The Legend of Gladee's Canteen

A history of the family-owned, Nova Scotia beach canteen and two sisters determined to show their father that women can also be successful.

“Everyone remembers the famous food at Gladee’s Canteen, especially Gladee’s fish and chips and her coconut cream pie.” —Calvin Trillin

Gladee’s Canteen, several times voted as one of the ten best restaurants in Canada, was a special example of co-operative and communal spirit. At the centre of the operation were Gladee and her sister Flossie, supported by the extended Hirtle family. They offered a warm welcome and a memorable menu, in a setting brashly open to the forces of nature.

The Legend of Gladee’s Canteen tells the story of a popular Nova Scotia beach and a pioneer family who, against the odds, constructed a simple canteen at Hirtle’s Beach in 1951 and ran it for forty years. The book draws on the author’s family associations, personal memory, and the outlying stockpile of collective recollections—a tapestry of events woven through the evolutionary fabric of a small, relatively isolated Maritime coastal community.

The era of Gladee’s Canteen is remarkable story that takes place in a small coastal Nova Scotia community blessed with a spectacularly dynamic living beach. In its time, the Hirtle family and its sparkling enterprise thrived in spite of relative isolation, uncertain funding, and domestic demons. As a Nova Scotia epic, the success story of Gladee’s Canteen mirrors the recent history of Hirtle’s Beach, exemplifying the twists and turns locked up in legend.