Located on BC's Sunshine Coast, Kleindale is famous for its extreme weather, for its oysters, and for the fabled Klein family who moved to the area in 1913 and set up farming and logging operations, supplying the massive timbers used to build the world-famous Lumbermen's Arch in Vancouver's Stanley Park. There was Grandma Martina Klein, the hardy pioneer who dyked off the mud flats and single-handedly operated the Klein Ranch; Uncle Bill, who built up the oyster farm after which Oyster Bay was named; Uncle Charlie, a man-mountain who could lift a 500-pound fuel drum onto a pickup truck and wrote funny songs; Uncle John, who made a fortune logging and ran a stable of racehorses in California; and Aunt Mabel, "who looked a lot like Uncle John with a skirt on."<BR><BR>Written by natural-born storyteller Ray Phillips, who grew up in Kleindale and counts himself "half a Klein," this fascinating chronicle throws bold light on some family skeletons and looks back with fondness on the community's proud collection of eccentrics, including his father, Jim Phillips, who could build heavy-duty logging equipment out of spare parts; Dave Gibb, a cougar hunter who was the illegitimate son of A Scot-rich lord; Ronald Heid, the six-foot-seven friendly giant; Earl Laughlin, who could talk to horses and even taught his cow to do tricks; and repulsive Fred Sutherland, "the world's dirtiest butcher," among a host of others. The book abounds with old photographs, entertaining historical anecdotes, both comic and tragic and offers a rare eyewitness account of the making of a unique coastal community.