Allan MacIsaac was born March 22, 1927, in Inverness County, on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.  He grew up the son of a lobsterman/coal miner in a large family, where he was one of 12 children.  He remembers his childhood in positive terms, working on the farm and swimming in the ocean.  Allan’s father had been in the Royal Navy in the Great War, and one of his brothers served aboard the HMCS Prince Henry during World War Two.  When Allan was 16 he visited his brother in Halifax during a school break, and while there he signed on to the merchant navy – his father came to try to get him out of it, but the ship had sailed by then.  Allan completed a number of convoy crossings during the war, sailing out of Canada’s maritime ports to destinations in Europe and Africa, carrying the vital war supplies that kept the fight going.  Along the way he confronted the danger of U-boats and rough seas, but he remembers it largely as a positive experience for a teenage boy.  He also served on pilot ships in Halifax Harbour, and for a time he served on a cable ship, maintaining the trans-Atlantic cables that were critical to wartime communications.  Allan MacIsaac was interviewed by Scott Masters and Zach Dunn at his home in Pickering, Ontario in March 2025.