Lost In Nova Scotia

Stories and photos that bring the people and places of Nova Scotia’s historic past to life. Beaubassin was once a prosperous farming community at the head of the Cumberland Basin; Africville was the vibrant home of Black Nova Scotians who struggled to make a living and found spiritual solace in their church. Both are now gone, one a casualty of long-ago colonial warfare and the other a victim of misguided urban renewal. In this fascinating book, author Joan Dawson looks at thirty-seven of this Canadian province’s lost communities: places like Electric City, Indian Gardens, and the Tancook Islands. Some were home to ethnic groups forced to leave. Others, once dependent on factories, mills, or the fishery, died as the economy changed or resources were depleted. But they were all once places where Nova Scotians were born, married, worked, and died. Featuring over 60 archival and contemporary photos and illustrations, Nova Scotia’s Lost Communities preserves those memories with fascinating insights.

The province's premier journalist tells the story he was born to write. No journalist has travelled the back roads, hidden vales and fog-soaked coves of Nova Scotia as widely as John DeMont. No writer has spent as much time considering its peculiar warp and weft of humanity, geography and history. The Long Way Home is the summation of DeMont's years of travel, research and thought. It tells the story of what is, from the European view of things, the oldest part of Canada. Before Confederation it was also the richest, but now Nova Scotia is among the poorest. Its defining myths and stories are mostly about loss and sheer determination. Equal parts narrative, memoir and meditation, The Long Way Home chronicles with enthralling clarity a complex and multi-dimensional story: the overwhelming of the first peoples and the arrival of a mélange of pioneers who carved out pockets of the wilderness; the random acts and unexplained mysteries; the shameful achievements and noble failures; the rapture and misery; the twists of destiny and the cold-heartedness of fate. This is the biography of a place that has been hardened by history. A place full of reminders of how great a province it has been and how great—with the right circumstances and a little luck—it could be again.

At 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.

Author Frank Smith exposes the rich history of blacksmithing in Nova Scotia, explores the subsequent emerging art form and provides a resource of practicing artisans' profiles.

This “haunting, consistently entrancing” novel of loss, redemption and immigrant life “evokes questions that are pressing and profound” (Quill & Quire, starred review). As the children of a Toronto immigrant family, Alisha has grown up in the shadow of her studious older sister Diana. But now Diana is missing, having never returned from a local job fair. The family’s worst fears are confirmed when Diana’s body is discovered in the woods. Shattered by the loss, Alisha is also haunted by a guilty secret: she may know the killer’s identity—and yet she can’t tell anyone. As her family unravels, Alisha finds unexpected solace when she befriends a woman who volunteers at her school. Paula was once an orphan in the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children. Estranged from her own sister, Paula helps Alisha understand that redemption and peace can only happen when we face difficult truths. Partly inspired by the true experiences of a formed resident of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children, The Lost Sister bravely explores themes of child abuse, neglect, and abduction against a complex interplay of gender, race, and class dynamics.

A writer returns to Nova Scotia, and finding it almost unrecognizable, sets out to capture the essence of his ancestral province--a place as strange and wild as anywhere on the continent. John DeMont visits places as diverse as a Buddhist abbey; the first free black settlement outside Africa; an island that harbours pirate treasure; and a backwoods barndance where the music of 18th-century Scotland lives on. He visits tuna smugglers and moonshiners; the brooding painter Alex Colville; spiritual seekers from Japan, the US and Europe; and Anne Murray's greatest Austrian fans. He also races yachts with summer residents; patrols the coast for drug smugglers with the Mounties; and casts for salmon with the wisest fishing guides. A road book with a difference, and an endearing search for home, "The Last Best Place is wry and wise, as quirky and lively as Nova Scotia itself.

An Atlantic Bestseller Nova Scotia is blessed with numerous must-see waterfalls, and this volume from self-described "waterfall addict" Benoit Lalonde brings together 100 of the province's best. Conveniently categorized by the government of Nova Scotia scenic route system, this rich compendium includes famous waterfalls such as Garden of Eden Fall, Wentworth Falls, Cuties Hollow, Annandale Falls and Butcher Hill Falls, as well as lesser-known but easy to locate gems. In addition to providing useful information on the height, type, and hiking distance of each waterfall, their degree of difficulty to reach is also assessed for the convenience of both novice and advanced hikers alike. Featuring gorgeous colour photographs and individual maps of each location, Waterfalls of Nova Scotia offers an invaluable reference as well as a tribute to the beauty of the falls and the natural splendour waiting to be discovered.