Where Nests the Water Hen

This book by Gabrielle Roy (translated by Harry Binsse) is a bit different from the books I normally read - it's CanLit! It's a pretty evocative recounting of a family's pioneer life in frontier Manitoba. There are two tropes: the first is the building and commissioning of a schoolhouse by the Tousignants, and the second is the intersection of the roving priest with their life and that of their sparsely populated community. A third subtext is the emigration of the children (so many of them!) from the Water Hen district to be doctors and so on further south.

Apparently the translation is quite good - I haven't read the original language version, and do not claim to be in a position to judge the translation even if I had read it. The story is a little slow-moving, but complete in its progress. The book conveys a sense of the land and time the characters occupy, making it feel almost like a nostalgic golden time of hope, and simplicity.

I liked the book, and I did chuckle at the character who felt that if the Water Hen district population kept increasing at one per year (as babies were brought into the world regularly) soon he would have to decamp and move to a more remote area without so many people (before the children began leaving, there may have been 15 or 20 people at most in the immediate area, and 30 or 40 if you went out a few miles.)