Launched in a barn where you are as likely to hear classical music as the cooing of pigeons or the lowing of cows, a book celebrating traditional timber-frame structures is one of the most popular publications of the Brucedale Press.

Barns of the Queen's Bush, written by Jon Radojkovic, chronicles twenty-three barns and two mills. While many of the featured barns are familiar to travellers on country roads in Grey and Bruce, several are gone. It's partly those disappearances that prompted Jon to compile the book.

"I tried to capture through photographs the intricate designs and craftsmanship of 19th century builders," he says. "These large timber frames, some 30 metres by 20 metres, were put together without one nail--only accurate notching and hardwood dowels have held whole barns together for over a hundred years."

Barns of the Queen's Bush includes a chapter on barn raisings and a guide to the language of barn-building. It features more than 200 photographs, as well as line drawings by Durham-area artist Mary Tripp MacCarl. Both a quality softcover version and a limited hardcover edition are available.

For the past ten years, Jon Radojkovic has freelanced as a photographer and journalist with the Owen Sound daily newspaper, The Sun Times, and local weeklies such as The Chesley Enterprise andThe Markdale Standard, and the monthly Mosaic. Barns of the Queen's Bush is his first book.

Open Book Explorer interview : http://www.openbookontario.com/news/five_explorer_questions_jon_radojkovic

Third printing now available. This edition uses Forest Stewardship Council certified papers and remains at $35.00/copy.

160 pages
$35.00 in Canada
ISBN 1-896922-15-5 978-1-896922-15-7

Big Bay North Keppel The Way It Was by Lynne Porter

This popular every-year diary celebrates the heritage of Bruce County including birthdays for NHL hockey players, renowned nurses, and events such as major storms and shipwrecks.

Format includes 54 original drawings by Kenneth L. Thornburn., spiral bound
$15.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-96922-58-4

This powerful two-act play reveals the hidden story of the Aboriginal runners who carried the torch to the 1967 Pan-American Games at Winnipeg. Denied access to the stadium at that time, in 1999 the surviving runners received an apology from the Province and a standing ovation from the crowd. Laura Robinson has worked closely with surviving frontrunners to create a script that begins when they were boys in residential school. The play forms the basis for the film of the same title, to be distributed by the NFB.

The book includes full text of the script, the playwright’s notes, cast lists, and still photographs.

FrontRunners on DVD is now distributed through the National Film Board.

60 pages, size 8.5 x 11, stapled, Full-colour cover
$12.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-39-3

The story of the men away, through their letters, diaries and memoirs, and of their families and communities at home, a generation of Canadians whose shadow falls on us yet.

224 pages, 16 page photo section, hardcover
$27.95 in Canada
ISBN 0-9698716-8-6 978-0-9698716-8-2

John R. Hardy's vivid account of life on a family farm from one hundred years ago to the final auction sale. Generously illustrated with images from family albums that take readers through the seasons: seeding and blossoms, haying and harvest, autumn colour and winter sparkle. His grandparents' farm was often visited by legendary photographer Reuben R. Sallows, who used the Hardys' operation to represent Ontario agriculture.

Designed by Bill Boyer, the pages of Harvest Dust evoke a bygone era in nostalgic detail.

John R. Hardy is the author/photographer of Rusty Rails: a photographic record of branchline railways in Midwestern Ontario 1961 – 1996 and Canadian Rail Travel.

Quality softcover edition 100 pages 8 x 10 inches 21 pages colour photographs, many B&W images
$33.00 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-55-3

Compiled by Anne Duke Judd from the Muskoka Roots Collection, a scrapbook history of Port Carling's real main street, the Indian River.

138 pages, over 100 photos, softcover
NOW 15.00 in Canada
ISBN 0-9698716-4-3 978-0-9698716-4-4

Package of 5 matching notecards with colour photographs by Robert D. Judd $4.50

The tale of two villages that evolved into one community. 38 vignettes recall the early years of Native occupation, the settlers who displaced the original inhabitants, and the more recent families who enjoy the scenic setting. Winding through time, the stories and original drawings by the author depict buildings past and present.Accounts of hardship and misery, hope and dreams show the profound connections among residents over a century and a half. OXENDEN The Way It Was concludes in the 1950s, as a new era changed everything.

The Brucedale Press
ISBN 978-1-896922-67-6

$20.00

96 pages with four archival maps and forty-one detailed drawings

From 1937 until the mid 1960s, RESTLESS and RESTLESS TOO carried passengers along the coast of Lake Huron between Port Elgin and Southampton, Ontario. John G. Mackay rode aboard from babyhood while his father, George Mackay, operated the vessel. Later, John crewed for both his father and partner Addie Cairns. To present the story of the building and sailing of the boats, John has spent several years researching old newspapers, family documents, and interviewing those who recall the harbours as they once were.

Generously illustrated with nostalgic photographs, this book will stir memories of the many folks for whom a ride on RESTLESS highlighted summer on the lakeshore.

80 pages quality softcover 5.5 x 8.5 inches with more than 60 nostalgic photographs
$10 in Canada
ISBN 978-1-896922-40-9

Documents 35 years in the history of rural transportation. With more than 200 original photographs by the author, this book coveys a personal approach to the rail lines that once criss-crossed the Ontario map.

168 pages, quality softcover with 8 full-colour and many B& W photos
$34.95 in Canada
ISBN 1-896922-20-1 978-1-896922-20-1