Lifeline is a fascinating, awe-inspiring, occasionally hilarious, and always vital history of the ferries that serve the Atlantic provinces, and of the coastal boats that keep rural Newfoundland and Labrador alive. It also details the amazing story of the Prince Edward Island ferries and their predecessors—the iceboats that were hauled by sheer manpower over and through the challenging icepacks of the Northumberland Strait. Here, too, are the stories of the protracted development of the Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Bar Harbor, Maine, ferries, and the run from Digby, Nova Scotia, to Saint John, New Brunswick. Award-winning author Harry Bruce recounts tales of ordinary, determined citizens, heroic captains and crews, ships wrecked against ice floes and rocks and the ocean’s fury, political machinations, and the tragic outcome of a Nazi torpedo’s attack on the Caribou in 1942. Bruce’s telling is gripping, his research impeccable, and the people who come alive in these pages will give all Canadians pause, to understand the complexity of keeping the Trans-Canada Highway intact and our island provinces within confederation. Illustrated with a gallery of historic photographs and pictures from Marine Atlantic today, Lifeline is a must-read for Atlantic Canadians, and their friends.

Born and raised in Toronto, Harry Bruce has deep family and literary roots in Nova Scotia. Author of over twenty books and countless columns and articles in every major Canadian periodical, he was, successively, managing editor of Saturday Night, editor of The Canadian and columnist for The Star Weekly. He moved to Halifax as founding editor of Atlantic Insight, winner of the Outstanding Achievement Award of the National Magazine Awards Foundation. Respected worldwide as a writer, journalist and educator, in 2011 Harry Bruce received Atlantic Journalism's Lifetime Achievement Award. His book Lifeline earned the first Evelyn Richardson Memorial Literary Award for Non-Fiction. He continues to live in Halifax with his wife Penny, to whom he credits much of his success.

Harry Bruce's profile page