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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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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.
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Electric City Second Edition The Stehelins of New France
$22.95This new edition tells the true story of the Stehelins, a prestigious family from Normandy, France, who came to Nova Scotia in the early twentieth century to carve out a new life in the wilderness. The family’s achievements were legendary–they built their own railway and installed their own electricity to the incredulity of all those around. Their amazing tale of creating an “electric city” in the wilds of Nova Scotia is the stuff of romance, challenge, and intrigue. Includes updates and a new chapter.
