The Nova Scotia Book of Fathers Read online

Page 19


  One day in late April in the mid-1940s we went to the lake to fish and found it still encased in about an inch or so of ice. During the night a storm came up with very strong winds. While lying in bed I could hear a sound like delicate glass breaking. I asked Dad what was making the nice noise and he told me it was the ice breaking up. It was a beautiful sound that in life you only hear once, but it stays with you forever.

  He continued to hunt and fish into his nineties and, although his home had a furnace, he kept a small wood stove in the basement and carried wood out of the woods on his back to fuel it. Sitting in a rocking chair in a corner of a living room watching TV in his declining years was not his idea of living. Through thick and thin he lived life to the fullest.

  Dad didn’t acknowledge old age until he was ninety-seven. In late January 1994, he sent word to me at my home in Halifax that he wanted me to come out to Indian Brook to see him. When I got there, he, in his usual laid-back fashion, invited me to come into his room where he informed me, “I’ve got something that there is no cure for – old age. Me wife, me siblings, and all me friends are gone. It’s time for me to get the frig out of here!” With that he passed me his bank book, laid out a few bequests, and asked me to share the rest with my siblings. On March 8, 1994, his story on Mother Earth ended and he took up residence with his Creator and with all the loved ones who had passed before him in the Land of Souls.

  Author Biographies

  Joan Baxter is a journalist, international development researcher and science writer, anthropologist, and award-winning author who lived and worked in Africa for more than thirty years. She is the author of one book of short fiction and five nonfiction books, including The Hermit of Gully Lake: The Life and Times of Willard Kitchener MacDonald. A native of Nova Scotia, she divides her time between northern Nova Scotia and Kenya. Her latest book is Seven Grains of Paradise: A Culinary Journey in Africa, which tells of the culinary treasures from Africa’s farms, forests, markets and kitchens (Pottersfield Press, 2017).

  Carol Bruneau is the author of six books: two short fiction collections and four novels, the most recent of which is These Good Hands (2015). Her first novel, Purple for Sky, won the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award and the Dartmouth Book Award. Her novel Glass Voices was a Globe and Mail Best Book and has become a book club favourite. Her reviews, stories, and essays have appeared nationwide in newspapers, journals, and anthologies, and two of her novels have been published internationally. A mother of three sons, she lives with her husband in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where she teaches writing at NSCAD University.

  The proud son and grandson of engineers, Frank Cameron broke the mold by becoming a broadcaster, but he still believes his father was the smartest man in the world. Frank began his more than sixty-year career in radio and television in his hometown of New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, in 1955. He was a disc jockey at CHNS radio in Halifax during the Top 40 era of the 1960s and worked for CBC from 1964 until 1995. He returned to CHNS from 1995 to 2005 and is currently volunteering his time at CFEP, 105.9 FM in Eastern Passage. He chronicles his career in I Owe It All To Rock & Roll (and the CBC).

  Lesley Choyce is the author of ninety books of literary fiction, short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, and young adult novels. He runs Pottersfield Press and has been teaching English and Creative Writing at Dalhousie and other universities for over thirty years. He has won the Dartmouth Book Award, the Atlantic Poetry Prize, and the Ann Connor Brimer Award. He has been shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal, the White Pine Award, the Hackmatack Award, the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Award, and the Governor General’s Award.

  Ian Colford has been publishing stories, reviews, and commentary for more than twenty-five years. Evidence, a collection of short fiction, was published in 2008 by Porcupine’s Quill and won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. A novel, The Crimes of Hector Tomás, was published in 2012 by Freehand Books and won Trade Book of the Year at the 2013 Alberta Book Awards. Perfect World, a novella, was published by Freehand in 2016. Ian lives in Halifax.

  Sheldon Currie, born in Reserve Mines, Cape Breton, is a retired English professor but still writing when not battling rocks and weeds in the garden. After a short stint in the RCAF, he went back to school in Sydney, Antigonish, Fredericton, and Tuscalooosa, Alabama. He has written novels, several plays, a couple of collections of short stories, as well as book reviews, essays, and articles in academic journals. His books include Two More Solitudes and Down the Coaltown Road (Pottersfield Press). His novel The Glace Bay Miners’ Museum became the play by Wendy Lill and the film Margaret’s Museum.

  Craig Flinn is Executive Chef and Proprietor of Chives Canadian Bistro, 2 Doors Down, and Temple Bar in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. Upon graduating from The Culinary Institute of Canada, Craig held a position at the SeeHotel Waldstatterdorf in Brunnen, Switzerland, followed by an apprenticeship at the Savoy Hotel in London. While he has a great love for travel and food from around the world, his passion and goal is always to showcase locally grown ingredients. Craig has authored four cookbooks, including his latest release, Out of New Nova Scotia Kitchens.

  Karen Forrest, BN, CD, known as The Angel Lady, is the Canadian bestselling author of volumes one and two of Angels of the Maritimes By Your Side, Canadian Angels By Your Side, and Angel Lady of the Maritimes. Karen has a diverse background: she is a retired military mental health nurse and currently works as a spiritual counsellor and professional medium. She is an international expert in angelic communications and mediumship. Her web site is www.karenforrest.com

  Lorri Neilsen Glenn’s books include Untying the Apron: Daughters Remember Mothers of the 1950s (Guernica Editions), Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry (Hagios Press), and Lost Gospels (Brick Books). Lorri was Halifax Poet Laureate from 2005 to 2009. Her prose and poetry have received numerous awards in literary journals, and she has led writing workshops across Canada, Ireland, Australia, Chile, and Greece. Her bricolage/hybrid book on Red River Métis women will be published with Wolsak and Wynn in 2017. She teaches at Mount Saint Vincent University and in the creative nonfiction MFA program at the University of King’s College.

  Janice Landry holds a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of King’s College in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She has been a journalist for thirty years, and is also an author, writer, strategist, video producer/director, and public speaker. A former CTV Atlantic anchor and reporter, she is a part-time faculty member at Mount Saint Vincent University. She is the author of three books, two of which, The Sixty Second Story (2013) and The Price We Pay (2015), were published by Pottersfield Press. Her fourth book, The Legacy Letters, is expected to be released in the fall of 2017.

  Alexander MacLeod was born in Inverness, Cape Breton, and raised in Windsor, Ontario. His first short story collection, Light Lifting (Biblioasis, 2010), was a finalist for the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, shortlisted for The Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, and won the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award. The Globe and Mail, Quill and Quire, Amazon.ca, and The Chronicle Herald named Light Lifting a 2010 Book of the Year. Alexander teaches at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax. He lives with his family in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

  David Mossman is a seventh-generation Canadian, born in Rose Bay, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, in 1938. With his first wife Marie, he lives in Wolfville. A geologist, he has worked in the mineral exploration sector, Canada-wide, in the United States, and in various African nations. He has taught geoscience at the universities of Saskatchewan (Saskatoon), Otago, South Island, New Zealand, and most recently at Mount Allison in New Brunswick, where he is professor emeritus. He is the author of Going Over: A Nova Scotian Soldier in World War I and Oceans of Rum: The Nova Scotia Banana Fleet in Rum-Runner Heaven (Pottersfield Press).

  In her forty-year music career, Anne Murray has accrued many distinctions. The first Canadian solo singer to have a number one record on the U.S. charts (“Snowbird
” in 1970), she has received numerous awards, including four Grammys and twenty-four Junos, as well as awards from both the Canadian and American Country Music associations. A member of several Halls of Fame, she also has a star on both the Hollywood Walk of Fame in Los Angeles and Canada’s walk of Fame in Toronto. She is a Companion of the Order of Canada and a recipient of the Order of Nova Scotia. In 2016, Anne received an honorary degree from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax.

  The twelfth of fourteen siblings, Daniel N. Paul was born in a log cabin on Shubenacadie Indian Reserve, Hants County, Nova Scotia. His book We Were Not The Savages is now in its third edition (Fernwood Publishing). He is an author, freelance lecturer and journalist, runs a small advisory business, is a Nova Scotia Justice of the Peace, a commissioner with the province’s Police Review Board, and is involved in many other activities. He has served on the Human Rights Commission and the Nova Scotia Department of Justice’s Court Restructuring Task Force. He is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia, and holds honorary degrees from Université Sainte-Anne and Dalhousie University. He resides in Halifax with his wife Patricia. For more information, visit his web site: http://www.danielnpaul.com.

  Lindsay Ruck is a native of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and a graduate of Carleton University’s School of Journalism. As a writer and copy editor, she has contributed to multiple published works, including The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Black Battalion 1916-1920: Canada’s Best Kept Military Secret, and Nova Scotia Love Stories. Her first book, Winds of Change: The Life and Legacy of Calvin W. Ruck, chronicles her grandfather’s life as a social worker, human rights ambassador, author, and senator.

  Julia Swan holds a Ph.D in English Literature from Dalhousie University, where she taught for several years, and for the past two decades has been an editor with Pottersfield Press, where she has the opportunity to work with many talented writers. She coedited The Mi’kmaq Anthology, Volume 2 with Lesley Choyce and Theresa Meuse. Julia is a fourth-generation Haligonian, and, like her late firefighter father, she loves to drive.

  Xavier Tattrie first made Jon Tattrie a father on March 14, 2013. Roslyn Tattrie made him a father twice over on March 2, 2016. He learned the trade under the tutelage of Jack Tattrie, his own father, and draws inspiration from Phil Melanson, his father-in-law. Jon can’t wait to write an essay for a Nova Scotia Mothers book, which will star Gail Tattrie, his mother, Giselle Melanson Tattrie, his wife, Heidi Rushton, his sister and mother of his niece Madeline and nephew Max, and Bev Melanson, his mother-in-law. Jon’s latest book is Redemption Songs: How Bob Marley’s Nova Scotia Song Lights the Way Past Racism (Pottersfield Press). His previous books include Cornwallis: The Violent Birth of Halifax and The Hermit of Africville. Jon is online at jontattrie.ca or @ jontattrie on Twitter.

  A native of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Harry Thurston received both a BSc in biology in 1971 and an honorary Doctorate of Literature in 2013 from Acadia University. He has been a poet, journalist, and editor for forty years, writing extensively on environmental issues and natural history. His contributions to magazines such National Geographic, Audubon, and Harrowsmith have won national journalism awards and he has received numerous honours for his nonfiction and poetry. His most recent works include Keeping Watch at the End of the World (Gaspereau Press, 2015), The Atlantic Coast: A Natural History (Greystone Books/David Suzuki Foundation, 2011), and Animals of My Own Kind: New & Selected Poems (Vehicle Press, 2009).

  Lenore Zann was born in Sydney, Australia, and immigrated to Canada with her parents in 1968. She had a successful career as an actress and singer, beginning with the role of Adelaide in Cobequid Educational Centre’s production of Guys and Dolls when she was fifteen. Her career as a performer spanned roles in film, television, radio, and theatre. She attended York University in Toronto, where she studied drama, fine arts, and political science. In 2009, as a member of the New Democratic Party, she was elected to the Nova Scotia legislature representing Truro-Bible Hill. In 2013, she was re-elected in the Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River riding.