There is an aura that cloaks islands in mystique and stirs the imagination. Nova Scotia would be an island if not for a narrow isthmus linking Canada's second smallest province to New Brunswick. The ocean waters surrounding Nova Scotia have proportionally more islands than anywhere else in the Atlantic. In fact, there are more than 3,800 islands that lie “scattered like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle” along nearly 5,000 miles of coastline. For Ghost Islands of Nova Scotia, Mike Parker has selected a treasure trove of 330 images and maps to produce a series of pictorial vignettes accompanied by a wealth of descriptive text. Legendary islands such as Sable, Seal, St. Paul, and Scatarie come to life, as do a score of others including Sambro, McNabs, Georges, Lawlor, Devils, Melville, Little Hope, McNutts, Oak, Isle Haute, Bon Portage, Liscomb, the Tuskets, the Canso Islands, and LaHave Islands. Featured are tales of abandoned settlements and homesteads, lighthouses and keepers, storms and shipwrecks, contagious diseases and mass burials. There are stories of lost cemeteries and ghostly apparitions, pirates and buried treasure, smugglers, spies and murderers, forts, prisons and secret passageways, even picnics, carnivals and merry-go-rounds. Ghost Islands of Nova Scotia is a virtual encyclopedia of our coastal past - a look back at a rugged, adventurous, dangerous, often lonely and sometimes tragic way of life.

Ghost Islands of Nova Scotia, Mike's fourteenth book, completes a trilogy, joining his two most recent best-sellers - Gold Rush Ghost Towns of Nova Scotia and Buried in the Woods: Sawmill Ghost Towns of Nova Scotia (see page 9). Mike has been researching, writing and talking about his native province for more than 25 years, during which time he has earned many accolades including being known as Nova Scotia's storyteller. In addition to offering heritage programs and services through Old Days, Old Ways, Mike is a research associate affiliated with the Gorsebrook Research Institute For Atlantic Canada Studies at Saint Mary's University in Halifax.

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