-2008-

Moosehead Breweries and its long-time owner, the Oland family, is the last of the independent Canadian beer companies. From the moment in 1867 when family matriarch Susannah Oland began brewing beer in her Dartmouth, Nova Scotia,backyard, the Oland name has been synonymous with Maritime beer and, perhaps more importantly, successful family business.

Last Canadian Beer is the story of the Oland family’s long tenure running one of Canada’s most popular breweries in the face of increasing pressure from international brew giants. While other beer brands have sold out to American and European interests, Moosehead has remained fiercely independent. The author sets out to answer three primary questions: Who are the Olands?; What has made them successful?; and How will the Olands continue to keep Moosehead as an independently owned family business?

-2005-

On the Road with Dutch Mason is a smooth fusion of rhythm and melodies in a raucous yet poignant biography of Canada’s best known blues man, Dutch Mason. The uncontested ‘Prime Minister of the Blues’, Dutch played with the likes of Junior Wells, James Cotton and John Lee Hooker. Set against the backdrop of an imaginary ten-city tour, complete with a run of electrifying shows and all-night, post-gig revelries, Dutch’s unbelievable but true stories bring to life his heyday on the Canadian blues scene. Dutch and his band’s musical sub-culture seem all the more wild and outrageous alongside the academic perspective of narrator and harmonica player David Bedford.

-2005-

“Harvey Sawler has captured the ensuing marketing mayhem and media frenzy with a good, light read in The Beer Bandit Caper.” “Sawler’s style is crisp and clean and tastes great … his tongue-in-cheek approach fits the bill and the refills of one-liners will leave the reader grinning into happy hour, but without the hangover.”
– Stephen Clare, the Halifax Daily News

“Sawler does a fine job on The Beer Bandit Caper.”
– Fredericton Daily Gleaner

The Beer Bandit Caper
When trucker Wade Haines embarked on a weekend suffering from a concoction of sleep deprivation, cocaine, rye whiskey and collapsing personal relationships, nothing good was bound to come of it. The 54,000 cans of Spanish-labeled, Mexico-bound Moosehead beer he was supposed to deliver to a depot in Toronto on August 16, 2004, never arrived. Haines went missing. The Mounties hit the trail. And Moosehead’s brand hit unparalleled heights as the media went on an as-yet unabated feeding frenzy.

The Beer Bandit Caper – The Mounties, Their Man and Mexico’s Missing Moosehead chronicles the hilarities, oddities and tragedies of the missing Moosehead saga. From the oft-convicted Haines, to the off-beat defense lawyer, to the off-the-wall story of beer-drinking black bears, to the often-enamored reporters, the wacky New Brunswick heist became the water cooler story of the year. Read for yourself what a total twist the word ‘Cerveza’ can do to what could have been just a passing late summer story of beer, bears and bad decisions.

-2009-

“Sawler ably recounts Frank McKenna’s remarkable career… It is a portrait of an extremely able, intelligent, dedicated public servant and private citizen. Frank McKenna is an old-fashioned man with modern ideas.”
– President Bill Clinton