreword by Millvina Dean, Titanic’s last survivor.
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Historic Saint John Streets
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Neither the Crow’s Nest tavern nor the boundary between Saint John East and West exist today, but Crow’s Nest Lane and City Line still do. In this pioneering excavation of the largest city in New Brunswick, authors David Goss (Only in New Brunswick) and Harold E. Wright (East Saint John) illuminate many of the stories inspired by and responsible for the curious collection of street names in Saint John, New Brunswick, past and present.
Culled from interviews with current and former residents, archival and original research, and a dash of local lore, Historic Saint John Streets is both a historians’ reference and readers’ miscellany. Featuring an ambitious sampling of over 100 roads and archival images, representative streetscapes run the gamut from secret shortcuts, to back roads, to main throughways, and offer a valuable new perspective of the historically rich Maritime city.
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Historic New Glasgow, Stellarton, Westville and Trenton An Illustrated History of New Glasgow and area
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$19.95Well known for its mining and manufacturing activities, New Glasgow, Stellarton, Westville, and Trenton, share a fascinating history. First settled by the Mi’kmaq and Acadians, and later by a large influx of Scots, the area became an important hub supported by coal and steel industries that attracted people from all walks of life.
Author Monica Graham outlines the towns’ coal and steel industries, their businesses and institutions, and their best-known people and landmarks. With over 180 historical black and white images from the 1870s to 1940s, Historic New Glasgow, Stellarton, Westville, and Trenton is an excellent addition to the Images of Our Past series.
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Sails of Fundy
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$16.95A native of Kentville, Nova Scotia, Stanley T. Spicer is a graduate of the University of New Brunswick, Acadia University and Springfield College. He was New Brunswick’s first provincial Director of Physical Eduacation and Recreation from 1947 to 1966 before joining the federal Fitness and Amateur Sport Branch in Ottawa where he served until 1979. He was the first person from the Atlantic Provinces to receive the Honour Award of the Canadian Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation. Spicer is the author of numerous articles for Canadian and American publications and five previous books, including The Saga of the Mary Celeste.
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Canadian Forces
Publisher: MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc.$19.95From soldiers on the ground, sailors on the seas, and fliers in the air, this is a history of those men and women our country has placed in harm’s way.From Siberia to Somalia, the Yukon to Yugoslavia, Korea, the Congo, the Middle East, Cyprus, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the Canadian soldier has risked life and limb for reasons and causes that Canada and Canadians believe to be right.Canadian Armed Forces: A Salute spotlights some of our oft-forgotten history and individuals . . . the Canadian who won a Victoria Cross during the Charge of the Light Brigade, the Canadians who were involved in what was probably the last Cavalry charge, the Devil’s Brigade that signaled the formation of the first Special Forces unit, and the D-Day Dodgers without whom D-Day in France may have been as much a fiasco as the Dieppe landings.This is a book that chronicles the humble heroism and often unacknowledged bravery that are a part of the Canadian soldier’s story. The book captures the tragedy and the comedy that are part of daily life in the Canadian military. This is an unabashed salute.
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New London: The Lost Dream
Publisher: Island Studies Press$27.95Sometimes, fact is better than fiction. In 1773 a group of Quaker tradespeople and their families from London, England settled on Prince Edward Island’s north shore. Rather than farming or fishing, their dream was to create a “new”– a bustling, commercial outpost–on what they considered to be a doorstep to the new world. New London survived and occasionally thrived for twenty years. This is its remarkable story.
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Dispensing Aid
$20.00The floors were deep with plaster and glass, shelving was toppled, and heavy wooden counters broken. Amidst this disarray pharmacists gave first aid to the injured who came to the drug stores seeking care almost immediately following one of the worst disasters in Canadian history, the Halifax Explosion.
Dispensing Aid tells the stories of druggists in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion, the care they provided, their narrow escapes and the unexpected roles they played. The common medications of a hundred years ago are identified and their usage described. Photographs of corner drug store promotions, century old prescriptions and medication bottles add to this book’s unique perspective of an unforgettable time in Halifax’s history.
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Cable Captain
$25.00This is the remarkable story of Captain Melville Henry Bloomer and the cable ships he commanded. The Lord Kelvin participated in the repair of cables damaged by the great seaquake of 1929 and the five year expedition to develop an undersea plough to bury cables in the ocean bed. That project is considered one of the greatest marine accomplishments of all times. The Minia was one of the ships that rescued Titanic survivors. Complemented by nearly 150 photos and drawings.
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Titanic A Century of Remembrance
Publisher: Chronicle Herald$17.39On April 10, 1912, Titanic set sail from Southampton, England, bound for New York on its maiden voyage. The disaster that followed will be forever etched in history and seared on the psyche of Nova Scotians. One hundred years ago, when Titanic met its fate, we delivered the news as a breathless world waited. One hundred years later, as the world again turned its gaze toward Nova Scotia, The Chronicle Herald delivered an enduring tribute to an unthinkable tragedy. In words, pictures and graphics, we present a lasting collection of a century of news.
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Old Trout Funnies: The Comic Origins of the Cape Breton Liberation Army
Artist: Paul MacKinnonPublisher: Cape Breton University Press$19.95Cape Breton Island underwent a metamorphosis of sorts during the late 1970s and 1980s. Long marginalized by geography, economics and predominant mainland political culture, a countercultural sea change brought the island’s deeply rooted creative side to centre stage. One such platform was Old Trout Funnies, a homegrown series of satirical comic books created by artist Paul MacKinnon. Emerging from MacKinnon’s Cape Breton comic book heroes, the Cape Breton Liberation Army led a cultural revolution that swept the nation, winning acclaim on every front.
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Oak Island Mystery: Solved!
Publisher: Cape Breton University Press$24.95For more than two centuries, adventurers, thrill seekers and treasure hunters have tried to unlock the secret of Oak Island, investing millions of dollars, and costing at least six lives. And the obsession continues: a television series in the winter of 2014 and seasonal walking tours that include locations highlighted by the series.
Theories and intrigue abound – a clandestine treasure trove? The resting place of some holy relic? A cache of priceless documents? The promise of treasure is a powerful compulsion – Oak Island story is embroiled with politics and treachery from its humble beginnings – and many have risked and lost entire fortunes, and in some cases their very lives, chasing these theories. The bald truth is that nobody actually knew, and every imaginable theory from the fantastic to the ridiculous was concocted to explain that unknown.
To get at the real treasure of Oak Island it is necessary to dig deeply, but through the facts, not the legends, and Joy Steele’s thorough investigation reveals a remarkable and credible truth vastly different than legend would have it.
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Lifeline The Story of the Atlantic Ferries and Coastal Boats
Publisher: Breton Books$24.95Lifeline is an all-new edition of Harry Bruce’s classic telling of the roots of today’s Marine Atlantic—a history of the courage and determination that maintain the water-links of Atlantic Canada. From Newfoundland to Cape Breton, along the coast of Labrador—from Nova Scotia to Maine and New Brunswick, and across to PEI—through wind and ice, Harry Bruce brings to life a bold, brave, sometimes hilarious and often tragic history. With 40 historic photographs.
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Silver Dart The Story of J.A.D. McCurdy, Canada’s First Pilot and the First Airplane
Publisher: Breton Books$18.95A WARM, ENTHUSIASTIC AND ENTERTAINING biography of the fearless pioneer pilot who flew Canada into the Aviation Era when his Silver Dart lifted off lake ice in Baddeck, February 23, 1909. The story of the Aerial Experiment Association — four young men around Alexander Graham Bell — that developed and flew the flimsy planes that became the legendary Silver Dart. A story of companionship, invention and courage, as Canadian aviation was born in Cape Breton Island.
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Calendar of Life in a Narrow Valley: Jacobina Campbell’s Diary, Taymouth, NB 1825-1843
Publisher: Acadiensis Press$19.95Over the course of two decades, the ever-observant Jacobina Campbell coordinated the activities of a busy household and reported on the daily lives of family and neighbours. This remarkable woman’s diary introduces an early 19th-century community on the Nashwaak River where life and work were shaped by the seasonal rhythms of the farming-lumbering economy that came to characterize much of rural New Brunswick.
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Separate Spheres Women’s Worlds in the 19th-Century Maritimes
Editor: Janet Guildford, Suzanne MortonPublisher: Acadiensis Press$9.95A best-selling anthology of original articles about the history of women in the Maritime Provinces. The traditional stereotypes surrounding Victorian womanhood are challenged by authors who tell us about farm women and black women, about women in classrooms, churches and factories, about women who struggled against family violence, defended their property rights, participated in public events and campaigned for social reform. Contributors include Rusty Bittermann, Gail Campbell, Janet Guildford, Phillip Girard, Rebecca Veinott, Hannah Lane, Bonnie Huskins, Suzanne Morton, Sharon Myers, Judith Fingard and Gwendolyn Davies.
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Studies in Maritime Literary History 1760-1930
Publisher: Acadiensis Press$16.95From the early diarists and satirists to the women writers of the nineteenth century and the poetic Song Fishermen of the twentieth, Maritime writers have made distinctive responses to the social, political and geographical realities of their time. These essays reveal how the region’s writers have shaped and reflected the identity of the Maritimes.
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Planter Links
Publisher: Acadiensis Press$21.95They came into early Nova Scotia from many backgrounds, carrying the village culture, missionary ideals, political dreams, economic ambitions and ordinary hopes of the eighteenth century. Preachers and privateers, teachers and soliders, merchants and farmers , these men and women founded communities and planted seeds that have made a distinctive contribution to local and regional identities in the Maritime Provinces.
This latest volume in the Planters Studies Series features fourteen chapters by writers and scholars in the field, including Richard Lyman Bushman, Robert McLaughlin, Daniel Conlin, David Murray, Peter Haring Judd, David Jaffee, Philip Girard, Eldon Hay, Barry Cahill, Kenneth Paulsen, Nancy Vogan, Patrick Rogers, M.A. MacDonald and Julian Gwyn.
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Education of an Innocent
Publisher: Acadiensis Press$14.95An informal personal history by one of the most respected and beloved regional historians of the Maritimes. Insights into schooling and society, family and church, the outdoors and the universities, all of which shaped his character and his work. Edited and introduced by former student Stephen Dutcher, and featuring a conversation with historian John G. Reid.
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Witnesses to a New Nation
Publisher: SSP Publications$29.95From pioneer houses to elegant neo-Classical churches, this collection from Heritage Trust of Nova Scotia is based on an exhibition of the same name that toured the province in 2017, to great acclaim. A must-have for historians, conservationists and architecture buffs, this volume is replete with great colour images and solid research and writing.
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Myth and Milieu: Atlantic Literature and Culture 1918-1939
A lively look at the cultural history of the Maritimes and Newfoundland in the years between the two world wars. This is the world of Lucy Maud Montgomery and Thomas Raddall, E. J. Pratt and Helen Creighton, Margaret Duley and Frank Parker Day. In a wide-ranging review of regional culture, Myth & Milieu explores novels and poetry, painting and folklore, music and film, local dialect and political cartoons.
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Women at Sea in the Age of Sail
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many women experienced firsthand the perils and pleasures of life at sea. These venturesome women went to sea largely to be with their captain husbands and many proved themselves useful far beyond their roles as companions. Luckily for us, many of these seafaring women kept journals. Here, these women recount, in their own words, their impressions of the exotic places they visited, the homes they made and the children they raised afloat on the seas.
Donal Baird has published various articles and books on his passions, sailing and firefighting. -
Chocolates, Tattoos, and Mayflowers
$24.95Did you know that goose grease apparently cures the common cold, while salt fish draws a fever? How about the fact that “Torpedos” (automobiles) were manufactured in Kentville in 1910? These are just some of the tidbits of Maritime wisdom and little-known facts that you will find in Chocolates, Tattoos, and Mayflowers.
Collected over the years for Clary Croft’s popular radio column on CBC’s Mainstreet, these stories, memories, photographs, and advertisements show a fascinating side of Maritime popular culture and history. From accounts of sea monsters and famous duels to the history behind Maritime staples like Pot of Gold chocolates and Morse’s Tea, these entertaining and evocative pieces are sure to spark conversations around your kitchen table—just like any good Maritime subject!
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Historic House Names of Nova Scotia
$17.95Mount Uniacke, Acacia Grove, Winckworth, Saint’s Rest, Spruce Tree Cottage. Ever wonder how Nova Scotia houses got their names? The better-known names are largely connected with prominent historical figures who resided in commodious homes with sprawling grounds, but the naming tradition was far more prevalent than that. Historic House Names of Nova Scotia provides a fascinating look at the house-naming tradition in Nova Scotia. What sorts of names did Bluenoses create, and what did the names mean? Author and historian Joe Ballard has amassed a wealth of historical information and photos on the subject.
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In Their Own Words
$21.95What was the First World War really like for Maritimers overseas? This epistolary book, edited by historian Ross Hebb, contains the letters home of three Maritimers with distinct wartime experiences: a front-line soldier from Nova Scotia, a nurse from New Brunswick, and a conscripted fisherman from Prince Edward Island. Up until now, these complete sets of handwritten letters have remained with the families, who agreed to share them in time for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Great War’s end in 2018. These letters not only give insight into the war, but provide greater understanding of life in rural Maritime communities in the early 1900s.
In Their Own Words includes a learned introduction and background information on letter writers Eugene A. Poole, Sister Pauline Balloch, and Herry Heckbert, enabling readers to appreciate the context of these letters and their importance.
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Building for Justice The Historic Courthouses of the Maritimes
Publisher: SSP Publications$6.95In this beautifully illustrated volume, James Macnutt, Q.C. has succeeded in compelling us to look at courthouses in a different way. Courthouses are not only one of the most significant buildings in the cities, towns or villages in which they are located, they are also an excellent interpretation of the way justice is administered in each Maritime province.
Building for Justice is a celebration of a monumental architecture that, along with the buildings of church and state, forms one of the cornerstones of our society.
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Haven in the Heart of Halifax An Illustrated History of the Public Gardens
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$25.95The Public Gardens is one of the finest examples of a Victorian garden anywhere in the world. Nestled in the heart of the city, this important public space has a fascinating history. When you enter the Public Gardens, it feels for a moment as if you have stepped back in time. Everything seems to slow down when you push open one of the iron gates and set foot on the winding gravel paths that meander throughout plantings of astonishing variety. It is seemingly timeless but, of course, it has changed a great deal over almost one hundred years.
Nestled in the heart of the city, the Public Gardens’ origins date from the 1830s. Inside its gates are a staggering variety of beautiful flowers, shrubs, and trees and the most memorable historic structures. The aesthetic of the Public Gardens was the vision of Richard Power, the Gardens’ original superintendent.
Over time, the Gardens took its current form, through the addition of familiar features such as the bandstand, cast iron gates, fountain, and bridges. The structures and monuments in the garden themselves are filled with significance. Citizens and visitors alike have found a quiet oasis of calm in the middle of the downtown core. It is a place where memories have been made, as generation after generation have taken in the seven hectares of beauty. When you enter the Public Gardens, it feels as if you are stepping out of a hectic city and back in time. But the Public Gardens has survived through the careful stewardship of a cross section of the community.
This lavishly illustrated book is the first comprehensive history of this remarkable place.
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Black Snow
$19.95Black Snow is a love story set during the Halifax Explosion. The 1917 disaster was the largest man-made blast the world had ever known, and it cut Halifax off from the rest of the world for the darkest thirty-six hours in its history. Rich in fact and shocking images, the story sets a blistering pace following one man’s search through a ruined city for the love of his life as he confronts the wreckage of his past.
