Greater Moncton

Richard Wilbur is the author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and the
co-author of Silver Harvest: The Fundy Weirmen’s Story.

The publisher of this handsome collection of photographs of New
Brunswick’s fastest-growing community can only have had one audience
in mind: people who were born and raised in Moncton. Other readers will
undoubtedly appreciate the artistry and skill shown by professional
photographer Boudreau, but they would be hard put to place these shots
into any context. The brief introduction by journalist Edith Robb
(translated into French, as are all the photo captions) says all the
laudatory things one might expect about this booming little city.
However, the absence of an accompanying map indicating the location of
the photographic subjects means that non-Monctonians will be truly lost.


The arrangement of the photos offers little help in this regard,
although Boudreau and his editors have tried to link facing pages. For
example, the remarkable makeover of the former Eaton’s department
store and mail-order complex serves as a neat contrast to the
spectacular atrium of the new Blue Cross Building. A double-page spread
showing neglected, uneven rails beside a long row of empty auto-rail
cars communicates more effectively than words ever could the near-total
demise of the CNR, once Moncton’s biggest employer. But what are
non-Monctonians to make of another two-page spread depicting sailboats
in a glowing sunset over Shediac Bay? (Few would guess that the city’s
summer playground is 25 kilometres away.)

A truly beautiful coffee-table production, Greater/Grand Moncton is
more successful as an inducement to tourists than as a comprehensive
guide to this ever-expanding bicultural city.