A View from the Bucket: A Grand Lake and McNabs Island Memoir

Richard Wilbur is supervisor of the Legislative Research Service at the
New Brunswick Legislature, and the author of The Rise of French New
Brunswick.

Jean Redekopp’s lively account of life in rural New Brunswick in the
1930s focuses on three sisters and their younger brother who grew up,
for the most part unsupervised, on a rundown farm near Grand Lake. This
story of how an impoverished but resourceful family survived includes
memories of a near-drowning on Grand Lake, watching fearfully as a
forest fire skirted their farm home, exploring the countryside, earning
much-needed cash picking strawberries and potatoes, and fishing with
homemade poles.

More than just an enjoyable read, A View from the Bucket is a valuable
addition to New Brunswick’s social history.