“MacDonald had a lot of inspiration for ‘Trapper Boy'”
“I am the grandson of a coal miner,” Hugh MacDonald told the Cape Breton Post. “My grandfather, John Allan (Red Jack) MacDonald, spent his last day on earth working underground.”
Be sure to check out Ken Chisholm’s column from last week and an interview with The Chronicle Herald to find out more about where Hugh MacDonald got the inspiration to write his children’s novel about the experience of trapper boys in the coal mines of Sydney Mines in the 1920s. Both his father and an older neighbour had first hand experience in the mines and told MacDonald their stories, making the mines come alive.
Read more about MacDonald’s inspiration in Ken Chisholm’s column here and the Chronicle Herald article here, and find out more about Trapper Boy here.