Atlantic Books

Atlantic Books

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Our Sable Island Home

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red sneakers in sand long weekendFor Canadians, the Victoria Day long weekend tends to be the unofficial start of summer (whether the weather cooperates with this or not!). Get a jumpstart on your summer reading with these books, all 200 pages or less and perfectly digestible for a relaxing long weekend.

OSable Island Home - Pottersfieldur Sable Island Home by Sharon O’Hara with Mary O’Hara
Pottersfield Press, 176 pages
Our Sable Island Home is a personal story that does not shy away from the perils of life in an isolated locale, interwoven with maritime history that centres around the iconic island. The story will take you on a journey more than sixty years back into the past, to a time when Sable Island was referred to as “the Graveyard of the Atlantic.”

Eating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome Megan Gail ColesEating Habits of the Chronically Lonesome by Megan Gail Coles
Killick Press, 200 pages
Eating Habits Of The Chronically Lonesome will leave you struck, yet, exhilarated. The exploration of starvation and consumption is at the core of each character; what does our hunger reveal about the state of our soft hearts?

 

The Grand ChangeThe Grand Change by William Andrews
Acorn Press, 200 pages
William Andrews’ first novel examines life in a small PEI community in the 1940s and ’50s as changes, so common in the rest of the world, begin to take hold. Using a road as an allegory, he weaves a lyrical tale of simple country people, their struggles and their joys.

Beth Powning Home: Chronicle of a North Country Life Goose Lane EditionsHome: Chronicle of a North Country Life by Beth Powning
Goose Lane Editions, 176 pages
After twenty-five years on a New Brunswick farm, award-winning Canadian author Beth Powning came to understand the land she calls home. Now, almost twenty years after the initial publication of Home, readers may once again experience the spirit of home in nature in a new edition of her seminal book.

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Sable Island Home - Pottersfield Our Sable Island Home opens on April 23, 1951 as the O’Hara family board the Edward Cornwallis in Halifax with all their worldly possessions. They were bound for the famous (and isolated) sandbar in the Atlantic where Ernest O’Hara was to take up duties as a wireless operator.

The back cover states that “the book tells stories that bring to life the hardships, worries, desperation, fears and uncertainties that come with such isolation.”

Our Sable Island Home delivers what it says. Yet in spite of being ill-equipped to handle every misfortune, (and there were heartbreaking situations), the story never gets mired in pity or regret. It’s a casual, conversational read that is interspersed with information about island life through the eyes of Sharon and Mary O’Hara, ages six and seven.

Bonus: there’s a lovely chapter that includes an endearing letter from the authors’ father to their mother, 33 years after they left Sable Island.

Our Sable Island Home
by Sharon O’Hara with Mary O’Hara
$19.95, paperback, 176 pp.
Pottersfield Press, November 2014

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Blank white book w/pathOnce we left our house and ventured into the great outdoors, we seemed to become wild little Sable Island urchins, just existing in nature as other living things – no better, no worse. We played and lived our lives on Sable Island far removed from the outside world. We made play out of most anything we came upon, like the place where hundreds of oil barrels were kept. I think most of them were empty, waiting to be shipped out and refilled with gas or oil on the mainland.

Barrel-running was right up there as one of our favourite games – until the day when things went very wrong. We would climb on top of the barrels and dart from one to the next as fast as we could. As we were tearing around on them, one of my legs slipped down between the barrels and I fell. I screamed and cried even as Mary pulled me free, blood streaming down my legs. I writhed on the ground with pain, not knowing which part I had actually hurt. Mary sprinted home to get help. Mom rushed with Harvey to the scene and he carried me home. Mary had stayed back at the house where our two sisters napped.

Mom took me into the bathroom, examined me, washed me, and helped me to feel better, but the sight of the blood scared me.

“You stay here,” she told me. “I’m going to my bedroom to get a big bandage for you.”
In moments Mom returned with a large box.

“K-O-T-E-X,” I spelled. “What’s a Kotex bandage for?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s just a name for these bandages,” Mom explained. “They’re used by women. When you’re old enough I’ll explain – it’s nothing to worry about just now.”
I beamed with pride that I got to wear something womanly.

That same evening, in the middle of dinner with the whole family, including Harvey and Bill, I announced proudly to the group, “Guess what, I’m wearing one of Mom’s Kotex bandages.”

There was a stunned silence. Mother didn’t miss a beat.

“Would anyone like more tea?” she said.

Our Sable Island Home
By Sharon O’Hara with Mary O’Hara
$19.95, paperback, 176 pp.
Pottersfield Press, November 2014