Nova Scotia Books

This is still the definitive book on the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Almost anything you want to know about the breed is here: its history, pedigrees of some well-known ancestors of today's Tollers, training information, even a full pictorial on how to groom a Toller from start to finish. Alison Strang and Gail McMillan share their love of the breed as well as their knowledge. I recommend this book to every Toller owner or would-be Toller owner, since your life won't be the same once one of these little red rascals joins your family.

This is just about as good a book on any breed you can get, it has pride and place with my other books.

If you are seriously considering adopting a Toller, then this book is a must-have reference. Ms. Strang encapsulates key information and lays it out in an easily-accessible format. She discusses the history, breeding, and temperament of the Toller in a comprehensive and interesting way. The step-by-step grooming section (and accompanying photos of the late, great Barney) is the best I've seen to date. It's rare to find a groomer familiar with the breed in the US; most assume they are small Goldens and that grooming is done similarly. Au contraire! When I used to bring my dog to a groomer, I learned years ago to bring a photocopy to serve as their cheat sheet/user's guide. Due in no small part to this section (and some hands-on training-thanks, Alison and Sandy MacF!), I now groom my own dogs. This reference has enriched our knowledge, understanding and enjoyment of the breed. We suggest it to people who meet our dogs and want to learn more. I definitely recommend it for anyone interested in this intelligent, active and keen breed.

It is is very good book about Tollers. Lay-out is very high quality. If you have Toller of your own or you want to know about Tollers it is a good buy.

This fantastic book really gets into all corners and hide-outs of the Toller. Alison's and Gail's knowledge of this dog is simply amazing. We as breeders show the book to all our friends in the dog world, and many of them has already bought it. Simply fantastic. Thanks Gail and Alison

I love the combo of sweet comfort food and folk art illustration. A fun & unique little find.

All of the recipes in this book are easy.I've had the book for a week, and I've already tried 6 recipes. Most of them call for ingrediants that are already in your cupboards.The toughest decision will be trying to decide which recipe I'll make next.

Shelagh Duffet has created and compiled a book as beautiful and joyful as a holiday in her province! This is a book that is not only a tremendous aide to those potluck dinners that are more and more popular in economic restricted times as these, but is as well a cookbook with a heart and soul, with comments from her recipe-gifting friends that purvey a real warmth. The recipes are delectable, the art scrumptious, and the book a must-have for all those desiring a tasty life!

A lovely book written by someone who knows how to get the best out of simple ingrediants. Used the book for BBQs and formal dinners - cant believe I've only had it for a week. The staff think it is great. Thank you Shelagh

We have had our cook book for only a coule of days, but the depth and variety of tastes and textures pleases the whole family - we used to live in Italy and France and so have very strong and decerning tastes. Thankyou Shelaigh

I read a lot of cruising narratives, many of which I plan to review here in time. I find many of these books both entertaining and informative, even if the writer has a different style of travel than I'm interested in or sails a type of vessel I'll probably never own. Most of the books of this type that I read were written in recent years, as cruising has become much more popular due to the availability of fiberglass boats, both new and used, and new equipment such as GPS receivers to take the hard work out of navigation.

Before this new wave of modern cruisers appeared, the pioneers of modern singlehanded or family-style voyaging under sail had to either build their boats themselves or convert existing vessels, mostly built of wood, to their needs. Most sailors these days would stay ashore if this was still the case, but thanks to those who did it the hard way and wrote about it, the way has been made much easier for those of us with an abundance of boat choices at our disposal. Their successes and failures, described in the great books many of them wrote, have saved many of us from coming to grief through lack of knowledge. Most people who sail today and even think just a little about long-distance voyaging and cruising are familiar with the works of at least some of these writers like: Joshua Slocum, Hal Roth, Bernard Moitessier, the Smeetens, and John Guzzwell. But there are other, lesser known sailors from this era as well, and some of the best writings are easy to overlook.

The Saga of Cimba: A Journey from Nova Scotia to the South Seas
by Richard Maury is one such sailing classic that I myself passed up for years, even though I had noticed it from time to time among the more contempary narratives in the sailing section of various bookstores. It was only a few months ago, when I was lacking something inspiring to read, that I decided to pick up this book that was first published in 1939 and remains in print. Upon reading the first chapter, I found myself immediately hooked. This is one of those rare narratives that not only recounts a fascinating adventure, but does so with a captivating writing style that takes you right along and makes you want to find an old fishing schooner and follow in the author's footsteps.


Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the voyage recounted in this book is the time period in which it took place - in the 1930s - before World War II brought the remote South Pacific islands into mainstream consciousness and when practically no one set out to voyage half way around the world for pleasure on a small, short-handed sailing vessel. This was a time of almost limitless freedom for those few who could pull off such a voyage. The world was wide open to them and the rules and regulations and fees that we have to pay for docking and even anchoring in many places were unheard of then.

One of the most difficult hurdles in the 1930s was simply finding an affordable vessel of suitable size and adequate seaworthieness for such a voyage. Maury and his partner in the adventure at last found their ship among a fishing fleet on the Nova Scotia coast. "We first saw her from the top of the cliff. She turned at her chains to every attack of wind, swaying, airy, buoyant, as though cut of fragile porcelain on the sea below. She was a two-masted schooner, almost as small as they go, almost as stalwart...."


The schooner, which they subsequently purchased and christened Cimba, was 35-feet overall with a 26-foot waterline and 9 1/2-foot beam. She carried a fisherman's working rig - gaff mainsail and foresail, and one jib. Maury and Carrol Huddleston sailed her down the coast to Stamford Harbor where they planned to fit out and equip the vessel for the voyage ahead.

From this point on, two ocean passages lay ahead: New York to Bermuda, and Bermuda to the Caribbean Islands. To prepare they made some modifications to the schooner, such as adding a deck hatch to ventilate the cabin, painting the hull and cabin and rebuilding the engine. The also took on the necessary stores and supplies, including everything needed to maintain the hull, rigging and sails. In light of the time period and the remoteness of their ultimate destination, it's not surprising that ship's equipment included a 30.30 Winchester rifle with 1,000 rounds of ammunition, and a .38 revolver and 12-gauge shotgun. Despite the preparations and large equipment list, the schooner "retained an air of almost puritanical simplicity on deck and down below" according to Maury.

Maury's first setback occured when his friend Carrol was swept overboard and lost his life in the harbor while tending the schooner in a storm. This event is mentioned only in a short paragraph. Maury sailed for Bermuda shortly after with a new crew - "Dombey" Dickinson. The schooner proved her seaworthieness in a winter storm enroute that caused a rollover and set fire to the cabin with coals scattered throughout the interior. From Bermuda, the pair sailed Cimba on to Grand Turk and then through the Windward Passage past Haiti to Kingston, Jamaica. From Jamaica they ran down to Panama's San Blas Archipelago and explored some of the jungle rivers of the coast. On the Pacific side of the Canal, they explored the Perlas Islands and then set sail for the Galapagos.

Among the remote Galapagos, so little visited at the time, they came upon a wrecked boat on a deserted beach, with two skeletonsin the sand nearby. They also found fresh footprints and heard a rifle shot from somewhere in the interior. Maury's account of the unraveling of these mysteries again illustrates how different the world was back in 1935 for a couple of adventurers willing to sail to such far-flung islands.

Onward into the Pacific, on the 3,000-mile downhill run to the South Seas, Cimba, working west and south averaged 6.4 knots or 150 miles per day. Maury writes: "The testing of a craft goes on forever - but a point is reached where finally the spirits of ship and men to some degree reflect each other, where often the weakness of one becomes the weakness of the other, the strength of one the other's strength."

Cimba made landfall off Ua Hiva in the Marquesas 19 days out from the Galapagos. Beginning in the Marquesas, Maury and his partner found the South Pacific they were looking for, and their adventures continued through the French territories and then westward to Fiji, where the voyage sadly ended on a reef. Although the schooner was with great difficulty salvaged and rebuilt on the beach, Maury never managed to sail on to New Guinea as planned due to various complications, and ended up leaving her in Fiji.

If you've every dreamed of sailing to the South Seas, or if you simply like good adventure narratives, you will love The Saga of Cimba. If you have an ounce of interest in boats or sailing this book will make you long for a sturdy old fishing schooner that you can fix up and point south. Richard Maury may have written only one book, but the The Saga of Simba deserves to be an enduring classic in the literature of the sea. It's definately worth checking out, but watch out, or you may find it inflicts a bad case of sea fever.

I suspect this is THE book that inspired otherwise sane and sensible people to abandon their career, family and fortune in order to sail off to the South Pacific.

The Saga of Cimba is a masterwork. I find this book as compelling, captivating, and yes even mesmerizing, now as when I first read it many years ago. It is one of very, very few which I can always re-read with unwavering pleasure and delight. Richard Maury has crafted a volume as close to perfect in terms of making the essential -nesses of cruising in small sail boats clear to the reader as any I have ever found. It's facinating to me that right through to the last page he never tells of himself, and only word sketches his alternating sailing companions very briefly. Cimba herself is the main character and Maury never loses sight of that fact. The Saga of Cimba is a book filled with the unpretentious magic of greatness.

This is a book for sailors who love words, and readers who sail. Not an instructor, Maury spends his tale with the spareness of bare poles. Seamen will love the action - and the calms, mostly for the lovely lyric writing and the gift Maury has with print. Kin to the Maury who invented organized navagation charts for seaways, tides, winds, currents; this tale of the smallest fishing schooner to make 1937 ocean history reflects talent aboard and with the pen for Richard Maury. Best book I've read, sadly I couldn't enjoy it from land.

Having sailed for 40 years, I came across an old edition of this gem written in the 30's and was astounded by the economy of prose, yet the depth of feeling created by its author.

It is a deceptively simple story, but packed with thoughts and observations which are thoroughly relevant today. And it is written in a style which came BEFORE the present supermediatic hyperbolic overstatement that characterizes most of what we read and hear today.

It is an excellent gift, and an inspirational work, even if you are never planning to cross an ocean. It is in a word, a classic. (And it is wonderful to think about how these places actually were in the thirties, and to listen to proper nautical language and vocabulary which has been washed away by the advent of the jet plane and skidoo.. Bon voyage!

The Leaving and Other Stories by Budge Wilson is a collection of nine stories set in Nova Scotia about girls who are being pushed into the adult world. They face challenges like peer pressure and problems with friends and family.
One of my favorite stories is "The Metaphor." It is about a seventh-grader named Charlotte and her literature and creative writing teacher, Miss Hancock. Miss Hancock is very enthusiastic about her job, and wears lots of makeup and flashy clothes. While her students love her, most adults consider her "brassy" and think she's too overenthusiastic. One day in class, Miss Hancock introduces her students to the metaphor. She gives the class an assignment to write metaphors about people and things they know, and Charlotte writes a long, intricate metaphor about how her mother is a flawless concrete building filled with machines. On the bottom few floors, Charlotte writes, people track mud all over the building and "mar its perfection." Miss Hancock is thrilled by the long metaphor (although a little disturbed by its meaning) and encourages Charlotte to write more. Charlotte starts writing metaphors in the bathtub at night.
Then the story flashes forward a few years and Charlotte is starting her first day of high school. She's thrilled to find that her literature teacher is-Miss Hancock1 However, the other students think Miss Hancock's a joke and ridicule her every day, until she comes to school every day as a beaten-up wreck. Charlotte thinks she could stop this, but peer pressure convinces her not to. Then one day, Miss Hancock is killed by a bus. Charlotte is horrified and thinks that it's all her fault. At the end of the story, Charlottte is sadly writing a metaphor about Miss Hancock.
Many of the stories are like that. All of them have preteen and teenage girls as the protagonists, and many of them have the girls facing some kind of loss, be it of a teacher, parent, or friend. I would recommend this book to any girl who has ever faced problems with friends or family.

The stories in the leaving will really help you in life, most of them will make you laught. It is a great book and worth the money.

I liked this book because it was written very well. The writer wasn't afraid to say things bluntly and to be honest about things. I also liked how the stories told about life and what things happen during these young girls growth into adulthood in Canada

If you are looking for a book of short stories that will keep your sixth to eighth grade students and readers debating about what the characters' true motives are all about, this is a perfect book of short stories with fiesty female protagonists. I have taught The Leaving for six years and I am still haunted by the characters, especially Lysandra and Elaine. Because Wilson uses first person "unreliable" narrators, she forces the readers to wonder about what the other characters are thinking. We never know why the brilliant Miss Hancock left seventh grade to teach tenth grade, consequently losing control of her class. The title story is a perfect excuse to tell students about Betty Friedan and life for women before The Feminine Mystique. What happened between the mother and Manuel Jenkins that caused her to cry alone at her dresser after he left and changed her family forever? I first read The Leaving with a faculty book discussion group and have been giving friends copies ever since.Each story is a gem.

To put is simply, this is a must for nature lovers...birds, in particular! Adventures of our feathered friends always makes for a fun read.

To anyone who loves animals, but especially birds, this is a wonderful book. I've been trying to locate the author's other books since Amazon recommended this one. The reference function that Amazon provides has been very helpful; I've found several books I didn't know about through that. The humor and love shine with every chapter and you won't be sorry you bought it. Dee

Black-and-white photographs illustrate Birds Of A Feather: Tales Of A Wild Bird Haven, which tells true-life stories of award-winning author Linda Johns' experiences rehabilitating wild birds. From raising a chick to its first feathers to taking in a badly injured mother duck and her children to learning how to write with a pigeon on one's arm, Birds Of A Feather gives an unabashed look at the ups, downs, special joys and sad tragedies of caring for feathered friends in need day in and day out. Heartwarming and highly recommended for bird lovers especially.

Gail MacMillan, has, with a great deal of sensivity brought together stories about the Little River Duck Dog (from Nova Scotia) and the people who have bred them over the years. Archival photos show the delightful dog, their owners, and the the love that takes place......

A great book about Nova Scotia's Little River tolling retrievers which are bred to ATTRACT as well as retrieve ducks. Lots of background stories about the breeders and owners of these dogs.

This story of dogs bred to attract ducks is more than entertaining. Gail MacMillan takes the reader back from the show dogs, the registered Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers, back to the Little River Duck Dogs, and to their owners who have, for centuries now, kept these beautiful dogs. Toller, retriever, and family pet, the Little River Duck Dog is a prize and so is the book by Gail MacMillan.

I concur 1000% with the reviewer from Alexandria, and would only add that some of these songs include verses lost in Scotland! Some are over 300 years old, and in the archaic bardic tradition. No serious Gaelic learner, scholar, or singer can afford to pass this gem up!

I personally knew and learned from a number of the people recorded (all alas gone now!). John Neil, Angus Ranald, and Christine Gillis, and Mae MacGillivray, (the children of Sandy Seumus and Maggie Sarah Gillis), and the many other great folks from Gillisdale and elsewhere in Inverness County, the Mabou area, and other places in Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia.

These people were among the kindest, warmest, and most generous people on earth, and always willing to help a learner along. I had many pleasant and happy hours in their company.

The late Ms. Creighton, and the late Major Calum Iain N. Macleod did the Gaelic world an invaluable service with their work!

Among my personal favorites is "Alasdair mhic Cholla Gasda" (Alasdair Son of Gallant Coll) a MacDonald brosnachadh (battle incitement) in the form of an orain luaidh (waulking song) celebrating the deeds of Alasdair MacDonald (aka Colkitto) who was Montrose's brilliant and bold Lieutenant General in the "Year of Miracles" during the Covenanter and Civil Wars in Scotland in the 1640s. This song memorializes the great victory at Inverlochy when the forces of Alasdair and Montrose smashed the Campbells.

Again, a must-have for serious Gaelic scholars of any level!

"Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia" contains a great store of Gaelic songs from Scotland and from Nova Scotia, including some not available in print anywhere else. Each song is accompanied by a direct translation in English. There are more than 200 songs in the book. Many of the songs illuminate the experience of the Highland emigrant in eastern Canada. Some of my favorites, "An té a chaill a Gàidhlig (the woman who lost her Gaelic)" and "Oran a' Mhathain (the bear's song)." The first is an attack on those who quickly traded their Gaelic for English after moving "to town," and the second is the story of a bear-hunt, from the bear's perspective. Many classic songs from Scotland are included as well. Cape Breton singers preserved these songs for five generations. Many songs forgotten in Scotland remained popular in Cape Breton. The songs represent almost the entire Gaelic repetoire, running the gamut from love songs and laments to topical songs and waulking (work) songs. The music is in standard notation, rather than the sol-fa notation used (unfortunately) by many Gaelic music books. This is a seminal text and a must-buy for the serious student of Scottish Gaelic language, literature, music and history. Note: This book is also extremely difficult to find in bookstores. -- Liam O Caiside

This is an in depth story of a poor but educated family struggling through economic hardships that result from a series of misfortunes: first the father, Charles LeBlanc, loses his decent-paying white-collar job and starts a business selling candy from a truck to the corner stores in the city, but eventually poor health and age leave him ill suited to the physical demands of the job, and business fails as a result. His wife, Claire, who is 25 years his junior, begins to work as a substitute teacher out of necessity and also out of determination that her family should enjoy some degree of prosperity, however limited. The marriage is strained. The story is told in the third person with a shifting narrative perspective; the reader is given, at various times, the thoughts of Charles, Claire, and Nicole, the second eldest child. The tone is wistful and the sadness that permeates will probably produce some tears, but there are also a few screamingly funny scenes of misbehavior on the part of the four children. This novel neither sensationalizes disfunctional relationships nor idealizes family values; it is a clear-eyed portrait of one family's complicated life, a portrait that is always subtly handled, never heavy handed. Candyman is storytelling at its best--emotionally and psychologically astute, it remains always a great novel and never a case history.

This book was a real eye-opener. The author portrays the 1950's and life as it was then. There is a real story behind the images. Excellent book, I would recommend it to anyone in the market for a really good novel.

This tough story redefines realism. Jean McNeil's remarkable first novel stunningly combines poetic images of place with haunting parallels of lives that are inextricably tangled by mere fact of being family to each other. Morag, at age 8, trapped between the rages and hatred of her grandparents, must choose to stay with her grandfather who has held her literally and figuratively in the line of fire or to flee with her grandmother who survives, barely, by bitterness. The mystery of Morag's mother, who has deserted Morag, parallels Morag's story via descriptions of snapshots she sends from Africa.

Told from adult Morag's viewpoint, the novel shows how memory incorporates evil alongside good in a child's unhappy life, how nightmares grow from family history. The characters aren't drawn in great depth, which accentuates their distance and the fears they bear. But the juxtaposition of harsh landscape and harsher life, of tough love and the masks that hide love, beautifully hold the tension of the novel taut as a bowstring from beginning to end.

This tough story redefines realism. Jean McNeil's remarkable first novel stunningly combines poetic images of place with haunting parallels of lives that are inextricably tangled by mere fact of being family to each other. Morag, at age 8, trapped between the rages and hatred of her grandparents, must choose to stay with her grandfather who has held her literally and figuratively in the line of fire or to flee with her grandmother who survives, barely, by bitterness. The mystery of Morag's mother, who has deserted Morag, parallels Morag's story via descriptions of snapshots she sends from Africa.

Told from adult Morag's viewpoint, the novel shows how memory incorporates evil alongside good in a child's unhappy life, how nightmares grow from family history. The characters aren't drawn in great depth, which accentuates their distance and the fears they bear. But the juxtaposition of harsh landscape and harsher life, of tough love and the masks that hide love, beautifully hold the tension of the novel taut as a bowstring from beginning to end.

When I first read this engaging book by Sonia Jones in about 2000, I couldn't put this book down. Closing the last page, I attempted to look up the Peninsula farm, envisioning a trip to Novia Scotia, only to find the farm recently shut down. Appears the farm continued operating well after the book was published. If you loved this book and enjoy arm-chair traveling, I highly recommend another inspiring book of a road less traveled. See my review of Atchafayala Houseboat by Gwen Carpenter Roland.

It All Began With Daisy is an inspiring book filled with humour, local colour and excellent storytelling. It is encouraging to read of the adventures of such an entrepeneurial couple and their "vigourous muddling" through the years of establishing their yoghurt company. Characters come alive and conversations quiver with the skill of the author's recounting. Highly recommended for light, inspirational reading.