Cape Breton lives: A book from Cape Breton's magazine

by Ronald Caplan

Book by Caplan, Ronald (ed)

301 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Publisher, Writer, Folk-historian, Order of Canada appointee. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Ronald Caplan emigrated to Canada in 1971, settled in Cape Breton Island's Highlands region, and began chronicling the local history. This was a region where Gaelic was still the language spoken by people in the area, but was quickly being replaced by English. Sensing that he would have only a time-limited opportunity to record this culture before its native speakers died off, he founded Cape Breton's Magazine in 1972, to record the culture and living history of the island and its people. His audio recordings and photographs are a lasting record of this way of life that has mostly disappeared. He was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2010 for his work on the magazine and as the publisher of the Breton Books imprint. [wikipedia]

Reviews

[Nan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of short stories as collected and edited by Caplan. It is highly entertaining and gives a great view into the thoughts and mores of different parts of the cultures that make up Cape Breton Island. I delighted in meeting the people highlighted in this book. In many of the stories retold in this anthology, I found the people and their friends to come to life on the pages. An easy read but if you like to put things in perspective on Cape Breton, this is a great book to read.