A Classic Returns! Capt. David A. McLeod tells his own rough-and-tumble life story in this robust autobiography of saltwater life and guts and passionate romance, told by a man who ended his days as a storekeeper in Cleveland, Richmond County, Cape Breton Island—an angry scar across his face, the result of a mutiny on his last ship. Cape Breton Captain is a vigorous and touching book. It is Capt. McLeod alive and feeling his oats, delivering an incomparable example of storytelling.

The forward thrust of the writing is terrific. We have nothing comparable in Cape Breton literature. McLeod brings to life scenes of brutality and love. From the circus riot in Port Hawkesbury to shipwreck and fistfights, love won and love lost, sea shanties and battling sails in storms—McLeod was a tough, tough man.

With shanties, photographs and a useful chart of the sails of a nineteenth-century barque.

A true Nova Scotian, Captain David A. McLeod was born in the village of Cleveland, Cape Breton Island in 1857 . He went to sea in 1873, and was buried in Cleveland in 1940.

Captain David A. McLeod's profile page