The true story, drawn from official documents and hours of personal interviews, of how Newfoundland and Labrador joined Confederation and became Canada's tenth province in 1949.A rich cast of characters--hailing from Britain, America, Canada and Newfoundland--battle it out for the prize of the resource-rich, financially solvent, militarily strategic island. The twists and turns are as dramatic as any spy novel and extremely surprising, since the "official" version ...

“It is, I contend, no small achievement to survive the perfect family.” So Greg Malone says at the beginning of a graceful, generous and sometimes hilarious memoir of his childhood in the St. John’s of the 1950s and 60s.A memoir from one of Canada’s comic geniuses that is as moving as it is funny, about a young boy who survives, among other things, a school run by the Christian Brothers, encounters with the bullies of New Gower Street and the perfect family.We first meet Gr...

The Premiers Joey and Frank is three stories in one. First is Premier Joseph Roberts Smallwood’s, whose ego and force of personality dominated every room he walked into, and strained to the breaking point every personal relationship he had. The latter half of the book covers Premier Frank Moores and his mixed personal motives, combined with a singularity of political purpose: Get Smallwood. Entwined in both these stories is that of Bill Rowe’s own roller-coaster political life, where famil...

In the early 1900s, Charles Noble Lewis and his family were prominent members of St. John’s high society. A chief engineer who worked for Bowring Brothers, Charles fraternized with many of the key players who shaped Newfoundland and Labrador history as we know it today. The living room of the Lewis house served as a meeting place for many of the principals of the Newfoundland sealing industry, including William Coaker, Captain Abram Kean and his sons, Joseph and Westbury Kean, John Munn, a...

Peter Cashin was at the centre—the stormy centre—of Newfoundland’s political and public life for more than thirty years. Known to many as “the fighting Major,” in a tribute to his wartime service with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, he played a decisive role at every major stage in the political drama that transformed Newfoundland from a British Dominion to a Canadian Province. Peter Cashin wrote a memoir soon after he retired from public life in 1953. Part of it was published shortly bef...

Inspired by True Events “Men who weren’t hard workers didn’t last long at the lumber woods.” Most people in Newfoundland and Labrador have someone in their family who has worked “in the woods.” Some of these workers were employed seasonally—they fished in the summer and headed to the lumber camps in the winter—while others were full-time loggers who worked year-round. Stan White runs Camp 13 on the southwestern side of Gander Lake, which is a commercial operation cutting pulpwood for Bowat...

“They didn’t die like flies, you know, like I’ve heard some reporters say over the years. Oh no, it wasn’t like that a’tall. The men who died didn’t just drop like flies. There was nothing quick or easy about it. They had frozen feet, and fingers too numb and cramped with the cold to wipe the tears from their eyes.” Cecil Mouland, the last living survivor of the SS Newfoundland sealing disaster, told his story to Gary Collins in the fall of 1971 while travelling to St. John’s, where the ol...

“Some day the sun will shine and have not will be no more.” These are the immortal words of Brian Peckford, who served as the third premier of Newfoundland, and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party from 1979 until his retirement in 1989. As one of Newfoundland’s most committed and combative leaders, Mr. Peckford’s clashes with the federal government—to wrest control of the province’s natural resources—resulted in the groundbreaking Atlantic Accord of 1985, his greatest political tr...

In Disappeared Eric Colbourne takes us on a fascinating journey through the history, folklore, and customs of a Newfoundland island outport. His sweep is broad encompassing chapters on home remedies, schooling, tragedy and adventure, and the battle fronts of the First World War. What unites these pages is a love of place and people and the truly impressive craft of the writing.

From the lead singer of the band Great Big Sea comes a lyrical and captivating musical memoir about growing up in the tiny fishing village of Petty Harbour, Newfoundland, and then taking to the world stage.Singer-songwriter and front man of the great Canadian band Great Big Sea, Alan Doyle is also a lyrical storyteller and a creative force. In Where I Belong, Alan paints a vivid, raucous and heartwarming portrait of a curious young lad born into the small ...

Warning: Graphic Content and Mature Subject Matter Rosie O’Dell is a creature of beauty, brilliance . . . and unspeakable secrets. When she was young, terrible crimes had been committed against her. Tom Sharpe became Rosie O’Dell’s high school sweetheart, and in revenge for the transgressions against her, the two young lovers committed their own crime of passion together, which ultimately ripped them apart. Thirty years have now passed since Tom has seen his Rosie O’Dell, and the interveni...

Blood and Daring will change our views not just of Canada's relationship with the United States, but of the Civil War, Confederation and Canada itself.In Blood and Daring, lauded historian John Boyko makes a compelling argument that Confederation occurred when and as it did largely because of the pressures of the Civil War. Many readers will be shocked by Canada's deep connection to the war--Canadians fought in every major battle, supplied arms to the South, and m...