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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.

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
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

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Amazon or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

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

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Amazon or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

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

Order this book from: Nimbus Publishing (or 1-800-Nimbus9)
or Amazon or Chapters or Pottersfield Press mail order.

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.