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God’s Country Cape Breton Stories, Classic and Rare
Editor: Ron CaplanPublisher: Breton Books$21.95Cape Breton Island continues to earn its place at the table of Canadian literature. God’s Country offers an essential collection of classic stories that helped build that award-winning reputation, as well as several rare and harder-to-find stories that maintain the growing respect while pointing toward future literary achievements. This is a lasting book that works for both bedside reading and the high school and university classroom. In God’s Country you’ll find stories by Alistair MacLeod, Joan Clark, Lynn Coady, D.R. MacDonald, Silver Donald Cameron, D.C. Troicuk, Sheldon Currie and many more — gathered under one rich and attractive roof. And these classic writers are only some of the authors this new volume has to share.
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The Golden Boy A Doctor’s Journey with Addiction
Publisher: Acorn Press$21.95Before opioids destroyed Grant Matheson’s career, he was a pillar of his community. Respected physician, loving husband, devoted father, and trusted friend. Grant was a straight-laced kid who grew up to be a clean-living adult. No drinking, no smoking, and certainly no drugs. It took everyone by surprise, most of all himself, when he became addicted to narcotics in his 30s. His story hit local press when he was found guilty of professional misconduct related to his addiction, including over-prescribing painkillers to patients so he could buy them back–an infraction that caused his physician license to be suspended.
Matheson’s memoir is a gritty account of his narcotic addiction and all that it cost him: various relationships, his career, and almost his life. The Golden Boy takes the reader from the very first day of Matheson’s drug addiction to that moment when he decided to rebuild his life through rehab and recovery.
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Finding Forgiveness
Publisher: Acorn Press$21.95Adrian Smith was raised in what seemed to be a very traditional, Roman Catholic upbringing. His father, Adrian Smith Sr, was very religious. He had studied to be a priest and left the seminary only 6 months before his ordination. After he left the seminary, Adrian Sr then worked for 30 years as a child psychologist for PEI’s Department of Education. He died at the age of 58 from a brain tumor. A week later after his death, Adrian Jr discovered that his father had been living a lie and that he was homosexual; he had kept it hidden his whole life.
Adrian kept his father’s sexuality a secret until his mother died. At that time, he decided to make a conscious effort to face his and his father’s story. He ended up having travel away from PEI to get counselling to help him get over the lies of his past. He was finally making progress when allegations of sexual abuse against my father surfaced.
The book details a son’s experience with coming to terms with the secrecy and betrayal. But it is also a story of redemption as after years of hard work Smith could finally find forgiveness.
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Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island
Publisher: Pottersfield Press$21.95It has been estimated that between fifteen to twenty thousand ships have meet their end along Canada’s eastern seaboard. Many of these wrecks happened between the 1800s to the mid-1900s when the season of bark, brig, brigantine and schooner came and went. This era left behind literally a vast volume – both recorded in print and preserved in local tales – of heroism and tragedy of mariners young and old.Prince Edward Island’s legacy of tales from the era of all-sail is great: from the wreck of the immigrant-laden Elizabeth at Cascumpec where the castaways were saved by a native; to the unique tale of PEI’s Jessy thrown onto St. Paul’s Island; to the strange tale of Rival caught in the “Yankee Gale” and the SS Quebec’s demise in the death-dealing tides of East Point, Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island, Volume I will fascinate and educate.Then again, island ships were involved with mystery, mayhem and wreck in practically all parts of the North Atlantic: gripped in sandbars of Sable Island, plundered on the rugged coasts of Newfoundland, drifting with no crew off Ireland, wrecked on Nova Scotia’s shores, stranded on the Magdalenes, and “Lost with Crew” in the vast Atlantic.Anything that could happen to a ship has happened to a Prince Edward Island hull and scores of tales within Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island present those weird and wonderful epics. Arranged chronologically, the stories are full of names of our seafaring ancestors, plus descriptions of the local ports that sheltered the ships.For over a hundred years the wooden sailing ship was an important and vital transportation link along the shores of Prince Edward Island. Its maritime records are full of stories in which local ships and their crews played an essential role. Self-sacrifice, daring, skill, wreck and rescue are all part of a fabric which makes up the history of the ships and the heritage of the villages that knew them. Shipwrecks and Sailors of Prince Edward Island has all this and more!
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Short History of Fredericton
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Sitting along the scenic St. John River and tucked into the surrounding wilderness, Fredericton bristles with history as New Brunswick’s capital. With Maliseet, French, and British origins, this colonial garrison town quickly became the political centre for the area as it grew with the efforts of Loyalist settlers and others in the 1780s. In an engaging narrative style, author Dan Soucoup traces Fredericton’s development through the contributions of leading citizens and the significant events that saw commercial growth and the first Canadian literary movement.
Through the social and political tensions of the 1960s and 70s up to the present, A Short History of Fredericton records the entire history of the city in a highly accessible manner. This book is ideal for tourists seeking a concise historical overview of Fredericton, as well as for citizens wanting to know how their city came to be. Includes 30 black and white photos.
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History of Nova Scotia in 50 Objects History of Nova Scotia Through Museum Artifacts
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Have you ever been to the LaHave Islands Marine Museum on Bell Island? How about the Celtic Music Interpretive Centre in Judique, or the Africville Museum in Halifax? Joan Dawson has. Armed with a spirit of adventure, curiosity, and the belief that “treasures can be found in unlikely places,” the author-historian has scoured Nova Scotia’s National Heritage Sites and community museums for the fifty objects that best “embody the history and culture” of the province.
Casting a wide net, from a pair of good-luck Nantucket Whaler shoes to a Mi-Carême seven-beast mask, Dawson unearths the many arcane and overlooked items whose stories collectively form Nova Scotia’s historical fabric. Entries are arranged in chronological order, from prehistory to present-day, and each one includes a photograph, description, and contextual history of the object. Written in an engaging, narrative style, A History of Nova Scotia in 50 Objects is both a fabulously unique approach to the province’s history and an interactive treasure hunt.
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Pier 21 Gateway that Changed Canada (new)
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95From 1928 to 1971, Pier 21 in Halifax served as the front door to Canada, the entryway through which more than 1.5 million people passed. A legion of volunteers, medical staff, and immigration personnel kept vigil at the pier from one decade to the next, greeting and directing the human tide that flowed and ebbed through its doors. The work helped shape who they were, and gave rise to stories that they and those who passed through collected in tattered notebooks or in corners of their minds.
Beginning with the first wave of European settlers and the early problems with the first wave of European settlers and the early problems of quarantine, Pier 21: The Gateway that Changed Canada is a moving account of the human drama that unfolded at this historic site. This new edition updates the Pier 21 story to the present day, including its confirmation as Canada’s national museum of immigration in 2011.
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Memoirs of a Lightkeeper’s Son 2nd edition
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95William (Billy) G. Budge was born in 1948 in the small fishing village of Neil’s Harbour on the northern tip of Cape Breton. In 1955 his father accepted the position of lighthouse keeper on St. Paul Island, a rugged and forlorn mountain in the sea. Positioned at the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, this island is subject to violent gales, snowstorms and is often shrouded in fog. Early seafarers called it the “Graveyard of the Gulf” due to the vast numbers of ships and countless lives that were lost along its shores.
Billy moved to St. Paul Island with his parents and younger sister in September of 1955. For the next five years they lived at the southwest light station in almost total isolation. His family quickly learned to cope in a world without neighbours, electricity, schools, or any sports activities. They lived off the land – hunting ducks along the coast, berry picking, and jigging cod on the sea. Almost daily there were hardships to overcome and problems to be resolved. Life on the island was one of both tragedy and triumph. Billy tells his story of survival on that lonely rock. Sense the lush green of the island in summer in the midst of a crystal blue sea and feel the harshness of winter while buried under snow and surrounded by drift ice.
Share with Billy the excitement of unexpected guests, the arrival of a supply ship as well as the sadness of sickness and loss. Experience the many technical problems such as a fire in the lighthouse and learn how the entire family worked together to restore service.
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Nova Scotia’s Lost Highways The Early Roads that Shaped the Province
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95At the turn of the nineteenth century, road travel in Nova Scotia was still in its infancy. Many Nova Scotians still preferred water routes, and those “roads” that did exist were often little more than blazed trails not fit for wheeled vehicles. But it wasn’t long before roads were established around the province to allow for a steady increase in traffic and sophistication of vehicles.
Author Joan Dawson has used nineteenth-century maps and surveys to not only trace the paths of these old roads, but to explore the residents and businesses that sprang up along them. She follows the roads out of Halifax to Windsor and Truro (the “Great Roads”) as well as the oldest post roads along the Annapolis Valley, the South Shore, northern and eastern Nova Scotia, and even Cape Breton. These earliest highways, now mostly forgotten or buried in wilderness, reminds us of the hard-working crews and surveyors who defied geographical difficulties to make travelling easier for Nova Scotia’s residents.
Featuring 40 maps and illustrations, Nova Scotia’s Lost Highways is a fascinating history of early travel in the province.
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Historic Baddeck
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Historic Baddeck takes us on the town’s journey of early discovery and later growth, from the first few houses set among Atlantic aboriginal wigwams to what Baddeck is today–a magnificent summer escape and thriving lakeside village. Author Joceyln Bethune has paired some of the town’s most captivating historical images and presented them with compact and interesting vignettes of the region’s past.
Part of the Images of Our Past series.
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Lost Canoe
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95A contemporary account of tracking a historical explorer across Labrador.
In the mode of Leonidas Hubbard and William Cabot, Hesketh Prichard set out with a group of adventurers in the early 1900s, determined to cross Labrador. Disregarding local advice, his expedition headed up a box canyon and climbed five-hundred-metre cliffs all with a canoe in tow- a gruesome portage. The canoe was later abandoned.
The Lost Canoe is the account of the contemporary search for Prichard’s lost canoe. Over three summers Larry Coady coaxed friends and strangers into searching for Prichard’s
canoe, retracing Prichard’s route, verifying landforms and campsites, and mapping the entire trail. Only hard-nosed hikers immune to blackflies and mosquitoes were enticed to participate. Prichard’s original 1910 photographs and accounts of his journey, published in Through Trackless Labrador, are paired with Coady’s own photographs and writings. The narrative that results reveals a struggle against the elements to cross the ancient landscape of northern Labrador, a subarctic mix of boreal forest and open tundra. The book will appeal to a broad audience, from historians and geographers to adventurers and hikers. -
Historic Eastern Passage
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Drawing upon powerful images and stories of the past, John Boileau takes readers on a journey through the Eastern Passage region, including Imperoyal, Shearwater, South East Passage, Cow Bay, McNab’s Island, Lawlor’s Island, and Devil’s Island. From fortifications and quarantine sites to aviation bases and even to Bill Lynch’s amusement rides and buried treasure, Historic Eastern Passage illuminates the history of the region to the end of the Second World War.
Follow Helen Creighton on her search to record folk music and stories, or learn how the air base played a role in the first flight across the Atlantic. With attention to both the special and everyday events, a full picture of what life was once like in Eastern Passage is vividly depicted.
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Historic Bedford
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Bedford, Nova Scotia, was traditionally a resting place for travellers-from Mi’kmaq heading down the Sackville River by canoe to weary stagecoach and railway passengers seeking hot meals and warm beds while heading to or from Halifax. Bedford grew around the wayside houses and businesses that provided services for those passing through, and alongside industries, including lumber mills and shipbuilding yards. The town’s natural beauty made it the ideal setting for outdoor pursuits and legendary celebrations.
Historic Bedford pairs fascinating photographs with careful research and insight. On every page is captured the town’s enduring character as it transforms from temporary stopping place into charming town.
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Historic Grand Manan
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Grand Manan Island is part of an archipelago of islands at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. Basaltic cliffs and underwater ledges contributed to the area around the island becoming famous for its shipwrecks, but there is much more to the island’s story. Historic Grand Manan catalogues with historic images and detailed captions the island’s geology and geography, lighthouses and landmarks, fishing industry, transportation, schools, churches, businesses and homes, people and community life, and the smaller Wood Island. From the first visits of Norse explorers around 1000 ad, to the early 1950s when the island’s roads were being paved for the first time, Grand Manan’s history is perfectly captured here.
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Historic South End Halifax
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95The South End of Halifax is well known as the wealthy part of the peninsula. While it does hold private schools, country clubs, and some million-dollar houses, the area is much more diverse than its reputation. The history of the district- from its humble beginnings in 1749 as the “South Suburb” to its present popularity and illustrious image- is extensive. For instance, did you know that the South End was once known as Irishtown? Or that the famous author Oscar Wilde visited the South End?
Historic South End Halifax will undoubtedly expand your knowledge about this historically significant part of Halifax. It is divided into sections that highlight the many transformations of this district. The various incarnations of the industrial and military sectors of the South End are explored, demonstrating the importance of the port status of the city to the area’s development. Also, the roles of hospitals and universities in the South End’s story are detailed. Peter McGuigan also recounts the history of Point Pleasant and Francklyn parks and live theatre. Historic South End Halifax contains everything that you’ve ever wanted to know about the South End. -
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Historic Windsor
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Windsor has undergone a dramatic change in appearance over the years due to complete changes of inhabitants, from Mi’kmaq to Acadians to British. A fire destroyed the town in 1897, which led to the construction of a new set of buildings and, as a result, all new streetscapes. The images collected here will be a revelation to many Windsorians, who will not recognize the town that they have known. Many of the inhabitants who have been important to the town will not be familiar either. Historic Windsor promises to offer a portrait of the town through images that will waken the memory, but teach as well.
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Historic Mahone Bay
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Mahone Bay has played an important role in Nova Scotia’s history, contributing significantly to the forestry, fishing and shipbuilding industries, and in recent years emerging as an important tourism destination.
With an emphasis on people and anecdotal history and more than 150 photographs and other images, Historic Mahone Bay covers the period from 1754 through 1960, with the focus on the period from the 1880s to the 1930s. -
Historic North Sydney
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95North Sydney has an exciting history. Once the fourth-busiest seaport in North America, the little town was also known as “Canada’s Gateway to the (European) World” when an underwater telegraph cable between North America and Europe was successfully laid, with the end of the cable in North Sydney. Because of its transport and communications advantages, the town played a vital role through both world wars.
Historic North Sydney is divided into chapters by topic. Rainnie Gillis uses historical images and extensive research to explain transportation, business, the Newfoundland Ferry Service, and public service in North Sydney, among other subjects.
Historic North Sydney is a much-anticipated addition to the Images of Our Past Series. -
Historic Sydney
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Dominion Steel and Coal Company. The Dominion Steel and Coal Company steel plant built at Whitney Pier brought in many of the people who make up the region’s rich cultural diversity Today, Sydney is Nova Scotia’s third largest city and is a major industrial centre. Cape Breton native Rannie Gillis has selected from a wide range of historical photographs to provide glimpses of the city’s rich heritage. Industrial scenes, streetscapes, urban life, the historic waterfront, and domestic work all combine to offer a fascinating portrait of historic Sydney.
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Historic Kentville
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95The largest community in the Annapolis Valley is also one of the most historic. At the end of the 18th century, Kentville became Shire Town of Kings County and, being at the junction of seven roads, grew into an important commercial centre, serving agricultural villages throughout the Annapolis Valley. The community began to thrive when the Windsor to Annapolis railway (later known as DAR) established its headquarters in 1868 and began shipping Annapolis Valley apples overseas. As the shire town of Kings County, the modern town of Kentville grew into a bustling railroad centre. The town has also been host to the traditional industries such as coal, timber, dairies, food processors and fruit retailers. Manufacturing industries began to bloom after the surge of the industrial revolution of the late 19th century. Kentville also became known for the production of the first automobile in Nova Scotia.
Kentville native Louis Comeau has selected from his own personal collection of hometown images to show Kentville from the early years of the birth of photography to World War II. Comeau annotates this fascinating collection of Valley photographs with absorbing and entertaining details that explain people and places and provide a charming historic portrait of an important Valley town. -
Historic Annapolis Royal
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Annapolis Royal, one of Nova Scotia’s most historic towns, is the oldest permanent European settlement in North America north of Florida. This visually evocative and informative book traces the history of Annapolis Royal through its architecture, streetscapes and industries, its public, military, and domestic life. Fort Anne, Canada’s first historic park, adds to the towns visual charm, as does the fact that many of the town’s historic buildings are still standing. Also treated in images and text are the surrounding villages of Granville, Lequille and Bear River, and of course, the replica of ht e1605 Habitation of de Monts and Champlain.
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Historic Sackville
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95In 1749 Sackville was founded and it has since been Halifax’s gateway to the interior of Nova Scotia. The community has been a growth centre since. These vintage photos bring that story of development to life.
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The Little Dutch Village
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95The historic and quaint village built by early German settlers on the outskirts of Halifax was mis-named Dutch for Deutsche, is a district rich in historic association. This is a fascinating account of the village through vintage photos.
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Historic Queens County
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95The region around Liverpool and Queens County itself is one of the most historic areas of Nova Scotia. Its wide harbours, fisheries, abundant timber and waterways attracted the attention of the early European fishermen and fur traders as well as the American settlers from New England who, in 1759 settled Liverpool. By 1766, the enterprising residents had constructed three water-powered sawmills and established trade links back to New England, as well as to Halifax, the West Indies and Europe. A few infamous Privateers fitted out in Liverpool were the Wolverine, Shannon, and the most successful of all, and best known, the Liverpool Packet. The author compiled this collection from a large number of old photographs from the 1880s until World War Two and provides a vivid portrait of Queens County’s past. An unrivalled visual history of Liverpool.
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Historic Amherst
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95It is hard to ignore the past in a town like Amherst in northern Nova Scotia. The setting fir the Leon Trotsky’s internment in one of Canada’s largest World War One prisoner-of-war camps and for Henry George Ketchum’s unusual plans to build a ship railway, Amherst has witnessed the rise-and sometimes fall- of personal fortunes and revolutionary dreams. Once the battleground for the historic struggle between the English and the French, it has been called home by notable figures of all kinds, including four fathers of Confederation and renowned artist Alex Colville.
Historic Amherst looks at the fascinating evolution of the small community of “Morse’s Corner” into “Busy Amherst,” an Industrial centre for the production of steel, iron and automobiles at its peak in the early 1900s. Supported by priceless photographs that testify to Amherst’s early prosperity as well as to its social, sporting, recreational and agrarian past, this illustrated history promises to inform and delight as it traces the significant moment in this once-bustling bordertown.
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Historic Shelburne
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Sarah Acker holds a bachelor of arts degree with concentrations in English and history from St. Francis Xavier University. A native of Shelburne, she has long had an interested in the communities history, and is currently working as a researcher with the Shelburne County Museum.
Lewis Jackson holds a bachelor of arts degree with honours in history from the University of Western Ontario, a bachelor of education degree from Queens University, and has undertaken graduate studies in history at Carleton University. A former Ottawa-based historical consultant and researcher, he teaches and writes in his hometown of Shelburne. -
Historic Bathurst
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Historic Bathurst offers an intimate look at life as it once was in this northern New Brunswick town. Summoning up its early days with an abundance of archival images, this book presents Bathurst’s past as home of salmon runs, a bountiful lumbering business, and as an important trading post along the remote Bay of Chaleur and documents the changes brought by the early twentieth century. Authur A.J. McCarthy has depicted, in images and words, the history of Bathurst’s people, the great rivers of the region, its streetscapes, bridges, and buildings, as well as its industries such as mining, the pulp mills, and the railway.With over one hundred images, this book is a one-of-a-kind keepsake, bringing back the people, history, and spirit of Bathurst.
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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. -
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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The Electric City
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95This is 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.
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Relative Happiness (movie edition)
Publisher: Nimbus Publishing$21.95Lexie Ivy loves her little house in Cape Breton, her big family, and the endless sea that surrounds her. She wouldn’t trade her life for anything, but at thirty she’s starting to feel like something’s missing.
Enter Adrian, a charming backpacker who takes a wrong turn at the U.S. border and ends up on Lexie’s doorstep, and Joss, an irresistible man who disappears just as quickly as he arrives. Lexie’s peaceful life has suddenly become more complicated than she ever imagined.
Lesley Crewe’s funny, whip-smart debut novel brims with Cape Breton-style humour. Filled with heartache without succumbing to it, Relative Happiness is the story of life and love in a small town, of four sisters who love, betray, and rescue each other in turn, and of Lexie Ivy’s joyful awakening. Released as a feature film in 2015.
