Under the Electric Sky: The Legacy of the Bill Lynch Shows

Christopher A. Walsh

Nonfiction: The Maritimes, Carnivals, Entertainment
$19.95
160 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
Includes photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-17-3
Available in September 2010

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"Bill Lynch and his carnival boys and girls will be back again. No need to introduce him, for his aggregation of tents, rides, and booths is known from one end of the Maritime provinces to the other." - The Halifax Mail, August 25, 1934.

Under the Electric Sky takes readers on a thrilling ride through the strange and fabled history of the Bill Lynch Shows, from its modest beginnings on McNab's Island in Halifax Harbour to the successful, tumultuous years criss-crossing the countryside to its current incarnation struggling along dark Maritime highways today.

This is one of the most curious stories of this region's past, one never completely understood and, until now, never told in its entirety. The Bill Lynch Shows would breeze into small Maritime towns after dark, packed with enough electricity and magic to illuminate the imaginations of anyone who stepped foot on the midway for the brief while it played their town. For many, its return after a long winter made summer official. The shows became entrenched in the collective psyche, at once the centre of earthly thrills and some of the greatest acts of charity ever witnessed in the region. Clarence "Soggy" Reid continued the enterprise in the same manner, until the death of a man on the carnival lot in Port Hawkesbury threatened to destroy the dream forever.

Walsh chronicles the true story of the Maritime carnival with unflinching detail, weaving flashes of the carnival's captivating past with a first-hand account of life on the carnival lot today. This is the definitive tale of the owners and hustlers who shaped the course of the business, attractions like the Turtle Woman and the Man with Two Faces who headlined the sideshow tents over the years, and the family of carnies who, for different reasons, called "the Show" home. At the core of the rough-and-tumble carnival world is a heart-rending story of sometimes misunderstood outsiders and their desperate estrangement from, and deep commitment to, the people of the Maritimes.



Christopher A. Walsh is an award-winning freelance journalist based in Calgary, Alberta. His work has appeared in the Edmonton Journal and the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and on CBC Radio in Nova Scotia. A native of Halifax, he has covered major political stories across the country and spent a few feverish weeks running with the Maritime carnival in towns throughout the region. This is his first book.

Radio Talk: Four Decades Covering the News in Atlantic Canada

Rick Howe

Nonfiction: Autobiography, The Maritimes, Newsmakers

$19.95

208 pages

6" x 9" Trade Paperback

ISBN 978-1-897426-19-7

Available in August 2010

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
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Now entering his fifth decade as a radio journalist in Atlantic Canada, Rick Howe has been an eyewitness to some of the region's biggest news stories. From the 1977 Saint John police lock-up fire to Pictou County's Westray Mine disaster, from the 13th Tribe motorcycle gang's hijacking of the Princess of Acadia ferry to the RCMP's investigation into a prominent Nova Scotia politician, Howe has literally been there and seen it. Radio Talk will take you inside the news, and share with you little-known details about many of the stories familiar to residents of Canada's East Coast.

As a reporter and a commentator, Howe has had unfettered access to the newsmakers. He has been up close and personal with the famous, such as Princess Diana on board the royal yacht Britannia, and the infamous, like John Edward Kenny, a man convicted in the deaths of twenty-one men. The author also provides an insider's view of those who report the news, how they cope with the pressures of the job and how decisions are made on what stories are covered. Journalists take their jobs quite seriously, but mistakes and bloopers are also part of life on live radio. In this tell-all book, Howe reveals some of the more hilarious moments in Atlantic radio history.

Over the past four decades, the media has undergone some significant changes, some of it for the better, some of it not. Howe pulls no punches in telling readers where things have been done right and where they have gone wrong. Many of the subjects and personalities in this book are very familiar to Atlantic Canadians. Radio Talk looks behind the headlines at details that will shock and surprise readers. It will provoke discussion and generate controversy. Above all, it will certainly entertain.



Rick Howe has been a reporter, a newscaster, a news director, a commentator and a talk-show host. For several years he also wrote a column for the Halifax Daily News, and he has made numerous appearances on CTV and CBC television as a political analyst. With family roots in New Brunswick, Howe has worked in radio in Campbellton, Newcastle, Saint John and over thirty years in Halifax. Currently living in Fall River, Nova Scotia, Howe is married to former ATV/ASN television journalist Yvonne Colbert.

Women Who Care: Women's Stories of Health Care and Caring

Edited by Nili Kaplan-Myrth, MD, PhD, 

Lori Hanson, PhD and 

Patricia Thille, SC(PT), MA

Foreword by Dr Barbara Lent
Afterword by Dr Carolyn Bennett
Nonfiction: Health, Medicine, Women’s Studies
$19.95
178 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
ISBN 978-1-897426-22-7
Available in September 2010

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In her third year of medical training - discouraged by how little focus there was on caring - a young woman was faced with a decision: she could throw her hands up and quit or she could risk speaking up and work toward change. She decided to send out a call asking women to share their experiences of health care and caring. Her e-mail inbox immediately overflowed with stories from women across Canada. Together, this amazing group of women wrote Women Who Care.

Most women have stories to tell about their experiences of health care. They care for themselves through personal health and illness; they seek care from others; they become caregivers to their children, partners, aging parents and extended families. Some work as health care professionals - physicians, nurses, midwives, physiotherapists, social workers, psychologists. Others work in community centres and shelters, or as health administrators, health policy-makers, women's health researchers, and as feminist leaders and activists in women's health.

Women Who Care is a collection of women’s stories about caring. Through prose and poetry, this book captures the personal and professional values and expectations of women caregivers at each stage in their lives and careers. It examines women's experiences as the providers and recipients of health care.



Nili Kaplan-Myrth, MD, PhD, is a medical anthropologist and physician. She has expertise in determinants of health, women's health, disability studies and Indigenous self-determination in health, with a strong commitment to action-based qualitative research, feminism and social justice. Her three wonderful children, her friends and family haven't let her quit medicine yet.

Lori Hanson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Community Health and Epidemiology at the University of Saskatchewan with interests in community activism, gender and development, health equity, sexual and reproductive health, health promotion, and transformative education. In her spare time, she raises her two sets of twins and works with a great group of community and university women involved in the Saskatoon Women's Community Coalition.

Patricia Thille, Sc(PT), MA, is a former physical therapist and health services researcher. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Calgary and balances her academic work with community outreach as a healthy sexuality educator with Venus Envy.

Long Ago and Far Away: A Miramichi Family Memoir

Wayne Curtis

Nonfiction: Autobiography, New Brunswick, The Miramichi
$19.95
240 pages
5 1/2" x 8 1/2" Trade Paperback
ISBN 978-1-897426-20-3
Available in September 2010

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A memoir set in the Miramichi, Long Ago and Far Away reflects how a family lived and prospered through the late 1880s, when Wayne Curtis's grandfather was a young man. The story follows the lives of Wayne and his father, chronicling Wayne's youth and adult years in rural New Brunswick. He brings back to life an extraordinary time and place and reflects upon the changes that have all but erased those days gone by. But the book is also a reminder of what it was like growing up in the backwoods of New Brunswick with all its joys and hardships.

The memoir tells the story of the rough and rowdy Miramichi of the past when the hunting and killing of wild animals was the norm and people struggled to survive off the land. Not natural hunters, both Wayne and his father wrestled with the idea of killing anything, but had to hunt to feed the family. In the old days of the Miramichi, guns were everywhere. But as Wayne matured into manhood, he grew away from hunting and would not kill anything bigger than a mosquito.

Long Ago and Far Away is a poetic yet honest look at growing up in very difficult times. It charts the growing pains involved in fighting the peer pressure from fellow countrymen who carried on with the old way of life. The story is a vivid and touching family history written by a skilled literary master willing to share the story of how he was shaped by the land, the community and the family that raised him.



Wayne Curtis was born and raised in the rural Miramichi community of Keenan. A high school dropout, he has worked at many jobs in the woods and in factories, including six years with General Motors. He has also been a storekeeper and a river guide. Returning to school during his adult years, he took night courses to get his high school diploma, followed by three years of university, eventually earning an honorary doctorate from St. Thomas University. Wayne has written for The Globe and Mailand The National Post and is the author of three novels, four books of short stories, and a screenplay for the CBC. Long Ago and Far Away is his thirteenth book.

The Hermit of Africville: The Life of Eddie Carvery

Jon Tattrie

Nonfiction: Biography, Nova Scotia, History, Black Culture
$19.95
208 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
Includes photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-18-0
Available in July 2010

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Eddie Carvery was born in Africville, Nova Scotia, when the African-Nova Scotian seaside village was midway through its third century. As a teenager, he watched his world torn down as his friends and family were compelled to leave. After Africville was bulldozed in the 1960s under the guise of "urban renewal," Eddie Carvery returned to the site of his former hometown and pitched a tent in protest.

After forays into careers as a community organizer, sheet-metal worker and fisherman, Eddie returned to the ruins of Africville in 1970 to start his protest for the reclamation of his people's land and history. Forty years, three families, seven heart attacks and numerous attempts on his life later, he remains living on the land where he was born. He's been shot at, had his residence set on fire and been run off his land countless times. His struggles with his demons of addiction and violence have cost him his families and his entire adult life. He's tried to leave, but always he returned to Africville.

Sometimes accompanied by his brother, Victor, and sometimes by his friend and bodyguard, a dog called Spike, Eddie has lived as a virtual hermit in a small trailer across from the results of the urban renewal: a dog park called Seaview. All traces of his childhood community are gone, except for him - the last resident of Africville. There, through the solitude and frozen winters, he's walked the long walk to healing, rooted in the land of his ancestors. Dismissed as a squatter, he stayed in Africville. Searching through the ruins of his community and his battered mind, he's rebuilt himself and come to the conclusion that he's failed at everything, except one thing: Africville. In this riveting account, Jon Tattrie captures the story of Eddie Carvery and his struggle for survival and, ultimately, justice.

Ghosts of Nova Scotia: Tenth Anniversary Edition

Ghosts of Nova Scotia: Tenth Anniversary Edition

Darryll Walsh

$19.95
176 pages
6" x 9" Trade Paperback
Includes Photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-21-0
Available in July 2010

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Explore Nova Scotia's colourful legacy of spooks and spectres in this definitive collection of traditional and contemporary tales from Canada's Ocean Playground. For this tenth anniversary edition, Ghosts of Nova Scotia has been comprehensively updated and expanded to include stories of ghosts, banshees, phantom ships, fairies, forerunners, buried treasure, cursed places and much more. Parapsychologist Darryll Walsh has gathered more than 275 haunting stories from every corner of the province and dares you to read them during a stormy night.

From the original Mi'kmaq to the later European colonizations, Nova Scotia has been a melting pot of rich cultural folklore and mysterious events. The extraordinary tales from the past have been handed down from generation to generation with new stories being added over the years, making this province one of the most haunted places on earth.

Discover the phantom admiral who prowls the shores of Bedford Basin; search for hidden gold along the South Shore, if you can avoid the headless ghosts which protect it; explore Nova Scotia's own triangle of terror; prowl the Cape Breton Highlands for Sasquatch, and listen to the horrifying screams echoing through Dagger Woods. Almost every community has its share of terrifying tales and many of them you will find here for the first time. You'll learn of Captain Walter Tygart's unfortunate encounters with Fort Lawrence Ridge's resident witch, Nelly Edwards, in the 1780s and why a headless ghost haunts Minudie. The story of the feu follets, or jack o'lantern, from St. Joseph du Moine, Inverness County, includes advice on how to get rid of this fiery ball of light, while the tale from Malignant Cove reveals how this Antigonish County locale got its name. Whether it's a frightening story of a Grey Lady or the vengeful Gaelic bochdan, these eerie stories present a unique profile of Nova Scotia that will add to our rich history of folklore and mythology.

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Dancing on the shore: a celebration of life at Annapolis Basin (NEW EDITION)

Harold Horwood

with a foreword by Farley Mowat
and an introduction by Lesley Choyce
Nonfiction: Nova Scotia, Nature, Autobiography
$19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
ISBN 978-1-897426-16-6

Winner of the Evelyn Richardson Award for Nonfiction.

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or Amazon or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

"The tides sweep over the clam flats in a great flood twice daily. The migrants sweep through the sky in great flocks twice a year. These vast rhythms, so visible in such a small place, seem very like the heartbeat and the breathing of a living planet..."

Harold Horwood moved his family to the Annapolis Basin for "the beauty of the land, the fruitfulness of the soil, the gentleness of the climate, the variety of plant and animal life, the closeness of great forests and clear waters, the presence of the sea without its storms." He soon realized that they "had come to live in one of the truly magical places on earth."

Dancing on the Shore is a detailed look at nature in Nova Scotia but also a story of one man's intimate relationship to that world. It is deep and broad, weaving science and philosophy with a passionate yearning to preserve life on this planet. Considered by many to be his greatest work, this new edition of the classic book will keep alive Harold's ideas and his spirit and inspire new generations of readers.

Harold writes, "Here, in mid-July, when the air is scented with wild roses, and meadowsweet blooms in the ditches, when the light falls dim and cool through two months' growth of young vines, you could well believe that man and world grew up together, perfectly suited and matched." With a voice of poetic power and intellectual insight, the author takes the reader on a meditative yet mentally stimulating journey that can change the way you look at yourself and the world.

"Great ideas, great visions, great musical themes," the author states, "all have this inexpressible spiritual quality that places them beyond analysis, beyond the reach of the critics, beyond any explanation that we can offer."


"I believe that this book Harold Horwood has written has built a bridge that will endure. I invite you to cross it." - Farley Mowat from the Foreword


Harold Horwood was born in Newfoundland in 1923 and died in Nova Scotia in 2006. He lived an extraordinary life as a union organizer, member of the Newfoundland House of Assembly, newspaper editor, co-founder of The Writers' Union of Canada, novelist, poet and nature writer. He published more than twenty books and was a powerful influence on many Canadian writers.

Island year: finding Nova Scotia

Greg Brown

Nonfiction: Autobiography, Nova Scotia, Nature
$19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
ISBN: 978-1-897426-13-5

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As they neared retirement, Greg Brown and his wife Anne gave up their life in the U.S. to settle on a windswept Nova Scotia island inhabited by wild sheep and deer, where harbour seals sing in the fog and an old lighthouse still keeps watch over the North Atlantic. Island Year: Finding Nova Scotia tells the story of the surprises, challenges and discoveries of their first year alone on an island as they restored an old fisherman's house, explored the island, and began to learn how to live a Nova Scotia way of life.

This is a story for anyone who dreams of exchanging a fastpaced, high-tech life for something slower and just maybe more meaningful. This is a story about the night sky and the dawn chorus, lobsters and wild raspberries, a famous pirate, the kindness of others, and getting in touch with yourself again. Funny and inspiring, this book redefines what a rich life can mean.


Greg Brown was born and raised in California before moving to Rhode Island. After two years in West Berlin, Germany, he settled in Washington, DC and became an ordained United Methodist Minister. After his twenty-year career in pastoral ministry, he moved into the field of counselling. Later, he began a coaching practice with clergy and small business executives, and developed an interest in the restoration of historic houses. This interest, together with his love of the sea and his Nova Scotian roots (his grandfather was born and raised in Pugwash), prompted a life-changing departure from the United States to McNutt’s Island in southwestern Nova Scotia where he lives with his wife.

Wrecked and ruined: true sea disasters from the eastern edge

Robert C. Parsons

Nonfiction: Atlantic Canada, History, The Sea, Shipwrecks
$19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
Includes illustrations and photographs
ISBN 978-1-897426-15-9

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Fishermen and mariners exist in a self-contained fragile world dominated by the whims of ruthless natural forces. The sea can be a harsh dictator that determines if a ship and the men aboard survive or die. As a result, disasters abound and the sea offers up mysteries aplenty. In November 1886, for example, the New Brunswick ship Blanco was sailing mid-Atlantic when its crew saw a man adrift on a crude catamaran. The captain put his ship about, drew near and prepared to take the nearly exhausted man aboard. There seemed to be no reason why he wouldn't want to be picked up. But the castaway was reluctant to climb aboard. Why? The author explores this and many other curious tales of the sea.

What really happened to the rum-runner John Dwight? In September 1923 the vessel was supposedly intentionally scuttled, but then bodies of its crew along with whiskey and ale barrels washed ashore. The bodies were strangely slashed and mutilated. And what about several other renowned smugglers who came to mysterious ends during the Prohibition era?

When the passenger-mail steamer Limari went up on the rocks, all hands - including Scott Hayes, the son of an American president - had to be rescued. Not long after that the rescue ship Montaro itself slowly sank in the storm. Aboard the vessel was a menagerie of wild animals. Many, including halfcrazed lions and tigers, broke from their deck cages. The fate of all aboard Montaro seemed worse than death by drowning.

And then there are the mysterious messages in bottles from sailors, many belonging to Canada's eastern seaboard, who disappeared with their ships. These are just a few of the many curious and strange stories recounted in this intriguing book. Wrecked and Ruined contains 57 stories of mischief, murder, mayhem, mystery, disappearance, destruction, as well as survival, struggle, rescue and reward.


Robert C. Parsons was born in Grand Bank, one of the great Newfoundland seaports for sailing schooners in the salt fish, hook and line era. He attended an all-grade school in his community and later graduated from Memorial University with a master's degree in Language. Wrecked and Ruined is Robert's twenty-third book. He frequently contributes sea stories to magazines, journals and newspapers and has appeared on the TV series Disasters of the Century.

Also by the author: Shipwrecks of New Brunswick, Ocean of Storms, Sea of Disaster, In Peril on the Sea and The Edge of Yesterday: Sea Disasters of Nova Scotia.

Buried in the woods: sawmill ghost towns of Nova Scotia

Mike Parker

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia, History, Industry

$22.95

208 pages

6 3/4" x 9 3/4" paperback

Includes 208 photographs

ISBN 978-1-897426-14-2

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Buried in the Woods: Sawmill Ghost Towns of Nova Scotia resurrects the story of abandoned settlements hacked from the primal forest by timber barons. Nova Scotia's ghost towns are not the stereotypical version portrayed in the Old West with tumbleweeds blowing down deserted streets lined with derelict, weathered buildings and creaking doors swinging in the breeze. True to the book's title, most of Nova Scotia's deserted lumber towns are literally buried in the woods and forgotten, but Shulie Eatonville, Minudie, Lake Jolly, Electric City, Crossburn-Hastings, Roxbury, Mount Hanley, Conquerall, Irish Town, Canal Camp, Coote Cove, Markland, Raymond-Ville, River Denys Mountain, and Skye Mountain live again in the pages of this book.

Pictures are windows to the past. Mike Parker has painstakingly scoured archival and private photographic collections in his quest to breathe life into many of these lost communities. The result is a mosaic of 208 images, supported by Mike's trademark relaxed writing style, that is sure to entertain a diverse audience from adventurous sleuths looking for on-site discoveries to armchair heritage buffs and historians in search of an informative read.

Lumbering and shipbuilding in Nova Scotia date back more than four hundred years to when North America's first shipyard was established in 1606 at Port Royal. At the time of Canada's confederation in 1867, Nova Scotia was the wealthiest of the four provinces that initially made up the fledgling nation, its prosperity based largely on possessing one of the world's most extensive sea-going merchant fleets. Wood was king in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with thousands of Nova Scotians employed in lumber camps, sawmills, shipyards and factories that manufactured wooden products. In just one year during the 1870s, more than 1,000 Nova Scotia sawmills turned out enough lumber to build 3,000 vessels. Those halcyon days faded long ago into oblivion as have many resource-based communities that disappeared with the demise of tall trees and wooden ships.

Born and raised in Bear River, Nova Scotia, Mike Parker has been called Nova Scotia's Storyteller, a reference to the diversity of themes covered in his 13 books of popular history. The best-selling author has been researching and writing about his native province for more than twenty years. Mike is affiliated with the Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary's University as a research associate.

Also by the author: Gold Rush Ghost Towns of Nova Scotia.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now: The Clarity that Comes With Cancer and Age

If I Knew Then What I Know Now: The Clarity that Comes With Cancer and Age

Carol Ann Cole

Nonfiction: Autobiography, Cancer, Medicine
$19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
ISBN: 978-1-897426-12-8

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Carol Ann Cole writes of her incredible journey, the path she has walked from ages 16 to 60. She writes of the clarity that comes with age and, in her case, a recurrence of breast cancer 16 years after her initial diagnosis. In 1992, Carol Ann and her mother both battled cancer at the same time. In 2008, Carol Ann continued to learn from her mother as she faced this killer disease without her mother by her side.

In intimate and sometimes heartbreaking detail, Carol Ann provides insight into a woman's emotions and fears following a routine mammogram and ultimately a clean bill of health. Not taking herself too seriously, she shares the lighter side of her breast cancer recurrence and finds a way to lift your heart as you read her story. You will never view a mammography machine or an operating room the same way again.

The author speaks of her Comfort Heart Initiative fundraiser that is alive and well many years after being launched in 1998. There are more than 228,000 Comfort Hearts in the hands of people in Canada and around the world, and some of their stories are collected here. Carol Ann also includes stories from others who have opened their hearts to share their challenges of retirement, cancer and mental illness. The author writes of her own battle with depression and how she reached out for help.

If I Knew Then What I Know Now includes Carol Ann's passion for family, honesty, helping others, the bond of friendship, battling and beating cancer one more time and much more. If you are looking for that special book that will give you hope and courage, this is the book for you.


Carol Ann Cole is an author (Lessons Learned Upside the Head: From Boardroom to Bedroom - Career to Cancer and Beyond), a professional speaker and the founder of the Comfort Heart Initiative. She is a member of the Order of Canada and has received numerous additional awards including the Golden Jubilee Medal, the elite Maclean's Honour Roll and the Terry Fox Citation of Honour, to name a few. Carol Ann's website is www.carolanncole.com.

Age of Heroes: A Boy, a Prince and the 1797 Wreck of La Tribune

Age of Heroes: A Boy, a Prince and the 1797 Wreck of La Tribune

John Dickie

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia History, Sailing Ships, War
$19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
ISBN: 978-1-897426-11-1

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Age of Heroes documents one of Nova Scotia's greatest sea tales. It comes from the golden age of fighting sail, the so-called "age of heroes," which has long drawn audiences to books like Master and Commander and the Horatio Hornblower genre of nautical fiction.

France's La Tribune frigate fell to Britain's HMS Unicorn after a moonlit sea battle fought off Ireland's coast. The humbled warship was added to the Royal Navy lists when admirals like John Jervis and Horatio Nelson were defending England's shores from invasion and her sea lanes from attack by revolutionary France. Tribune was ushered into British service during the turmoil of the Spithead and Nore mutinies, her crew a collection of young English, Irish and Scots eager to fight for King and Country, as well as for their own glory.

Unfortunately, HMS Tribune was mistakenly run aground by her sailing master while entering Halifax harbour on November 23, 1797. During the attempt to escape from her rocky prison, Tribune was caught in a horrendous storm and ultimately sank at night with the loss of more than 240 souls. Only a 13-year-old orphan fisher boy from nearby Herring Cove dared to row his tiny skiff into the jaws of the tempest to save British sailors stranded on the wreck. Impressed by his selfless act, Prince Edward, the future father of Queen Victoria who was residing in Halifax at the time, rewarded the young boy for his brave deed. In this true tale of valour, the legend of the hero fisher boy lives on more than two centuries after his part in one of Canada's most compelling sea stories.


John Dickie holds MSc and MBA degrees in geology and international business development. Exploration work led him from the mountains of the Yukon and Alaska, through the deserts of Mexico and jungles of Vanuatu, to offshore Nova Scotia. A senior management role continues to take him to such places as Venezuela, Brazil, Spain, France, Scotland, Mexico, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, though his love for the North Atlantic and his passion for underwater exploration keeps him in his native Nova Scotia. John resides in Halifax with his two young children.

Skipper: The Sea Yarns of Captain Matthew Mitchell

Skipper: The Sea Yarns of Captain Matthew Mitchell

Frances Jewel Dickson

Nonfiction: The Sea, Oral History
$15.95
112 pages
6" x 9" paperback
ISBN: 978-1-897426-10-4

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Skipper Matthew Mitchell was born on the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland in 1917. Now a lively 92-year-old, he looks back on his lifelong relationship with the sea, from wooden dories to steel trawlers, to shore captain at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. The author has gathered his many stories into this exuberant volume.

Captain Mitchell's keen memory spares no details of his exceptional life and his recollections vibrate with his colourful native Newfoundland vernacular. We follow him from a boy of 12 watching his native village of Port au Bras devastated by the earthquake and tidal waves of 1929 to learning the secrets of salt fishing and preserving from his father and uncles. Later he is recruited on numerous schooners beginning at the age of 14, eventually taking command of fishing trawlers based in historic Lunenburg. He began his life at sea fishing in two-man dories, braving the rigours of the North Atlantic. Nova Scotia-based schooners took him to Lunenburg during the Great Depression, where he lived in boarding houses until he married and started a family in his adopted town. He fished through World War II, facing new dangers with submarines lurking off the East Coast. He would take command of his first fishing trawler when the captain of the Cape North retired.

When the sea agreed to let him go after 45 years, he was hired as shore captain at the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic, where he would remain for another 30 years. As shore skipper he entertained thousands of visitors from all over the world with stories of the bygone days of sailing fishing vessels, when he and thousands of other fishermen risked their lives repeatedly to earn a modest living. Captain Matthew Mitchell's captivating memoirs stand as a monument to the era of wooden ships and iron men.


Frances Jewel Dickson, a native of Quebec, has lived on Nova Scotia's South Shore since 1987. She has held management positions in human resources administration, written personnel policy for the Speaker of the House of Commons and led audit teams in evaluating the performance of government departments across Canada. Her first book, The DEW Line Years: Voices from the Coldest Cold War, was published in 2007 by Pottersfield Press.

Death Ship of Halifax Harbour

Death Ship of Halifax Harbour

Steven Edwin Laffoley

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia History, Medicine $19.95
192 pages
6" x 9" paperback
ISBN: 978-1-897426-09-8.

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"On an uncomfortably muggy morning in early autumn, I found myself standing at the far end of a wide, battered wharf in Eastern Passage, Nova Scotia, looking for a man in knee-high, white rubber boots answering to the name of Captain Red Beard.

"I'd come in search of a death ship, or at least the historical whispers of a death ship - an elegant old steamer that limped into Halifax harbour during the early hours of April 9, 1866, with more than a thousand Irish and German emigrants squeezed into its cramped, creaking holds. And I'd come in search of what travelled with them and, in fact, inside many of them: Asiatic cholera. And, finally, I'd come in search of the intertwining tales of those lives inexorably changed by history's worst cholera epidemic, which killed tens of thousands from Mecca to Manhattan to McNab's Island in the mouth of Halifax harbour."

So begins another strange and surprising adventure of writer Steven Laffoley as he explores historic McNab's Island in search of Halifax during its time of cholera.

As he investigates the rich history of the island and searches for clues to the many dark cholera-ship tales, Steven confronts the nature of fear and the fear of nature, including fetid marshes, abandoned buildings, a berry-mad bear, a love-starved beaver, a gaggle of naked maidens, and two drunken revolutionaries just looking for some fun. Death Ship of Halifax Harbour is a fascinating and engaging tale of fate, fear and hope.


Steven Laffoley has been a curriculum writer, a university professor, a school principal, and a dues-paying member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. A freelance writer, columnist and broadcaster, he is the author of Mr. Bush, Angus and Me and the award-nominated Hunting Halifax: In Search of History, Mystery and Murder, in which he investigates a 150-year-old murder. He lives with his wife and daughter in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Canadian Angels By Your Side

Canadian Angels By Your Side

Karen Forrest

Nonfiction: Angels, Spirituality
$15.95
112 pages
ISBN: 978-1-897426-08-1
6" x 9" Paperback

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Do you believe in angels? Canadian Angels By Your Side is a collection of heartwarming angel stories from people across Canada. These are personal stories about events ranging from everyday encounters to profound moments of healing. These Canadian angel encounters will make you laugh, make you cry, but above all inspire you. Did you ever wonder how to personally make contact with your angels? Following each story is relevant, angelic information to assist you in connecting with your angels.

Read about loving angel messages, heartfelt prayers and meaningful angel tips. Learn how you can summon angels in your daily life and how to ask for and recognize their divine guidance. The book is written in a conversational, down-to-earth way by Karen Forrest, author and internationally recognized Angel Therapy Practitioner. Through her practice, Karen progressed from just simply believing in angels to experiencing angels in her daily life. Learn how to invoke Archangel Raphael, how angels visually appear to you and how to send angels to other people. Read comforting messages from your angels reassuring you your deceased loved ones are at peace. Learn how to free yourself of your fearful thoughts and enjoy safe travel.

Focusing on inspiration and faith, Canadian Angels By Your Side encourages you to make contact with the angelic/divine realms to lovingly guide and heal you in all aspects of your life. Transcending various religious and spiritual beliefs, the book focuses on personal connections to angels and God. Read the stories, follow the offered insights and begin leading a life of peace, love and purpose.


Karen Forrest, BN, CD, Angel Therapy Practitioner (certified by Doreen Virtue), is the author of Angels of the Maritimes By Your Side. She is a motivational speaker and radio co-host and has received extensive spiritual training. A retired mental health nursing officer in the Canadian Armed Forces, Karen works from a diverse background. With a vision of assisting people to personally connect with their angels and God in honouring their life purpose, Karen offers private angel/medium readings and workshops through her practice, Words of Wisdom Counselling. She counsels and heals with a heart of compassion. Karen's website is www.karenforrest.com.