Goose Lane Editions joins forces with the Military and Strategic Studies Program at the University of New Brunswick in an exciting new initiative. As part of the New Brunswick Military Heritage Project, a series of lively illustrated books will showcase the province's military past. Written by historians and military personnel, they will explore subjects ranging from New Brunswick's pivotal role in the American Revolution to one veteran's account of caring for World War I cavalry horses. Replete with period drawings, paintings, and photos, as well as archival and contemporary maps, they will also serve as informative guides to important histories sites. For Fall 2003, we are proud to launch the first two books in this exciting new series. Saint John, always an important gateway to Canada, is one of the oldest fortified sites in the country. "Saint John Fortifications, 16307ndash; 1956 traces the history of the port's defences, from Fort La Tour, built in 1632, to the 20th-century installations built as protection from German invasion. The 18th-century Fortress Saint John included old forts and new batteries at Lower Cove and Partridge Island. It was strengthened during all the conflicts that have shaped Canada--wars with France and the United States, the American Civil War, and the two World Wars--with each new defence system incorporating the old. Although the last of the modern installations on Partridge Island was disabled in 1956, many sites still contain substantial reminders of their past strength.

During the Second World War, hundreds of children were sent from the UK to stay with family and friends in Canada as ""war guests."" This book collects the letters of one such war guest, young Alec Douglas, who wrote from his wartime home in Toronto to his mother back home in London. Alec wrote home every week, although sometimes he forgot to post his letters, and they were delayed, and some letters did not get through. Occasionally his godmother and host, Mavis Fry, would add comments and write her own more detailed letters. Also included are letters from Lillian Kingston, who brought Alec to North America in 1940. This is a story of exposure, at an impressionable age, to ocean passage in wartime, the sights and sounds of New York, the totally new and unfamiliar world of Canada, the wonderful excitement of passage home in a Woolworth Aircraft Carrier as a ""Guest of the Admiralty,"" and his eventful return to a world he had left behind three years before.

Catastrophe weaves together compelling stories and potent lessons learned from the calamitous Halifax explosion - the worst non-natural disaster in North America before 9/11. On December 6, 1917, the Canadian city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was shattered when volatile cargo on the SS Mont-Blanc freighter exploded in the bustling wartime harbour. More than nineteen hundred people were killed and nine thousand injured. Across more than two square kilometres some 1200 homes, factories, schools and churches were obliterated or heavily damaged. Written from a scholarly perspective but in a journalistic style accessible to the general reader, this book explores how the explosion influenced later emergency planning and disaster theory. Rich in firsthand accounts gathered in decades of research in Canada, the US, the UK, France and Norway, the book examines the disaster from all angles. It delivers an inspiring message: the women and men at ""ground zero"" responded speedily, courageously, and effectively, fighting fires, rescuing the injured, and sheltering the homeless. The book also shows that the generous assistance that later came from central Canada and the US also brought some unhelpful intrusions by outside authorities. Unable to imagine the horror of the initial crisis, they ignored or even vilified a number of the first responders. This book will be of particular interest to disaster researchers and emergency planners along with journalists, and scholars of history, Maritime studies, and Canadian studies.

One of the great untold Canadian military stories revolves around the eastern seaport of Sydney, Nova Scotia. Guardian of the Gulf offers a vivid and long overdue account of Sydney harbour's role, and the importance of its coal deposits, in North Atlantic strategy and military operations from the Anglo-French wars in the eighteenth century to the end of the Cold War in the 1990s.

More than two centuries of activity in and around Sydney harbour came to a head during the world wars, when Sydney became a major convoy port in the merchant-ship lifeline that sustained Britain with supplies from North America. Essential to the air and naval forces that pursued German submarines in the waters off the coast of Canada, Sydney was also an imporatant industrial centre that produced enormous quantities of critically important coal and steel. Exploring the roles of army, navy, air force, and merchant marine, Tennyson and Sarty offer richly detailed information on garrisons, fortifications, base development, and maritime warfare.

Set against the Backdrop of national and alliance policymaking in London, Ottawa, and Washington, the story moves deftly between the larger and smaller pictures, making this a work of both colourful immediacy and broad interpretation.

Winner of the 2000 Keith Matthews Award for Best Book, awarded by Canadian Nautical Research Society