Book focuses on history of early Skye settlers

The trio of Richard Wood, Gordon Belsher and Brad Fremlin will once again bring their World Class Kitchen Party shows to Stanley Bridge on Saturday nights until Sept. 22.

Enjoy another season of the traditional music with awardwinning fiddler Wood, and his musical buddies Belsher and Fremlin.

This trio performs tunes that are both original and handed down from the greats (Winston Scotty Fitzgerald, Jerry Holland, Don Messer, to name a few).

“They give it all 150 per cent, and we could feel it down to our tappin’ toes,” said an audience member.

Admission is at the door. There will also be ice cream and strawberries available for sale.

Looking ahead, on Canada Day, July 1, Wood will be away performing for troops in Wainwright, Alta. So, on June 30, Belsher and Fremlin will be joined by Mark Haines, one of the co-stars of “The Island Summer Review”.

Selkirk Stories, an independent Prince Edward Island publisher, has announced the publication of a new edition of Skye Pioneers and “The Island” by Malcolm A. Macqueen (1878-1960).

It will be launched at 2 p.m. on June 16, at the Montague Rotary Library. John Westlie, publisher of the book, will speak about what he has learned about Macqueen and how he came to write Skye Pioneers. He will also outline his plans for further research.

Copies of the book will be available for sale for $30 (tax included) at the launch. Cash or credit cards will be accepted. In the meanwhile, the book is now available for purchase online. After the launch, copies will be available locally at Bookmark and Indigo in Charlottetown.

This book, first published in 1929 by the Stovell Company in Winnipeg, has long been out of print and unavailable except in costly used copies. This edition, published in conjunction with the Belfast Historical Society of Prince Edward Island, seeks to make this difficult-to-find work available to the general public in a reformatted and easy-to-read edition.

Skye Pioneers is one of the first, if not the first, published work of genealogy and family history treating the settlers from Skye, Scotland, who came to P.E.I. in the 19th century and went on to occupy positions of prominence in Canada and North America. This book is frequently cited as the source of information for later published works. This makes it an indispensable resource for anyone interested in the settlers aboard the Earl of Selkirk’s three ships (the Polly, Oughton and Dykes) in 1803 or aboard the Mary Kennedy in 1829, as well as for those studying the founding of communities like Belfast, Orwell and Uigg.

This edition has an additional feature: an introduction, written by the publisher, on “Malcolm Macqueen and the Writing of Skye Pioneers.” The introduction is based on archival and genealogical research into the life of Macqueen, as well as into other early publications on Island genealogy and family history.