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.

Nova Scotia: Visions of the Future

Edited by Lesley Choyce

Nonfiction: Nova Scotia, Energy, Politics, the Future

192 pages, $19.95, 6" x 9" Paperback

ISBN-13: 978-1-897426-07-4

Available in May 2009

Pottersfield Press || Chapters || Amazon

In the spring of 2009, Pottersfield will launch this most insightful book that may set in motion some serious action that can help Nova Scotia live up to its full future potential. The writing is personal, reflective, proactive and thoroughly captivating by more than 30 contributors from many diverse fields of expertise.

In the summer of 2008, Pottersfield publisher Lesley Choyce sent a letter to a select and varied list of Nova Scotians asking them to contribute to a book about this province's future. He invited some of the best minds (and hearts) around the province to present their vision of this possible province of the future. Absolutely anything goes.

Two things prompted this grandiose plan. First, Choyce became a grandfather in May. His daughter Pamela had a boy - Aidan, whose arrival made Choyce think about the world he will inherit and what he will see and experience in his lifetime. Second, while Choyce was away in Yellowknife in June, a forest fire nearly took his house. The flames were not exactly licking the door, but it was headed its way with a strong north wind and a lot of fuel in the form of forests ravaged by Hurricane Juan and clear-cutting. When he got home, he went hiking up into the charred land several times. Once the sadness wore off, he started thinking about renewal... and about the future.

That's when he decided to pull this book together. He invited many Nova Scotians to write anything they wanted to, hoping contriutors would cover environment, technology, immigration, social aspects, urban life, rural life, energy, politics, government, family, economics, forests, the ocean and much more. The bolder the vision, the better. Stories and personal aspects were okay. Controversial ideas were fine. Which future? Anything beyond ten years and up to a thousand.

Some of the contributing writers include Marq deVilliers, Peggy Hope-Simpson, Richard Zurawski, Premier Rodney MacDonald, Budge Wilson, Alan Wilson, Dr. Richard Goldbloom, Carol Bruneau, Tom Gallant, Geoff Regan, Sunyata Choyce, Neal Livingston, Barb Stegemann, Bill Carr, Bob Howse, Ralph Martin, and Stephen Clare among others.

When You Look For Me

By Kevin Bonang

Nonfiction: Biography, The Maritimes

160 pages, $17.95, 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" Paperback
(Includes photographs)

ISBN 978-1-897426-06-7

Available in April 2009

Pottersfield Press || Chapters || Amazon

Here is the true story of a parent's worst nightmare come true. Kevin Bonang's family learns that their oldest daughter, Tiffany Tanner, has suddenly gone missing while kayaking on an inner city canal in the northern industrial city of Hamm, Germany. Kevin and his wife Lisa immediately make the journey from Nova Scotia to Germany to help in the search. Once at the site, the true reality of their daughter's fate becomes obvious. No matter how optimistic local search officials try to be, Kevin and his wife fear the worst.

When You Look For Me takes the reader through 17 days of the massive search, including encounters with police, search dogs, an unkind media but much kinder everyday Germans who share their compassion for Tiffany's parents. After many grim conversations with search officials, the Bonangs begin to realize that they are not able to bring their daughter back home to Nova Scotia alive even though there had been some small glimmer of hope.

The book then chronicles the many different stages of having to eventually bring their deceased daughter home and, in their own way, learn how to say goodbye to her. The author writes in an open and honest way, of learning to cope with seeing his dead daughter and the anguish of visitations, funeral and burial -- and even what they truly believe have been Tiffany's visits home afterward. Kevin speaks eloquently of dealing with the emotions that stem from the grief of losing a child, from the numbness and disbelief to the pain of loss, to the healing that takes place to allow his family to move on. Kevin also describes a visit to his home by the spirit of his departed daughter and how that has helped to give this family comfort and hope.


Kevin Bonang lives in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, where he was born and raised near the many lakes and trails within the city's boundaries. He lives with his wife, Lisa, and two remaining children. A carpenter by trade, Kevin felt compelled to write this, his first book, in memory of his daughter and to remind other grieving parents that they are not alone. This book is a true story of a tragedy but one that ultimately offers a message of hope.

Gold Rush Ghost Towns of Nova Scotia

By Mike Parker

Nonfiction: The Maritimes, History, Mining

176 pages, $21.95, 6 3/4" x 9 3/4" Paperback
(Includes 164 photographs)

ISBN: 978-1-897426-04-3

Available in April 2009

Pottersfield Press || Chapters || Amazon

Gold Rush Ghost Towns of Nova Scotia tells the fascinating stories of abandoned communities, not haunted buildings and paranormal encounters, although the occasional resident spirit does make an appearance.

The story of gold mining in Nova Scotia is one of Canada's oldest, yet it is the province's best kept heritage secret. More gold was mined worldwide in the 1800s than during the previous 5,000 years. Since Canada was one of the world's largest gold producers, auriferous tales and legends abound from that era of motherlodes found and fortunes lost. Nova Scotia heralded the first of its three gold rushes 37 years before men braved the Yukon's Chilkoot Pass heading to the Klondike. Adventurers from the world over were drawn to Nova Scotia's burgeoning nineteenth-century gold districts, as was a motley crew of day labourers, farmers, fishermen, ruined mechanics, drunkards and gamblers.

An air of mysticism shrouding ghost towns holds a fascination for historians, social scientists, treasure and relic hunters, geocachers and nostalgia buffs. Mike Parker tells the stories of characters and con men, industry and labour, prosperity and recession. Although abandoned gold mining settlements are the book's central theme, ghost towns built upon coal, iron ore and copper are featured as well. Scores of exhaustively researched images, supported by informative, entertaining text, tell the story of a great heritage that has been nearly erased from our history books.

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 many books of popular history. The best-selling author has been researching and writing about his native province for more than 20 years. This is his twelfth book. Mike is affiliated with the Gorsebrook Research Institute for Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary's University as a research associate. He is a graduate of Acadia University and a long-time resident of Dartmouth.