Ronald (Ron) Caplan, (born 1945) is a publisher, writer, folk-historian, and Member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the c ...

. Born in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

, in 1945, Ronald Caplan emigrated to Canada in 1971. He moved to Canada's

Maritimes The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Ca ...

and, in 1972, he and his young family settled down in

Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (french: link=no, île du Cap-Breton, formerly '; gd, Ceap Breatainn or '; mic, Unamaꞌki) is an island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18. ...

's Highlands region, and began chronicling the local history. This was a region where

Canadian Gaelic Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig Chanada, or ), often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada. Scottish Gaels were settled in Nova Scot ...

– a dialect of

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well a ...

– was still the predominant language spoken by people in the area, but was quickly being replaced by English. Sensing that he would have only a time-limited opportunity to record this culture before its native speakers died off, he founded ''Cape Breton's Magazine'' in 1972, to record the culture and living history of the island and its people. '' Foxfire Magazine'' provided the inspiration for the magazine's design and layout, while

Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss Documentary photography, photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled The Americans (photography), ''The ...

influenced his photographic style. His audio recordings and photographs are a lasting record of this way of life that has mostly disappeared. He was appointed to the

on 30 December 2010 for his work on the magazine, and as the publisher of the Breton Books imprint.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Caplan, Ronald 1945 births Living people Jewish American writers Jewish Canadian writers Members of the Order of Canada People from Sydney, Nova Scotia American emigrants to Canada Writers from Nova Scotia 21st-century American Jews