The Glace Bay Miners' Museum

Margaret McNeil has lost a father and a brother to the coal mines of Cape Breton. Her grandfather's as good as gone with the black lung, and her mother carries so much bitterness she might as well be buried alongside the lot of them. In this powerful love story set against the darkness and disasters of mining life, Margaret MacNeil tells the joyful, heart-scalding story of her hard-handed family and her rebellious love for Neil Currie, a miner by trade and a bagpiper for the joy of it. The Glace Bay Miners' Museum has been adapted both for stage and for film. The film adaptation, released in 1996 as Margaret's Museum, starring Helena Bonham Carter, Clive Russel, and Kate Nelligan, won critical acclaim and a fistful of awards, including a "two thumbs up" from Siskel and Ebert.