I’ve been thinking about the Fortress of Louisbourg of late. I haven’t worked there since 2000 but I still have enormous affection for the place. I also know that its challenges are many. I would put rising sea and sinking land in that area at the top of the list.

I stacked up the books I wrote (or co-wrote) about Louisbourg just now and it makes a pretty good pile. And then there would be an awful lot of articles and manuals I produced while I was there.

I’d like to think that all my material — and other works written by Ken Donovan, Sandy Balcom, Anne Marie Lane Jonah, Christopher Moore, Brenda Dunn, Bruce Fry, Gilles Proulx and others — helped establish Louisbourg’s place in the history of Canada and the consciousness of Canadians.

The reality, of course, is that history and consciousness are ephemeral.

I wish the current staff at the Fortress of Louisbourg the very best as they do their part in protecting and presenting a place that had some fascinating and remarkable stories. 

Click on the link below for all details.

Booktoberfest! (featuring 50+ NS authors) – Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia

A.J.B. Johnston presents “The Kings of Friday Night: The Lincolns” | Events | Halifax Public Libraries (bibliocommons.com)

I’m counting the days until it’s time to offer this presentation.

Coming October. 24 at the Central Branch of the Halifax Public Library, a book lovers’ event.

The focus is on authors who had books published over the past 2 1/2 years, when the pandemic ruled out most launch events. There will be readings by nearly a dozen writers, and another 30 plus will have their books at tables. It’s a chance to chat and mingle with lots of authors and other readers. I’l be there with my two most recent books: Kings of Friday Night: The Lincolns and Ancient Land, New Land (2021).

Two Halifax bookstores, Woozles and Bookmark, will be there with books to sell.

Cape Breton’s Fortress of Louisbourg brought to life in Lego | CBC News

I think I have finally reached the end of all the Fortress-related photos that have been stored out of sight for decades.

Each of these came as a surprise. Because I don’t recall seeing any of them before.

The first, me on a slightly tipped-back chair, must have been taken for what at the time was to be the upcoming “Two Decades” exhibit in the King’s Bastion. It was to tell the story of the reconstruction and the head of exhibits, Horst Paufler, asked to to represent a generic historian. This isn’t the photo that was used to make a cut-out version of me in the eventual exhibit, but it had to have been taken during the same photo shoot.

The other two photos are of me in a drummer’s costume (of all things) and our family as it was in the summer of 1979 (before Michael was born). The former must have been for some photo shoot; the latter must have been some kind of Volunteer Association event. I know the latter had to be 1979 because Colin (the baby in the photo) was born in April 1979. Cyne, our little red-haired girl, would have been three at the time.

How fortunate we were to have had the Fortress of Louisbourg in our lives for so many years.

(These and any other Fortress-themed photos I have posted lately will all be going to the Beaton Institute.)