Author: D. R. MacDonald Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 0544326261 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 305
Book Description
This is the story of Innis Corbett, a young man born in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, into a Highlander community whose inhabitants are held by ties of memory and blood. As a child Innis went with his parents to live in Boston. After his father was killed in a car accident, Innis was raised by his mother, a woman with a weakness for men and drink. When Innis gets into trouble over a series of car thefts, he is deported back to Canada, a fate worse than prison, in his eyes. Innis ends up living with his Uncle Starr amidst the harshly beautiful landscape that has shaped his family and that both absorbs and challenges him. He takes refuge in the wild, dense woods, where he devises a plan to grow marijuana. This venture relieves his loneliness and gives him something to care for, a secret of his own. Then Claire, an attractive former flight attendant nearing 40, enters the Starr household. So begins an entanglement that leads to suspicion, jealousy, and ultimately to violence. Cape Breton Road is an exceptional novel by a writer with an unerring eye for landscape and tragedy that is bred in the bone.
Author: D.R. MacDonald Publisher: Anchor Canada ISBN: 0385674376 Category : Fiction Languages : en Pages : 338
Book Description
At nineteen, Innis Corbett is transplanted from his home near Boston and suddenly finds himself back in the remote Cape Breton community where he was born, the reluctant and unwelcome guest of his uncle Starr. Innis had developed an addiction for stealing expensive cars (not for money but for pleasure) and for the marijuana he helps his best friend to sell. When bad habits catch up with him, he is deported to Canada, a punishment worse than prison. Innis is unimpressed by his uncle, who gave up his dreams of leaving the island to repair televisions, chase women, drive a Lada and grow nostalgic on rum. Desperate to get away, Innis hatches the only escape plan he can, and starts to grow a secret cash crop of marijuana and looks for a car to steal. He bides his time smoking pot and doing whatever odd jobs he has to, full of unnamed need and pent-up anger. When Starr’s current girlfriend, an attractive woman in her late thirties, comes to stay while fleeing another relationship, Innis’ deep sense of longing fixes on her. He feels fierce desire, but also something he recognises as good and true. Starr cautions him, and a bitter jealous rivalry begins to rage between them, violence lying just under the surface. As summer arrives, Innis’ suffocation and the tension between the two men are palpable. Though life in this small community bound by memory and blood cannot cure Innis immediately of his anger, the rugged landscape does work a change on him. He takes on the challenge of the wild and harsh north woods where a man can get lost, learns the names of plants and wildlife, sketches and studies the natural world, and diligently cares for his illegal seedlings. As he grows stronger, he faces himself in the mirror and feels an emerging sense of self-worth and coming manhood. He realises he is learning an enjoyment of hard work and its rewards, although his crop might be less worthy than those of his predecessors. Affectionately sheltering the plants from bad weather and hungry deer, he muses, “Was there a Gaelic word for pot?” Cape Breton has spawned a wealth of contemporary literature, from Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Fall On Your Knees to Alistair MacLeod’s No Great Mischief and Lynn Coady’s Strange Heaven. The region’s rugged landscapes, rural life and distinctive Gaelic traditions converging with modern social pressures have captured the attention of readers internationally; as they have in the work of other Atlantic Canada authors such as Michael Crummey, Wayne Johnston and David Adams Richards. MacDonald set his novel in the 1970s, when a country area of Cape Breton could still be a truly isolated backwater, the phone service on a party-line system and listening-in a regular pastime. “I needed to create a world that was much more cut off, where it would seem like exile to Innis and where he could never be alone or anonymous.” Innis recalls his parents’ fights about “down home”, how they would one day love it to tears and the next day complain how it had held them back. Much as he wants to get off the Cape Breton Road, it may be that all the emotions that make life worth living — “love and anger and disappointment and hope” — lead back to the island. Cape Breton Road is a compelling coming-of-age story raw with beauty and emotion.
Author: National Geographic Publisher: Disney Electronic Content ISBN: 1426210965 Category : Travel Languages : en Pages : 1096
Book Description
National Geographic presents the great outdoors through the world’s best auto trips, for nature lovers, hikers, and adventurers. Pack your suitcase, load up the car, and head for the open road! This lavishly illustrated, hardcover travel planner and gift book gives you every bit of information you'll need to navigate 400 amazing driving routes in some of the world's most fascinating locales. This practical travel planner provides specific, in-depth descriptions of the sights each drive offers. A clear, detailed, easy-to-read map of each route. Useful information on the best time to travel. And insider tips to help you get the most out of every fabulous trip. Abundant sidebars call your attention to standout sights along the drive or entertaining background information on the region and its culture. While handy indeed as a planner, Drives of a Lifetime doubles as a full-color gift book with more than 200 dazzling, large-format photos and crisp, evocative text that will enchant armchair travelers. The book immerses you in the unique appeal and beauty of hundreds of inviting locales. Sample entries include the road to the spectacular ancient ruins in and around Angkor Wat in Cambodia; the Natchez Trace Parkway, along an ancient Native American trail through Mississippi; the scenic old coastal route from Dublin to Wexford in Ireland; an off-road dune drive in Dubai; the famous ocean views along the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia, Canada; the Winelands Route through South Africa's Western Cape; a drive among the incredible land formations in South Dakota's Badlands; and an archaeological tour through Syria. In addition, you'll find several fun Top Ten lists: skyscraping drives, Mediterranean island roads, African wildlife excursions, and more. Chapters organized by theme include Ultimate Road Trips, featuring famous drives such as Highway One down the California coast; Over Hill and Mountains; By Sea and Shore; The Road Less Traveled, highlighting unpaved an
Author: William John Davey Publisher: University of Toronto Press ISBN: 1442669500 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 318
Book Description
Biff and whiff, baker’s fog and lu’sknikn, pie social and milling frolic – these are just a few examples of the distinctive language of Cape Breton Island, where a puck is a forceful blow and a Cape Breton pork pie is filled with dates, not pork. The first regional dictionary devoted to the island’s linguistic and cultural history, the Dictionary of Cape Breton English is a fascinating record of the island’s rich vocabulary. Dictionary entries include supporting quotations culled from the editors’ extensive interviews with Cape Bretoners and considerable study of regional variation, as well as definitions, selected pronunciations, parts of speech, variant forms, related words, sources, and notes, giving the reader in-depth information on every aspect of Cape Breton culture. A substantial and long-awaited work of linguistic research that captures Cape Breton’s social, economic, and cultural life through the island’s language, the Dictionary of Cape Breton English can be read with interest by Backlanders, Bay byes, and those from away alike.
Author: Paul Chiasson Publisher: Vintage Canada ISBN: 0307367037 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 386
Book Description
The gripping, marvel-filled account of how a native son took a casual walk up a mountain on Cape Breton Island and made an archeological discovery of world-shaking proportions. In the summer of 2002, at home for his parents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary, Paul Chiasson decided to climb a mountain he had never explored on the island where eight generations of his Acadian family had lived. Cape Breton is one of the oldest points of exploration and settlement in the Americas, with a history dating back to the first days of European discovery, and it is littered with the remnants of old settlements. But the road that Chiasson found that day was unique. Well-made and consistently wide, and at one time clearly bordered with stone walls, the road had been a major undertaking. In the two years of detective work that followed, Chiasson systematically surveyed the history of Europeans in North America, and came to a stunning conclusion: the ruins he stumbled upon did not belong to the Portuguese, the French or the English – in fact, they pre-dated John Cabot’s “discovery” of the island in 1497. Using aerial and site photographs, maps and drawings, and his own expertise as an architect, Chiasson carries the reader along as he pieces together the clues to one of the world’s great mysteries. While tantalizing mentions can be found in early navigators’ journals and maps, The Island of Seven Cities reveals for the first time the existence of a large Chinese colony that thrived on Canadian shores well before the European Age of Discovery. Chiasson addresses how the colony was abandoned and forgotten, in the New World and in China, except in the storytelling and culture of the Mi’kmaq, whose written language, clothing, technical knowledge, religious beliefs and legends, he argues, expose deep cultural roots in China. The Island of Seven Cities unveils the first tangible proof that the Chinese were in the New World before Columbus. Evidence that Cape Breton is the site of a Chinese settlement: -Stone roads with dimensions and building properties that match Chinese roads -A ruined city and surrounding farmlands designed in the manner of the Chinese -Language and clothing of the indigenous Mi’kmaq match Chinese dress -Mi’kmaq legends tell of a wise man from across the seas who imparted Confucian advice -In 1490, before he left for the Americas, Christopher Columbus mapped an island that looked like Cape Breton based on the travels of others
Author: Howard A. Norman Publisher: Washington, D.C. : National Geographic ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 232
Book Description
The two-time National Book Award finalist shares a unique look at Nova Scotia, the place that shaped his fiction--a raw landscape brimming with eccentric characters and bizarre situations.
Author: D. R. MacDonald
Author: D.R. MacDonald
Author: Arthur J. Stone
Author: National Geographic
Author: Nova Scotia. House of Assembly
Author: 
Author: Nova Scotia. General Assembly. House of Assembly
Author: William John Davey
Author: Paul Chiasson
Author: Howard A. Norman