Each book of this series is a separate tale about families who came to North America and how they lived their lives on the edge of an unforgiving sea:
About the Book
Expulsion and Survival is the fifth volume in the
Abuse of Power series by Bill Smallwood
French Irregulars (mostly Acadians and Indians), who had been fighting the British in support of Fortress Louisbourg, had fled across the Bras D´Or Lakes to escape capture. Two of the fugitives sought shelter on Île Saint Jean (now Prince Edward Island) hoping that the British would not come; but the British came. The fugitives, Robert Cameron and Reine LeBlanc, managed to escape the second expulsion of the Acadians by hiding in the backwoods where they believed they could live unnoticed by the conquerors.
Unfortunately, the Proprietor System of Land Ownership, established by the English in 1768 and not annulled until after Prince Edward Island joined the Canadian Confederation in 1870, was all encompassing; the squatters were discovered. The story of their survival is compelling.
About the Author
It is every boy´s dream to be just like his Dad. Bill Smallwood´s father was the best cookie and candy salesman in Nova Scotia. Perhaps that might have been good enough if Bill had been born somewhere else, but Bill was born in Halifax and his Dad raised him on stories about the world´s largest natural harbour.
Excited by life´s prospects, and encouraged by his father, Bill graduated from the Royal Military College with a degree in history and an officer´s commission in the Royal Canadian Airforce, going on to navigate transport aircraft in the Korean War and jet fighters along the East German border during the Berlin Crisis. With the Cold War drawing to a close, Bill joined the Public Service at HMC Dockyard, Halifax. Before his retirement from the Canadian Public Service in 1986, he was Director of Civilian Training and Development for the Department of National Defence and, after retirement, became the right hand man for his wife in her highly successful real estate career.
When it was grandchildren time, Bill recounted the old stories. He came to realize that each story had a thread that entwined with the threads of other stories. Giving them a little tug here and a pull there, a picture emerged as to what it must have been like in the early day of Nova Scotia. If Bill´s Dad were alive today, he would be proud of his son´s storytelling.
