"An account of the river and its people by an author with intimate knowledge of both. All the fascinating New Brunswick, place-names, Nauwigewauk and Nerepis, Washademoak and Tobique, Becaguimec and Oromocto, come into this story. The New Brunswick family names, Estey and Estabrooks, Sherwood and Ketchum, Scovil and Secord, Miles and Giberson, and many more are there. Israel Perley wants a beaver hat and Gershom Clark buries his first wife. Henry Nase stops for a glass of buttermilk and John Baker raises the American flag. Pierre Thoma consults his God and Alexander Fraser builds a pulp mill. Salmon leap at Hartt's Island Pool and a moose races a car on the Broad Road.

Every part of New Brunswick comes into the picture, for the Saint John and its branches reach out in many directions, and go beyond the province, into Maine and Quebec. But the canvas is broader yet and includes Nova Scotia, of which New Brunswick was once a county, New England, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, North and South Carolina, from which the early settlers came. The Atlantic ocean is part of the picture, its tides heightened by the Bay of Fundy, and those maritime countries, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland, whose people came and made themselves at home along the Saint John. Why are Fredericton's older houses built close to the street? Why do the falls reverse? Why does Saint John look that way? Why do New Brunswickers talk about counties? To these and many other questions this book gives the answers. With maps and photographs."