Dr. C. Lamont MacMillan had no idea of the life that awaited him when he began his medical practice in Baddeck, Cape Breton, in 1928. At that time it was more common for doctors to travel to their patients. As a result, navigating the rural landscape was often more difficult for these doctors than providing diagnoses. In Memoirs of a Cape Breton Doctor, MacMillan relates over forty years of his memories and experiences as a travelling physician with warmth, wit, and a genuine love for the life he lived. He shares stories about his patients, his family, the beloved horses that carried him from home to home, the Maritimes' fickle weather, and the people that helped him through it. The stories span over a century, and highlight MacMillan's own experiences as well as the recollections of the people he cared for until his retirement from medical practice. Entertaining and heartwarming, Memoirs of a Cape Breton Doctor is a classic of the genre.

A leading public intellectual, Michael Bliss has written prolifically for academic and popular audiences and taught at the University of Toronto from 1968 to 2006. Among his publications are a comprehensive history of the discovery of insulin, and major biographies of Frederick Banting, William Osler, and Harvey Cushing. The essays in this volume, each written by former doctoral students of Bliss, with a foreword by John Fraser and Elizabeth McCallum, do honour to his influence, and, at the same time, reflect upon the writing of history in Canada at the end of the twentieth century. The opening essays discuss Bliss's career, his impact on the study of history, and his academic record. Bliss himself contributes an autobiographical essay that strengthens our understanding of the business of scholarship, teaching, and writing. In the second section, the contributors interrogate public mythmaking in the relationship between politics and business in eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century Canada. Further sections investigate the relationship between fatherhood, religion, and historiography, as well as topics in health and public policy. A final section on 'Medical Science and Practice' deals with subjects ranging from early endocrinology, lobotomy, the mechanical heart, and medical biography as a genre. Going beyond a collection of dedicatory essays, this volume explores the wider subject of writing social and medical history in Canada in the late twentieth century.

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.

Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island is a beautiful region with a unique community whose history and ethnic composition have resulted in the evolution of a powerful sense of identity and place. While outsiders may think only of the island's perennial economic woes and long economic dependence on coal mining and steel production, it is also the home of a rich, vibrant, and distinct culture. Brian Douglas Tennyson's Cape Bretoniana is the first bibliography to gather together all known publications relating to the history, culture, economy, and politics of Cape Breton Island. With more than 6000 entries, it not only provides a comprehensive listing of publications and post-graduate theses, but also detailed annotations on the listings. Each entry lists the author, title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, volume and issue number in the case of periodicals, and page references, followed by a brief description of the item. Cape Breton has never been so thoroughly documented. This bibliography will help to ensure that ? even in a world becoming increasingly homogenized by the forces of globalization ? unique cultural identities like Cape Breton's can be preserved and nurtured.