BOOK REVIEWS

The Labyrinth of North all of it – Canada, the United States, American Identities and Mexico – share a common North American identity. Philip Resnick This is a short book, and Resnick Toronto: University of Toronto moves quickly through complex Press, 2012. 176 pp. $22.95 paper. terrain. His first five chapters deal with the European appropriation of Cole Harris the continent: the relationship with University of British Columbia Native peoples, the idea of a chosen people, trajectories from colony to independence, language and empire, uch writing on early Canada has manifest destiny. Then he considers sought to explain why Canada is some of the basic institutions of North notM the United States. The roots of the American life: market economies, two countries are alleged to have been democracy, the state. He gives a chapter very different and to explain different to New World utopias and dystopias, contemporary societies. Harold Innis then turns in three final chapters to the posited a northern society built around regional structure of North America, the staple trades of the Canadian to the question of a North American Shield; and John Ralston Saul, to civilization, and to the labyrinth as a take a contemporary example, posits North American metaphor. All of this a Canadian society that is a particular is a tall order. Resnick reads widely Métis blend of European and Native and has written a lively if somewhat ways. Given the proximity and power breathless book that is perhaps best of the United States, and the relative described as a sophisticated primer frailty of the country stretched along for those interested in the similarities its northern border, such writing is among and differences between Canada, understandable, but it is not what Philip the United States, and Mexico. Resnick is about in The Labyrinth of In this exploration he finds elements North American Identities. His focus, of a common North American identity. rather, is on North America, and Canada, the United States, and Mexico there he considers to what extent the are all New World societies, products three countries that comprise almost of the European appropriation of bc studies, no. 84, Winter 14/15 139 140 bc studies

Aboriginal lands, yet each retaining It is useful to be reminded of these elements of the societies and cultures commonalities and also, as this analysis that settler colonialism displaced. In reveals, of their limitations. Resnick each country, colonial regimes have turns, in conclusion, to the metaphor yielded to independent states. The of the labyrinth to suggest the variety European languages that quickly of North American ways. But one gets dominated these new societies were lost in labyrinths, and he and his readers all modified by their New World can easily get lost in the complexity of circumstances. The energy and North America. There is no simplifying, momentum of the continent’s dominant overriding argument; rather, The power, the United States, and the Labyrinth of North American Identities pragmatic individualism, capitalism, stands as a brave, short summary of the and popular culture associated with it, ways in which North America’s three have considerably Americanized both largest countries resemble and diverge Canada and Mexico. Migrations across from each other. international borders have also blurred national differences. Contours of a People: Métis Overall, however, Resnick’s analysis Family, Mobility, and History leaves this reader – and also, I think, Resnick himself – with the sense Nicole St-Onge, that Canada, the United States, and Carolyn Podruchny, and Mexico are very different countries. Even where the case for similarity is Brenda Macdougall, editors strongest, the details suggest otherwise. Norman: University of Oklahoma In both Mexico and the United States, Press, 2012. 482 pp. $24.95 paper. for example, Aboriginal voices remain, but the weight and place of these voices Scott P. Stephen in the two countries is vastly different. Parks Canada, Winnipeg Canada sits somewhere between. Although the three countries are former elf-conscious litanies of colonies, in detail their trajectories to intellectual genealogy are common independence have little in common. inS volumes such as this. Although Resnick is a political scientist; his Nicole St-Onge, Carolyn Podruchny, chapter on the state is essentially an and Brenda Macdougall have their inventory of differences that constitute own courses to chart, they are quick “a major distinguishing characteristic to acknowledge their debt to Jennifer among the three North American S.H. Brown and Jacqueline Peterson’s 85 countries” ( ). He is well aware that 1985 volume, The New Peoples: Being and these states are composed of many Becoming Métis in North America, which regions, and he uses the metaphor of laid many of the interpretive frameworks the archipelago to suggest something for subsequent research. Not only are of this variety. historiographical discussions useful Of course, Canada, the United for those new to the subject, but family States, and Mexico are North American (and thus family history) is one of the countries, common products of conceptual foundations of this book, European overseas expansion, settler along with geography and mobility, colonialism, and some of the basic family-defined Métis cultures, and institutions of the modernizing world. world views. Book Reviews 141

The authors show considerable traditionally rely was produced by the spatial and temporal mobility, ranging subjects of our inquiry. In his chapter, in focus from the Great Lakes to the “Against Spatialized Ethnicity,” Philip Pacific coast, and from the eighteenth D. Wolfart suggests that historians of to the twenty-first centuries. They the Métis have been trying to fit square include legal, labour, and linguistic pegs into round holes. The physical and history; histories of space and of social mobility of the Métis fits poorly place; boundaries both tangible and within spatialized understandings intangible. Jacqueline Peterson revisits of the geographical organization of her seminal article, “Many Roads the world and has proved notoriously to Red River,” and challenges her difficult to “map.” Métis communities own earlier conclusions: she now were “aspatial,” similar to communities denies the emergence of a Métis group in “pre-modern” Western Europe: the consciousness or identity in the Great boundaries of their world were social Lakes. Étienne Rivard examines Métis rather than geographic, defined by concepts of place and identity within systems of social obligations. Or, to put oral narratives; Peter Bakker maps the it another way, scholars may not need connections between new languages to “think outside the box” as much as to and new identities; and Chris Andersen redefine “the box.” That is exactly what explores the complex ways in which the editors and authors of this volume historical identities are reflected in have set out to do. modern communities and in legal relations. Only Métis material culture is conspicuous by its absence from this Métis in Canada: History, wide-ranging and thought-provoking Identity, Law and Politics collection of articles. Of particular interest to readers of Christopher Adams, Gregg this journal is the chapter entitled, Dahl, and Ian Peach, editors “Métis Networks in British Columbia: Examples from the Central Interior,” Edmonton: University of Alberta 2013 640 $65 00 by Mike Evans, Jean Barman, and Press, . pp. . paper. Gabrielle Legault, with Erin Dolmage Jennifer Hayter and Geoff Appleby. The Métis of University of Toronto British Columbia have not been well understood, except as families on the decade has R. v. fringes of the historic Métis Nation. passed since Powley Scholars have usually defined the Métis determined that the Métis through shared historical experiences: inA Sault Ste. Marie have an Aboriginal those experiences have mostly been right to hunt, and we are still coming centred on the Prairies, but here the to terms with its significance. The Métis authors illustrate two family networks multidisciplinary collection in Canada centred west of the Rockies, those of is a welcome addition to Jean Baptiste Boucher and of Peter the discussion, with its stated aim of Skene Ogden. enhancing our understanding of the Powley Métis dynamism challenges our post- conceptual landscape. The notions of defining group identities, book offers twelve chapters divided into particularly when so little of the four sections: identity, history, law, and written documentation upon which we politics. 142 bc studies

It is by no means a unified book; the I highlight these differences to contributors’ perspectives are as diverse underscore one of the book’s themes – as are the Métis themselves. Though the diversity – but the authors share the goal contributors generally use “Métis” in a of working towards a more complex and broad manner to signify a type of people nuanced understanding of “Métis.” By rather than a specific population (i.e., looking at the Métis from a variety of not just Red River), this is certainly not perspectives, the chapters will certainly universal. For instance, Gloria Jane Bell stimulate reflection and discussion. and Darren O’Toole do not identify the Other highlights of the book include mixed-race peoples of the Great Lakes four newly discovered writings by as Métis because, as O’Toole argues, Louis Riel, transcribed, translated, they did not develop a political identity and interpreted by Glen Campbell or national consciousness as did the Red and Tom Flanagan. Historians will River Métis. In examining depictions also appreciate Haggarty’s alternative of Great Lakes métis (with a lower-case economic history of the Métis, which “m”) clothing, Bell also concludes that explores a Saskatchewan Métis they lacked a single identity and that they economy that was grounded in sharing did not consciously dress to represent but not necessarily in the fur trade. themselves as a unique ethnic group. There is little about British Columbia Ian Peach and Jeremy Patzer, in their in the book, but this is not surprising chapters on Métis rights jurisprudence, given that British Columbia is often differ on the meaning and consequences excluded in Métis studies because there of Powley. Peach sees it as a conceptual is no consensus on the nature or even breakthrough since it was the first case to the existence of BC Métis. However, recognize the Métis as a distinct rights- the themes the book examines will be bearing people, unlike previous cases that of interest to scholars of Aboriginal derived Métis rights from First Nations studies across Canada. Aboriginal rights (based on their “Indian blood” or “Indian mode of life”). Patzer, Powley on the other hand, sees as yet Lives Lived West of the Divide: another case that grounds Aboriginal rights in a population’s “authenticity” – A Biographical Dictionary of its adherence to a supposedly static and Fur Traders Working West of the bygone culture. The book also features Rockies, 1793-1858, Volumes 1-3 a diversity of opinion on the nature and goals of Métis political organization. Bruce McIntyre Watson Kelly L. Saunders argues that the Kelowna: ubc Okanagan, 2010. Métis have always seen themselves as 1292 $45 00 a self-governing and sovereign people, pp. . paper. and Janique Dubois explores how the Nancy Marguerite Anderson Saskatchewan Métis have actually Victoria achieved a degree of self-governance. On the other hand, Christopher Adams, though he does recognize that the Métis n 1793 Alexander Mackenzie aspire to govern their own nations some crossed the continent in search of a day, believes (somewhat controversially) routeI to the Pacific for the North West that they are best understood as interest Company trade. He reached the Pacific groups. at Dean Channel but failed to find a Book Reviews 143 viable trade route, and the North West the sixty-three forts, their locations, Company temporarily abandoned the and their construction; and a handy territory west of the Rocky Mountains. chronology to tie all this information Twelve years later, fellow Nor’Wester together. Half way into the first volume Simon Fraser constructed his first post he begins what he calls the core of the at McLeod Lake, and David Thompson book, his biographical listing, which is entered the territory a few years later. In not complete until well into the third the fifty or more years since those first volume. Watson concludes Volume 3 posts were constructed, thousands of with more important information fur trade employees came by sea or land from the districts west of the Rocky to work as far apart as Stuart’s Lake Mountains: the ships, the medicines, (in north-central British Columbia) the fur trade libraries, and a listing of and Fort Hall (in today’s Idaho). Their primary and secondary resources. stories remain, sometimes indexed in Personally, I am a heavy user of the impressive volumes of the Hudson’s Watson’s three indispensable volumes, Bay Record Society or the Champlain both on my blog and in my upcoming Society but more often in obscure books. As a fur trade biographer, I know unpublished archival collections. that I will use these essential reference After more than twenty years of volumes for years to come. They are a intensive research involving primary vital resource for those historians – alas, sources housed all over North America too few of us! – who research the history and Great Britain, Bruce McIntyre of British Columbia in the half century Watson put together Lives Lived West before the arrival of the Fraser River of the Divide, a massive three-volume gold miners. Unfortunately, historians biographical dictionary that lists the who do not specialize in this period of fur trade employees who worked BC (or American Pacific Northwest) on the west side of the mountains – history might decide they do not have Scots, French Canadians, Iroquois a use for the book, but they should and Abenaki First Nations, Kanakas, remember that the descendants of fur Americans, and many others of various traders are everywhere. Indeed, my sense ethnicities and backgrounds. Though he is that most purchasers are fur trade omits some groups, such as Russian fur descendants or historians researching traders and employees of the Hudson’s specific posts. Both these groups might Bay Company’s subsidiary, the Puget’s quibble or argue about the details of his Sound Agricultural Company, he research, but all are loud in praise of the includes many American adventurers as work Watson has done. well as the three shipwrecked Japanese The biographies are in alphabetical sailors who arrived at Fort Vancouver order; it is easy to find people unless in 1834 – an astounding piece of research Watson identifies them with a different in itself. name than that used in the fort records Watson wants Lives Lived West of the (as in the case of Louis Desasten, who Divide to cast light on the complicated also went by the name “Marineau”). lives of the men who worked in the fur I found some editing errors (mostly trade on the west side of the Rockies. punctuation), but they are not serious. He eases us into his dictionary with As a researcher I have discovered a few a manageable introductory survey of people whose stories are missing. And the twenty fur trade companies that while sometimes I have questions, for existed here; detailed information on the most part I trust Watson’s research. 144 bc studies

Lives Lived West of the Divide will views. The solution that Boyd, Ames, be valuable to anyone interested in the and Johnson bring to this tension is early history of the political territory juxtaposition: the creation of a mosaic that most British Columbians think in which individual disciplinary tiles originated with the Fraser River gold are ordered to reveal a larger picture. rush. It is eye opening to realize that This anthology presents Indigenous almost thirty-five hundred mainly and non-Native views from a range of non-Indigenous men played significant institutional and cultural perspectives roles in our history before that event organized into Chinookan and occurred. Academics will eventually post-contact sections focusing on a mine these volumes for ideas, patterns, number of empirical and thematic and stories, but their immediate fans are issues. Such an endeavour will be of fur trade descendants like myself and interest to students of Indigenous others interested in the people and lives history in any context, but there are of the fur trade era. We descendants are particular parallels to the Salish world. everywhere; we are interested in our Chinookan history is complex due to history; we share information with each the richness and variety of Indigenous other; we re-enact our own stories at fur expression, the heterogeneous network trade events; and we are the primary of what constitutes membership in purchasers of the few books written Chinookan identity, the cosmopolitan about what we feel is the real history and integrated connections throughout of our province. We don’t want to be and beyond the region, and the long ignored, and Bruce McIntyre Watson and complex history of colonialism that has not ignored us in this valuable work. has intruded, often considerably, upon Chinook people. There is something comfortingly Chinookan Peoples of the traditional in the book’s balance of Lower Columbia detailed individual analysis and its breadth of scope. Many of the chapters Robert T. Boyd, provide a wealth of fundamental Kenneth M. Ames, and empirical data on what is known about Tony A. Johnson, editors Chinookan history as well as rich analysis of the logic – and gaps – in Seattle: University of Washington its interpretation. It is the sort of book Press, 2013. 448 pp. $50.00 cloth. that will be both indispensable to any Chinookan scholar and the subject of Andrew Martindale envy on the part of historians beyond. University of British Columbia Although the aspiration is orthodox, and as a result expansive, this project he study of Indigenous history is clearly an attempt to move beyond is fundamentally interdisciplinary the constraints of the early culture-area andT benefits, as Chinookan Peoples of overview, most visibly in the inclusion the Lower Columbia illustrates, from of Chinookan authors. consideration of different forms of Tony Johnson’s introductory chapter data from a range of disciplinary and outlines the long history of Chinookan cultural perspectives. The challenge of tradition and its resilience in the such endeavours is to achieve an overall face of colonial incursions. His twin coherence in the context of divergent proposition, that “an indigenous Book Reviews 145 heartbeat continues” (4) despite the Despite these laudable strengths, Chinookans’ being “driven off” (7) indeed perhaps because of the effort their territory by Europeans, is a story to broaden the disciplinary view of common to Indigenous people (for Chinookan history, the volume has similar examples from British Columbia, unfilled gaps. It is in some ways three see Carlson 2001; and Sterritt et al. 1998). books in one: a series of analyses of Part 1 (“The Chinookan World”) is a solid Chinookan traditions from Western cohort of more orthodox archaeological archaeologists, geographers, and and historical analyses. Ames, Sobel, anthropologists; a suite of historic and Losey’s archaeological summary analyses in the context of colonialism; frames Chinookan history against and a series of analyses by Chinookan regional trends to locate what is known authors about their own culture and against the backdrop of archaeological history. These are not just differences gaps. Ellis maps the cultural geography, of perspective but different forms while Trieu Gahr’s ethnobotanical of scholarship that are citationally analysis and the history of fisheries distinct and that investigate different by Butler and Martin are thorough subjects. The first is an exploration compilations of rich ethnohistoric of ancient Chinookan behaviour, and archaeological results. Hadja, the second presents the Western Ames, and Sobel, variously, provide documentation of Chinookan comprehensive analyses of trade systems practice, and the third provides a and household and social organization. consideration of the importance of Hymes and Seaburg weave structural Chinook history and tradition in and symbolic features of Chinookan understanding contemporary issues. oral literature recorded in the early While this juxtaposition is welcome twentieth century, and Boyd follows and allows for refreshing examples with an encyclopedic assessment of of the integration of major themes ceremonial trends. Johnson and McIsaac (for example, Fisher and Jetté look provide a refreshing examination of both inside and outside Chinook the meanings and values of artistic documented history, Boyd explores gesture and motif to Chinookan people, paleoepidemiology and ceremonial illustrating the continuity of tradition curing, and Zenk and Johnson provide despite the changes of the colonial era. an analysis of Chinook Wawa that is Part 2 (“After Euro-American Contact”) as detailed as it is cool), there are also explores that impact via demography spaces and contradictions. Ellis argues (Boyd), settler history (Lang), Chinook for historical discontinuity; Johnson Wawa (Zenk and Johnson), and the sees the opposite; Hymes and Seaburg Chinookan struggle for recognition do not examine history in their rich from US authorities (Fisher and Jetté). analysis; and many of the archaeological Thorsgard and Williams narrate the chapters point to but do not explore disenfranchisement of Chinookan the links between past and present. people from key areas of their territory Additionally, there is no real assessment and provide evidence from Indigenous of why these spaces in the mosaic form scholarship for their rights and titles. In or why disciplinary differences produce what must be his last publication, Wayne divergent views around a unified history. Suttles (with Lang) presents the history To some extent the lack of evaluation of ethnographic and ethnohistoric is a missed opportunity, although the sources. criticism speaks to a larger disciplinary 146 bc studies phenomenon. Interdisciplinarity is editors have selected and translated not simply coexistence but, rather, forty-five letters, forty of which have suggests an attempt to reconcile been translated from the original contradictions between different ways French. Highlights include Blanchet’s of understanding. By this measure, report on the Whitman massacre, Boyd et al. have covered considerable which occurred fewer than three ground, though there is distance yet to months after his arrival at Walla Walla; travel. the subsequent conflicts between the growing numbers of settlers and Native Americans that threatened the survival References of the Catholic mission; competition Carlson, Keith. 2001. A Stó:lō-Coast with rival Methodist missionaries; Salish Historical Atlas. Vancouver: negotiations with secular authorities Douglas & McIntyre. in the Hudson’s Bay Company and later the US federal government; Sterritt, Neil J., Susan Marsden, Robert the establishment of churches and Galois, Peter R. Grant, and Richard schools to serve both Native and settler Overstall. 1998. Tribal Boundaries in populations, many of the latter of the Nass Watershed. Vancouver: ubc whom were (like Blanchet and many Press. other Catholic missionaries) French Canadian in origin; protests over the mistreatment of Native Americans Selected Letters of A.M.A. by Indian agents; fundraising and Blanchet, Bishop of Walla Walla recruitment of priests and missionary and Nesqualy (1846-1879) sisters from Quebec and Europe; and the administration and enforcement of Roberta Stringham Brown discipline upon the growing Catholic and Patricia O’Connell Killen, establishment in what eventually editors; Roberta Stringham became Washington State. Brown, translator The editors have done a superb job combing church archives in Seattle: University of Washington Washington State, Quebec, and France, Press, 2013. 408 pp. $40.00 cloth. and mining published sources to provide background on the people, events, and John Barker contexts of the letters. Each letter is University of British Columbia copiously annotated. The book is less successful with regard to achieving uring his long tenure as the its larger ambition – to draw upon founding Bishop of Walla Walla Blanchet’s correspondence not only to andD of its successor diocese of Nesqualy, tell the story of the Catholic mission but A.M.A. Blanchet meticulously also to provide a “deeper appreciation” copied (or had copied) his outgoing of the “moving mosaic of people correspondence. Upon his retirement representing multiple ethnicities, in 1879, over thirty-two years after cultures, and convictions” that provided making the challenging overland trek the early cast of Washington’s territorial to Walla Walla, he had recorded more history (x). To this end, the editors have than nine hundred letters filling five arranged the letters in chronological large letter books. From this trove, the order and with separate introductions Book Reviews 147 to each not only to provide background Charles Edenshaw but also to create a connecting narrative. Unfortunately, the letters work against Robin K. Wright, Daina them. Blanchet did not write with the Augaitis, and Jim Hart, editors needs of future historians in mind. London: Black Dog Publishing, With few exceptions, his missives 2013 256 $39 95 address the immediate concerns of . pp. . cloth. the mission diocese. In many cases, the introductions and annotations run Martha Black longer – and sometimes considerably Royal British Columbia Museum longer – than the letters themselves, which often prove to be less interesting his is the catalogue for the and informative than the editors’ Vancouver Art Gallery’s Charles commentaries. Indeed, on occasion TEdenshaw exhibition. Curated and the letters impede the larger historical edited by Robin K. Wright (curator narrative as the editors work to explain of Native American Art and director specific contingencies that had few, if of the Bill Holm Center for the Study any, lasting consequences. of Northwest Coast Art at the Burke The bigger disappointment lies Museum and professor of art history with the letters themselves. Few make in the School of Art at the University compelling reading. Most are fairly of Washington); with the Vancouver narrowly addressed to the business Art Gallery’s chief curator/associate of the day. Even in his longer letters, director, Daina Augaitis; and advisors Blanchet does not come across as a very Jim Hart (Chief 7Idansuu) and Robert reflective writer. He makes minimal Charles Davidson (guud san glans), two efforts at description, and one gains distinguished artists and Edenshaw few insights into his personal character, descendants, the exhibition brings aspirations, and struggles. All the same, together, for the first and very likely there is no denying the importance of only time, exceptional works from the letters or the service that Brown and thirty-two North American and Killen have provided in publishing this European museums and nineteen private well-edited and annotated selection. collections. Most are reproduced in this They report in the Preface that Brown beautifully designed and illustrated has translated the entire corpus of book, which is a bargain at $39.95. Blanchet’s official correspondence into Chapters by Haida artists and scholars English, a significant contribution in its (Stacey Brown, Nika Collison, Robert own right and, it is hoped, one that will Charles Davidson, guujaw, James Hart, be made available for future historical Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson) and research. non-Haida scholars (Daina Augaitis, Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Bill Holm, Alan Hoover, Aldona Jonaitis, Bill McLennan and Karen Duffek, and Robin K. Wright) explore themes of tradition and narrative, style and attribution, innovation and legacy. Taken together, the texts encapsulate current thinking about First Nations art history. 148 bc studies

Holm’s seminal essay, “Will the will continue to be, subject to change Real Charles Edenshaw Please Stand as more information comes to light and Up?: The Problem of Attribution in the concept of art historical attribution Northwest Coast Indian Art,” appears itself is examined, the clarity of here in an edited version. Originally Edenshaw’s stylistic signature is also published in 1981 in The World Is as demonstrated. Sharp as a Knife: An Anthology in Honour A modern cosmopolitan, of Wilson Duff (Donald Abbott, ed., Edenshaw made artworks for sale to British Columbia Provincial Museum), the ethnographic market (he began it provides a baseline for subsequent working with Franz Boas in 1897) and thinking about individual style, for the souvenir trade, travelling and attribution, and the continuing project selling works throughout the coast. of codifying the Edenshaw oeuvre. He was a professional commercial In retrospect, Holm writes that he would carver but, at the same time, a high- change few of the conclusions presented ranking Haida man brought up in and in his early exploration of what is and practising the age-old traditions of his is not an Edenshaw, but he warns that culture, as the contemporary artists stylistic attribution can be speculative interviewed by Collison articulate. and perilous. Wright’s chapter considers Several contributors explain aspects of some past and present attributions Edenshaw’s Haida iconography and how and the path from assumptions and it finds expression in new ways. Hoover sureties of the twentieth century reveals that innovative, naturalistic, to today’s more self-conscious and European-style formal elements appear cautious approach. At the same time, in illustrations of Haida narratives and distinctive stylistic details showcased other works done for non-Indigenous in the many illustrations throughout clients. Bunn-Marcuse explores cross- the book support the codification of cultural elements in the work, arguing a remarkable production despite the that European imagery does not very small number of documented signal a separate taxonomic category works. In a characteristically articulate but, rather, is an integral part of presentation, McLennan and Duffek Edenshaw’s practice. Jonaitis’s chapter examine Edenshaw’s silverwork and deftly positions Edenshaw within the postulate a chronology based on modernist framework of analysis, a style and historical factors, a project current concern in Native art history. facilitated by McLennan’s digital She articulates the characteristics that scans showing bracelets as flat designs. allow us to see Edenshaw’s modernism (As McLennan and Duffek point out, as an underlying theme throughout the Edenshaw would never have seen book. his work this way: he worked in the The rejection of dichotomies round rather than on sheet silver, as is such as definite/possible (about typically done today.) Davidson, who attribution), individual/collective, is Edenshaw’s great-grandson, guides timeless/changing, oral/written, non- us through the complex design on an commercial/commodity, authentic/ argillite platter, analyzing the unique inauthentic, typical/atypical, organization and spatial tensions that traditional/acculturated, anthropology/ have influenced his own contemporary art, and even Indigenous/non- art. So, while acknowledging that Indigenous is characteristic of today’s stylistic attributions have been, and thinking about First Nations art and is a Book Reviews 149 key message in this volume’s texts. One Mary Spencer is a welcome contribution of the dualities undermined in these to, and a reminder of how much work chapters is then/now. Some Edenshaw remains to be done on, the history of works illustrate Haida narratives such art in British Columbia’s Interior. Mary as How Raven Gave Females Their Spencer, born in Ontario in 1857, died Tsaw (genitals), the Blind Halibut in Summerland in 1938 at the age of Fisherman, and the Lazy Son-in-Law. eighty-one. She moved west with her Edenshaw told versions of such stories mother and her sister Isobel in 1899 and to anthropologists James Swanton and spent twelve years in Kamloops, where Franz Boas in the late nineteenth and she worked as a photographer; she then early twentieth centuries; different, moved to the Okanagan in 1911, where equally authentic, versions of them she became, along with her sister, an are recounted in this book. Terri- orchardist. Spencer’s fame rests on the Lynn Williams-Davidson tells us photos she took of Bill Miner, the train that such accounts of supernatural robber, when he was captured near events are legal lessons and templates Kamloops, and on her posthumous for ethical living here and now. The cameo appearance in the character of narratives are simultaneously ancient photographer Kate Flynn in Philip and contemporary; the ancestors are Borsos’s filmThe Grey Fox (1982). very much part of today’s world. Foster deploys the word “genealogy” “Whenever I replicate an old piece, in the first sentence of her introduction, the original creator comes through and the ensuing text is largely shaped and their hands guide my hands,” said by her interest in Mary Spencer’s Isabelle Rorick, a master weaver and life and details about her ancestors Edenshaw descendant whom Augaitis and members of her family. Foster is interviewed. “They convey the feelings warmly enthusiastic about her subject, they went through at the time of but even allowing for what I suspect making their piece” (211). This volume was a radical pruning of the original attests to Edenshaw’s continuing manuscript to fit into 191 pages, Spencer presence and agency in Haida life and seems like a difficult biographical the wider artistic sphere. capture. There appear to be no diaries and few letters by Spencer with which to work, and Foster has had to rely on observations made by those who knew A Steady Lens: her. She devotes considerable attention The True Story of Pioneer to Spencer’s time in Summerland, as might be expected given Spencer’s Photographer Mary Spencer nearly three decades there as a fruit Sherril Foster grower; indeed, a more accurate title might have been “... Photographer and Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2013. Fruit Grower.” Both professions were 192 pp. $22.95 paper. unusual for women at the time, and, while scholars such as Carol Williams Carolyn MacHardy and Susan Close have provided excellent University of British Columbia recent critical writing on settler women photographers, there remains a dearth herril Foster’s A Steady Lens: The of scholarship on women fruit growers STrue Story of Pioneer Photographer in the Okanagan Valley. 150 bc studies

One hundred high-quality images Harold Mortimer-Lamb: are sprinkled throughout the book, The Art Lover including, besides Spencer’s work as a commercial photographer in the Robert Amos 1891 Kamloops area, an pen-and-ink Victoria: TouchWood Editions, sketch of a nephew and photographs 2013. 192 pp. $24.95 paper. of her later paintings on china done in Summerland. It seems that Spencer’s Maria Tippett interest in art, like her devotion to Cambridge University the Baptist Church, sustained her. Unfortunately, Foster offers little arold Mortimer-Lamb lived an analysis of Spencer’s photography, Hextraordinary life – all ninety-nine and I was left wondering about the years of it. Born in England in 1872, he relationship between it and her came to British Columbia at the age paintings: particularly interesting of seventeen, initially to work on is her use of a picturesque painted Captain L.N. Agassiz’s Fraser Valley landscape as background to several farm. Within two years, however, photographic portraits. Did she paint he had become a freelance journalist this? Foster suggests that she may have writing for small-town newspapers learned china painting at the Central like Chilliwack’s Progress, then as a Ontario School of Art and Design mining correspondent for Victoria’s during her teacher training in Toronto Province. 1897 163 the In , he moved to ( ) but, strangely, earlier asserts: the capital to become director of “Where Mary Spencer learned her the Mining Association of British skills as a photographer is somewhat of British 53 Columbia and editor of the a mystery” ( ). It seems very possible Columbia Mining Record. Six years later that, if Spencer was in Toronto taking Canadian Mining 1880 he was editing the classes in art in the late s and was Review and running the Canadian interested in photography, she would Mining Institute in Montreal. Despite have known of the work of Notman and a salary of $3,200 per annum, enormous Fraser; but this is the type of contextual at that time, Mortimer-Lamb returned detail that is lost in the broad sweep of to British Columbia in 1920. Until his Foster’s biographical treatment of this retirement he was secretary-treasurer very interesting woman. of the Canadian Mining Institute’s Foster has done the historical record BC division, executive secretary of a service by bringing together these the Mining Association of British images and making them accessible Columbia, and editor of the British to the public; and, although the use of Columbia Miner. the word “pioneer” in the title points All of this might seem enough to to a lack of engagement with current keep any man busy. But Mortimer- scholarship in this area, Foster has tidily Lamb had an extended family. (Kate contextualized Mary Spencer’s life. Mortimer-Lamb, née Lindsay, bore Spencer’s frontier photography ties her him six children, and the family’s live-in not only to wider historical narratives housekeeper, Mary Williams, gave him in this province but also to the larger a seventh child, Molly.) And, like many narrative of early modern women artists men of his class and generation, he had in Canada. artistic ambitions. Working in the style Book Reviews 151 of Pictorialist photographers he made Varley is a crucial figure. His art, his soft-focus portraits of his family and teaching, and his love affair with the friends. He exhibited them not only in young art student Vera Weatherbie – Victoria and Montreal but also with the whom Mortimer-Lamb would marry Royal Photographic Society in London. in 1942 – play a crucial role in Robert He then saw to it that his work – and Amos’s Harold Mortimer-Lamb: The that of other Canadian photographers Art Lover. Amos justifies this with – was illustrated and written about in the claim that Varley’s affair with journals like the Amateur Photographer Weatherbie “has never been fully and Photographic News. disclosed” (88). Yet, as the biographer Mortimer-Lamb’s aesthetic interests of F.H. Varley, I have to point out that were not confined to photography. In this story, like much of what Amos says Montreal he took art lessons and became about Varley, was fully documented in a lay member of the Canadian Art Club. my book Stormy Weather: F.H. Varley, a Writing in the Canadian Magazine Biography (1998). So some sense of déjà and Britain’s the Studio, he introduced vu is inevitable. “modernist” artists like A.Y. Jackson It is a pity that Amos did not give and Tom Thomson to Canadians a more evenly balanced account of (who had hitherto preferred to collect Harold Mortimer-Lamb’s fascinating watered-down European paintings) and life. Certainly there is much more to be to British art connoisseurs (who had said about how Mortimer-Lamb helped wondered if there was such a thing as create the institutional framework of the Canadian art). nascent mining community in British And Mortimer-Lamb did more Columbia and the rest of the country. than put his skills as a journalist Amos might have asked why Mortimer- at the service of Canadian art and Lamb chose to remain a Pictorialist photography. During his many photographer when his friends – Alfred business trips he amassed an enormous Stieglitz and John Vanderpant – had collection of paintings, ceramics, embraced Modernism. And why does and photography. (After his death Amos so readily grant Mortimer-Lamb’s in 1970, the collection was dispersed paintings professional status? After all, between the Vancouver Art Gallery, this artist himself acknowledged that his the Vancouver Museum, and the Art work “would never really go beyond the Gallery of Greater Victoria.) He helped status of an inspired amateur” (153-54). found the Vancouver Art Gallery. With So key questions remain. Did the over- fellow photographer John Vanderpant, promotion of his watered-down versions he established the Vanderpant Galleries of Pierre Bonnard not have something to in order to promote British Columbia’s do with the fact that the people promoting artists. A social-networker before that and exhibiting Mortimer-Lamb’s work term was invented, Mortimer-Lamb were his friends and neighbours – many helped launch Emily Carr’s career by of whom hoped that their institutions bringing her name to the attention of would be the beneficiaries of his valuable the director of the National Gallery. art collection? Posing, let alone fully He was also instrumental in bringing answering, such questions would entail Ontario-based F.H. Varley to the more research and further thought. Vancouver School of Decorative and More could be done on this subject in a Applied Arts in 1926. different kind of book: one that remains to be written. 152 bc studies

Arthur Erickson: Layered Canada Council funding, but it also has Landscapes – Drawings from the better proofing and more thoughtful Canadian Architectural Archives design – in spite of the decision to print the colophon page text in medium Linda Fraser and Michelangelo grey mouseprint on white paper. The Sabatino, editors pictures speak admirably to the firm’s practice, telling us most of what we Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural 2013 need to know, and, for the rest, the Press (formerly Tuns Press), . chapters by Christine Macy, Brian 68 $19 95 pp. . paper. Carter, and Christopher Macdonald are aided by a corporate timeline that completes the story. Clearly, Vancouver’s BattersbyHowat BattersbyHowat designs beautiful homes with exteriors characterized by Brian Carter, editor a sage use of contrasting construction Halifax: Dalhousie Architectural materials and a sensitivity to the way Press (formerly Tuns Press), 2013. that the lines resulting from a creative 96 pp. $34.95 paper. use of boards can become part of the external form of the house. The Bill Jeffries boards are essentially ornamental: they Vancouver have gaps between them, revealing black spaces. This signature effect anada counts its blessings when is accomplished by using the boards it comes to architecture books, (commonly cedar) as design elements whichC is not to say that we don’t want applied over concrete or other wrapping. better books to be produced here. One hopes it works, because it gives a Surprise that we have any books on very distinctive look that extends the architecture at all is more likely, idea of “west coast modern” into new given that there are no deep-pocketed territory. university presses (such as those of Yale Dalhousie has a second imprint and Princeton) to print scholarly yet for books relating to Canada’s deeper coffee-table-sized tomes with beautiful, architectural history – “Canadian meaningful images. The Dalhousie Modern,” and that is where the book/ exhibition catalogue Arthur Erickson: Architectural Press, out of Halifax, is Layered Landscapes – Drawings from the doing yeoman’s work in the area, and, Canadian Architectural Archives given that both books under review is to be found. This is a book featuring selected examine BC architectural practice, we 1953 1968 in British Columbia should be the last project drawings from to . Its to gripe and the first to say, “Thanks, subtitle succinctly indicates where the drawings may be seen in the flesh. In Dalhousie.” Its series, “Architectural BattersbyHowat Signatures Canada,” under the Tuns the same format as , Press imprint, has previously (1994) with fewer pages and no colour, it is a published a monograph on Vancouver’s welcome addition to our knowledge of Patkau Architects in addition to books Arthur Erickson’s creative legacy. The on six firms from other provinces. Canadian Architectural Archives are Of these two books, BattersbyHowat at the University of Calgary, existing, clearly had the larger budget, with as most archives in Canada do, in an under-funded, under-staffed state Book Reviews 153 about which very few people seem to can produce larger books and make care; Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s money doing so. Yale University Press dumb attack on the National Archives does not lose money, so maybe bigger is was a sign of cultural stupidity, but not better for architecture books. However, a surprising one, and for once I think better editorial scrutiny is a necessity: there may actually be a trickle-down the caption to an Erickson drawing effect in play. of his own house and garden places Difficult as it may be to see the it in Vancouver’s West End, which originals, here we have, in case you is complete nonsense; and, sorry to missed seeing the reproduction in the quibble, but the drawing captions list exhibition Vancouverism, the drawing the medium of the originals without, “Project 56,” Erickson’s 1955 plan to sadly, listing their sizes. The exhibition build two interlocking Kuala Lumpur- of Erickson’s drawings at the University sized forty-storey residential buildings of Calgary’s Nickle Galleries ended on covering what appears to be a three- by 4 January 2014. ten-block area of Vancouver’s West End between Burrard Street and Stanley Park – assuming I am reading the Living Artfully: Reflections drawing correctly. Someone must know from the Far West Coast how many suites the proposed complex contained, but I’ll guess four thousand. Anita Sinner and Christine As a thirty-one-year-old architect, Lowther, editors Erickson was having dreams about Le Corbusier and planning to build Toronto: Key Publishing House, 2012 242 $32 99 a proto-Dubai with a view towards . pp. . paper. Stanley Park. The original drawing (in 50 91 Calgary) is about by centimetres, Bamfield Houses: A History of but even at 12.7 by 35.6 centimetres in the book, it is an amazing vision: Erickson Bamfield Houses called it a “conceptual sketch,” but it is so jaw-droppingly ambitious that a Heather Cooper and Judith reproduction of it served as the title wall Phillips Vancouverism piece when was at Canada Victoria: Island Blue Print, 2012. House in London. 69 pp. $35.00 paper. All fourteen drawings in the book are fascinating. They are selected from Lauren Harding 225 in the master list of the Erickson University of British Columbia holdings at the Canadian Architectural Archives, usefully reproduced at the he West Coast of Canada is back of the book. Revelations abound: often seen as a Mecca for artistic the master plan for Simon Fraser types,T especially for those who draw University intriguingly proposed a their inspiration from nature. Anita series of many stepped flat areas going Sinner and Christine Lowther’s edited down the mountain – like rice paddies! volume collects a wide variety of artists’ Again, thanks are owing to accounts of creating art in a particular Dalhousie Architectural Press for locale, the “far west” coast, which they doing these books, but their size points define as all points west of the BC to a crying need to fund a press that mainland. 154 bc studies

The collection shows a diversity of importance at the turn of the twentieth perspectives on what it means to “live century as the location for a marine artfully,” ranging from discussions of cable station that linked Canada’s artistic works (Bill Zuk), poetry (Mike Pacific coast with the British “red line” Emme), memoirs (Keith Harrison), connecting Britain’s Pacific colonies and “how-we-ended-up-here” stories and dominions. This larger history is (Libbie Morin). Many of the accounts the background for diverse stories of are deeply personal, and some veer too homebuilding on this Pacific inlet, one far into the territory of the overly self- of the last places in Canada that is truly absorbed confessional. Most, however, “at the end of the road” (and a logging are fascinating, sometimes humorous, road at that!), far removed from the sometimes reflective, stories of how “mainland” way of life. Phillips and the creative process occurs not simply Cooper lovingly depict the flotsam and within the mind or on the palette but jetsam of Bamfield characters and their in place. One of the strengths of this homes, which sometimes have literally collection is that, by placing the various washed up on the shores of the inlet. perspectives of diverse artists against Both of these books would be of each other, the heterogeneity of what interest to people who want to learn “art” means and where it comes from is about how art “grows” when rooted in made clear. Tales of social and economic the particular geography of the far west classism, heterosexism, and ageism add coast. layers to the social geography of the coast, showing it to be just as complex as the physical topography of the far No Easy Ride: Reflections on west. My Life in the rcmp The majority of the artists selected by the editors are migrants to the Ian T. Parsons coast who often view the natural Victoria: Heritage, 2013. 240 pp. world as separate from human places. $19 95 I do wonder how the way in which the . paper. artistic process connects to geography is different for an artist with roots in a Tragedy on Jackass Mountain: community that are woven not only by More Stories from a Small-Town oneself but also by previous generations. Mountie In contrast, Heather Cooper and Judith Phillips focus on the very Charles Scheideman human process of building home and 2011 224 community. Cooper is Bamfield’s Madeira Park: Harbour, . $24 95 resident historian and archivist, and pp. . paper. she complements Phillips’s beautiful Bonnie Reilly Schmidt pastels of Bamfield houses with tales Simon Fraser University of each home’s history. By looking at history through the very localized n 1889, when lens of the home, the author and John G. Donkin Trooper and Redskin in the Far artist slowly uncover the rich history penned North West of the community and its sometimes I , the first Mountie memoir unexpected connections to the larger for popular audiences, he initiated a world. Bamfield rose to national long tradition of highly favourable Book Reviews 155 and uncritical accounts of life in the horrific incidents that remind the Royal Canadian Mounted Police reader that policing is a gruesome and (rcmp) written by former Mounties. stressful occupation. Scheideman, for Tragedy on Jackass Mountain by Charles example, recalled having to collect the Scheideman and No Easy Ride by Ian missing limbs of three young children Parsons are two recent – and revealing who survived being hit by a train so that – additions to this canon. doctors could reattach them (147). And Scheideman and Parsons provide Parsons, in a rare display of emotional insights into the daily working lives vulnerability not usually found in of the men of the rcmp in the 1960s Mountie memoirs, admitted that he and 1970s, a time when Mounties still still experiences nightmares as a result conducted their patrols while wearing of some of his investigations (101). riding boots, spurs, and Stetsons, Women make brief appearances in even though the rcmp had long-since both memoirs. Although Scheideman abandoned the horse as a mode of does not mention female Mounties, transportation. It was an age when he does devote a short chapter to solving crime was often achieved with Mountie wives or, as they were known, the help of the public, a good sense of the “Second Man” (128). In small humour, and a lot of common sense. detachments across Canada throughout Both authors spent considerable time most of the twentieth century, Mountie policing in rural British Columbia wives were expected by the rcmp to during this period, and anecdotal work alongside their husbands in the stories about their general duty work in running of the detachment with little the province’s Cariboo, Thompson, and or no pay. According to Scheideman, Kootenay regions make for interesting the rcmp did not need to officially reading. acknowledge the work of Mountie wives As rookie police officers, Scheideman because the practice was so widespread and Parsons faced a number of (130). But this determination minimizes challenges, including the bad behaviour the contributions of the women whose of some of the non-commissioned labour enabled the rcmp to police vast officersnco ( s) who supervised them. expanses of territory for decades for the Scheideman remembered one nco who cost of a single police officer’s wages. routinely engaged in the unauthorized While Parsons devotes just three use of police vehicles (196-97). And paragraphs to the work of female Parsons recalled an nco who struggled Mounties (153-54; 163), he does address with alcoholism, drinking part of the issue of sexual harassment in the his evidence from a liquor seizure book’s final pages. Parsons claims that (53). He also recalled one corporal he did not “detect” the abuse of female who was known for entering homes Mounties while employed by the rcmp on First Nations reserves without a (220). He speculates, however, that search warrant (79). Indeed, Parsons those female Mounties who used their is refreshingly passionate about verbal skills and humour to deflect the complicity of the rcmp in the harassment earned the respect of oppression of First Nations people, a their male colleagues (220). Parsons rare occurrence in Mountie literature clearly places the onus for managing (135-44; 147-49). the harassment of female Mounties on Although they relate entertaining the women; he fails to consider that stories, both authors also recount male Mounties should simply stop the 156 bc studies practice. His response illustrates how sex workers as well as by public policy the harassment of female Mounties by critics. These chapters provide nuanced male police officers was so normalized accounts of how people get involved in in rcmp culture that senior officers such the sex industry and how they navigate as Parsons failed to recognize it as such. the pressures and tensions of the job. Despite both books' shortcomings River Redwood’s chapter on male and omissions, readers interested in sex work assesses issues of work and first-hand accounts of the daily working stereotypes in the industry. Victoria lives of mounted police officers will Love reflects on issues of intimacy be intrigued by the contents of these and emotional labour. Additional memoirs, in which the male Mountie chapters, such as those by socio-legal continues his dominance of the history scholar Sarah Hunt, explore issues of of the rcmp. colonialism, Indigenous status, and sex work in British Columbia. The next section offers chapters by Selling Sex: Experience, scholars and activists on sex work and Advocacy, and Research on Sex social movements. Jenn Clamen, Kara Gillies, and Trish Salah examine the Work in Canada relationship between the Canadian Emily van der Meulen, Union of Public Employees and sex workers rights groups. Joyce Arthur, Eyla M. Durisin, and Susan Davis, and Esther Shannon Victoria Love, editors reflect on the history of sex work Vancouver: ubc Press, 2013. 364 pp. organizing in Vancouver, while Anna- $34.95 paper. Louise Crago and Clamen explore similar mobilizations in Montreal. Kevin Walby There is also an informative chapter University of Winnipeg on feminism and harm reduction in Halifax. The final section explores how sex elling Sex draws in many authors work is regulated. John Lowman Swho have long been involved in the analyzes the misleading evidence struggle to decriminalize sex work in presented by the Crown in Bedford v. Canada. The volume offers chapters Canada and how this figured into the written by academics, activists, and decisions of the Ontario Superior Court sex industry workers. Together they and the Court of Appeal for Ontario. make a timely empirical and conceptual Chris Bruckert and Stacey Hannem contribution to literature on sex work look at claims about Ottawa Police and public policy. The Supreme Court Service abuse of female on-street sex of Canada has now struck down the workers. Emily van der Meulen and Canadian Criminal Code sections Mariana Valverde investigate often related to sex work, and the legal and overlooked municipal regulations such social meanings of sex work will change as zoning policies and bylaws. Lawyer in the coming years. Still, Selling Sex Alan Young offers an afterword on is the most comprehensive book on his involvement in the constitutional commercial sex in Canada to date. challenge of Canada’s sex work laws. The volume begins with several There are several other innovative chapters penned by current and former chapters in each section. As a whole, Book Reviews 157

Selling Sex is a position statement broader discussions in feminist research from those who are involved in sex and methodologies. The editors assume work and those who study it. The readers’ familiarity with feminist message is threefold. First, sex work is debates around questions of reflexivity, a diverse practice; second, sex workers transparency, voice, objectivity, agency, deserve respect and protection; third, and power. the laws in Canada do not recognize This is not a text for the absolute the diversity and complexity of sex beginner researcher. Ideal readers are work and do not allow the workers to those who have actually tried or who be safe or to be treated with respect. would like to try fcr-related research, These authors challenge the status quo or those who need to evaluate or judge and demand that Canadians think fcr projects. The book would be useful differently about commercial sex. It is in a graduate research methods course to be hoped that those making new sex in which the emphasis is on feminist, work laws in Canada will pay attention alternative, and/or community-engaged to this volume. research. Its main contribution is in debunking the often-romanticized belief that research approaches, such Feminist Community Research: as fcr, that involve “community Case Studies and Methodologies partners” are a panacea for the harm that traditional research approaches Gillian Creese and Wendy have caused and continue to cause. Frisby, editors The editors explain that their aims in bringing these chapters together ubc 2012 Vancouver: Press, . includes “analyzing rather than glossing 268 $32 95 pp. . paper. over what went well, as well as what did not; in sharing the lessons learned Jo-Anne Lee University of Victoria so that others might benefit from our successes and our mistakes; and in considering the consequences of he aim of this collection of ten negotiating contested relationships for chapters and an Introduction all those involved” (2). andT Conclusion is to reveal tensions, Contributors tackle a wide range of challenges, pitfalls, complexities, ethical, methodological, and theoretical and strategies in working within concerns. Substantively, the chapters feminist community-based research deal with diverse social problems, such fcr ( ) approaches. The contributors as community capacity building, health, come from a variety of academic international development, caregiving, disciplines and backgrounds, but they poverty, and immigration. The authors have all been associated with women’s employ different research methods and and gender studies at the University reflect distinct theoretical, disciplinary, ubc of British Columbia ( ). Given the and philosophical traditions. authors’ specific intellectual lineage Overall, the empirical chapters and within women and gender studies, the Conclusion provide a wealth of and their aim of talking transparently material for discussions of relations of fcr about as actually practised, to get power enacted in research relationships. the most out of this collection readers Some of the chapters are written by should have some familiarity with or include the voices of members of 158 bc studies marginalized communities, including women from Alert Bay, Bella Coola, formerly incarcerated women, Old Masset, and Skidegate. Other Aboriginal women, peer outreach chapters address the concerns of sex workers, women from rural immigrant women, and a chapter communities, and recent immigrants. by Anderson, Khan, and Reimer- Their inclusion demonstrates the book’s Kirkham reflects on health research in commitment to feminist principles in Canada and India by attending to the research. For example, in Chapter 5, unavoidable, larger systemic contexts “Voices from the Street: Sex Workers’ that frame the academic feminist Experiences in Community-Based research project. Anderson, Khan, hiv Research,” Chettiar, Tyndall, and Reimer-Kirkham argue for the Chan, Parsad, Gibson, and Shannon applicability of postcolonial theory to discuss the active involvement of sex transnational fcr. Not all chapters workers in designing, implementing, directly address the institutional, and communicating the research project historical, and material legacy of as peer partners alongside traditional colonization, although it certainly research actors. However, the authors shapes the contexts for their research. go beyond praising this involvement Here, editors and authors could to critically reflecting on assumptions have delved more systematically into inherent with the term “peer” in how, when, where, and under what research accounts. In this particular conditions fcr can be decolonizing and study, peer researchers redefine this anti-racist. Although the editors are term. In the context of this community, careful to note that fcr does not stand a peer is someone who has experiential outside of larger colonizing knowledge knowledge of sex work. Another production practices, especially when example of this commitment may be used in collaboration with marginalized found in the book’s Preface, which communities, exactly what aspects details a collaborative writing process and how fcr is decolonizing were not developed over several months. The fully explicated. Indeed, authors who result is a collection of chapters that are address the need to take up questions both interlinked and coherent across the of colonization and decolonization volume. (Anderson et al. and Varcoe et al.) tended Several chapters draw on research to restrict the term “decolonization” to with members of First Nations knowledge production practices rather communities in Vancouver and other than to decolonizing nation, territory, areas of British Columbia. For example, and land – a broader and potentially Chapter 5 reflects on research with sex more disruptive application. workers in Vancouver’s Downtown The Conclusion distills important Eastside; Chapter 8 discusses lone points discussed throughout the volume, mothers; Chapter 9 examines caregiving including: staying alert to institutional, in a First Nation community in the historical, and material contexts that Fraser Valley; Chapter 10 interrogates mediate research projects; practising Aboriginal women as inmates in early and ongoing collaboration with prison research; and Chapter 12 thinks community research partners; avoiding critically about power relations within monolithic and homogenizing views the often promoted discourse of of “the community”; negotiating with capacity building in maternal health institutional gatekeepers on behalf of research conducted with Aboriginal community partners in areas such as Book Reviews 159 funding arrangements and institutional historiography often focused elsewhere, ethics review processes; staying Hak emphasizes throughout this study personally self-reflexive about one’s the left/labour interface. He sees “union own shifting positionality in relations action and political action” as the two of power; and explicitly acknowledging “cylinders” driving the left forward (112). and negotiating around institutional His analysis of the continuing impact constraints. In recognizing that all of liberalism is particularly stimulating. research has the potential for disrupting Hak travels back to the 1880s in his settled ways of thinking and doing, this exploration of working-class liberalism, useful text on fcr also offers critical and in his contemporary discussion tools for readers working on social discerningly notes the extent to which policy, social change, and social justice the ndp is difficult to distinguish from agendas. a liberal party. Building on his earlier work, Hak brilliantly analyzes the appeal of Social Credit in the 1950s The Left in British Columbia: to rural and working-class British A History of Struggle Columbians angry about the rise of monopoly capitalism and hence Gordon Hak susceptible to populism. His sober analysis of Solidarity 1983 emphasizes Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2013. 250 $21 95 how firmly, in the end, most British pp. . paper. Columbians adhered to the traditions of liberal capitalism. Ian McKay Queen’s University Hak’s realistic reconnaissance of this enduringly liberal terrain provides a long overdue antidote to more romantic ere is an indispensable book – a celebrations of a putatively revolutionary mature, well-researched, subtly working class perpetually on the verge theorized,H and clearly written guide of mounting the revolution. Some may to the past and present of British feel, with some justice, that he has bent Columbia’s left. Writing at a time of the stick too far, as a certain Russian perplexity for leftists, predisposed to revolutionary might have put it – that, question themselves almost as much as in barely giving the Industrial Workers they critique the society around them, of the World, the Miners’ Liberation Gordon Hak, interpreting the left as League, the Fraser River rebellion of 1912 1935 “discourse” (219n), deftly combines , the On-to-Ottawa Trek of , and 1938 labour and political history to argue for Vancouver occupations of walk-on the continuing pertinence of the left, appearances on a stage crowded with ccf “anchored by a critique of capitalism” ers and New Democrats, he has (203) yet responding in a diversity of presented us with a BC left past deprived ways to the demands of its equality- of many of its most illuminating and dignity-seeking constituents. The moments. Others might feel that, author of a now classic monograph, in treating the Communist Party as Capital and Labour in the British monolithically “Stalinist” after the late 1920 Columbia Forest Industry (2007), and a s, he has missed an opportunity to scholar whose deep familiarity with the explore the grassroots energies, ethnic province’s North and Interior enables diversity, and cultural creativity of the him to add a fresh perspective to a BC province’s numerous Reds, both inside 160 bc studies the party and outside it. A potential Frontier Cowboys and the Great drawback of such a focus on a two- Divide: Early Ranching in cylinder movement is that it might leave BC and Alberta us less open to different “cylinders” – forms of leftism not readily captured by Ken Mather either union action or political action, Victoria: Heritage House, 2013. conventionally defined, but that arise in 224 $19 95 a host of different (cultural, intellectual, pp. . paper. personal) contexts. There are not many Max Foran painters or poets in this book. University of Calgary Yet, since almost half the book 1954 focuses on the years since , Hak’s liked this book insistence on the emergent gap between . It was well written, traditional leftist prescriptions and I adequately researched, and, in my the views of most working people is opinion, achieved its author’s purpose. a welcome antidote to revolutionary With his tight focus on frontier and nostalgia and a wake-up call for those early ranching personalities in British who believe, when the left rises again, it Columbia and Alberta, Mather gives will only do so at the cost of a searching, the reader a colourful, informative, sober, unromantic analysis of its own and entertaining insight into two very complicated history. There is a wealth different ranching frontiers. of references in this book, including Mather’s personalities are well a good range of unpublished theses, chosen and treated in a lively, sometimes helpful to scholars who might want gripping manner. Two main themes to pursue other avenues of inquiry. emerge. First are the hardships that This accessibly written book will marked life on the mining/ranching serve admirably in the classroom – it frontier of British Columbia and even comes with a helpful glossary of on the big leaseholds in southern political terms. No one interested in Alberta. To his credit, Mather does the history of the British Columbian not exaggerate trial and tribulation or Canadian left should miss it. but allows them to emerge as typical challenges. His repeated accounts of harrowing experiences and feats of endurance will leave a singular impression on readers. Second, one is struck by the high mobility of Mather’s diverse characters, and it is here that the legendary restlessness of cowboys and ranchers is brought to life. They moved from job to job often, not always in ranching nor out of necessity, and sometimes after apparently putting down permanent roots. In this respect, Mather’s book provides a good insight into the human dynamics of a bygone era. For those looking for detail, Mather provides some interesting facts and Book Reviews 161 insights. He emphasizes the different parallel discussion of Canada’s two ranching traditions in British Columbia earliest ranching frontiers and the and Alberta and details their origins vibrant characters who embodied them. through the equipment, clothing, and techniques of his chosen characters. More significantly, he demonstrates Vancouver Island’s Esquimalt the underappreciated influence of the and Nanaimo Railway: The BC ranching experience on Alberta, Canadian Pacific, via Rail and using as examples overland trailblazing, inflows of horses and cattle, and Shortline Years, 1949-2013 horse-breaking and cattle-handling techniques. His section on horses is Robert D. Turner and Donald excellent, especially his discussion of F. MacLachlan how the stronger and bigger horses of Winlaw: Sono Nis Press, 2013. BC stock were ideally suited to the more 320 $39 95 robust Alberta cattle. Since Alberta pp. . paper. ranching history usually focuses on Kelly Black its American and eastern Canadian Carleton University roots, Mather’s comments on the BC influence are illuminating. The book suffers in some areas. rimming with stunning photos The lack of explanatory maps is a Bof trains in the Vancouver Island glaring omission. Furthermore, Mather landscape, Vancouver Island’s Esquimalt does not set his ranching frontiers in and Nanaimo Railway is a detailed geographical context with respect to account of both the railway’s day-to-day type, location, climate, and topography. operations and its long, slow decline as The bibliography lacks important a freight and passenger service. Robert sources. There is no mention of David D. Turner and Donald F. MacLachlan’s Breen’s seminal work, nor that of account follows the Esquimalt and Warren Elofson. Simon Evans’s stellar Nanaimo Railway (E&N) from its days history of the Bar U is ignored, as is as a Canadian Pacific Railway cpr( ) Grant MacEwan’s biography of John line to its present ownership under the Ware. Mary-Ellen Kelm’s book on non-profit Island Corridor Foundation. rodeo would have been very useful In the preface, Turner wisely notes in the discussion on Natives. Finally, that the historic repercussions of the important wider variables are omitted. massive 1884 land grant associated with Some discussion on beef marketing, the railway’s construction are “beyond settler intrusions into ranching country, the scope of this book, except in and government policies and their general terms” (8). Thus, there remains impact on the leasehold system and on the need for an academic work to be exports would have widened the reader’s written about the political economy of perspective while putting Mather’s the E&N. Nevertheless, Turner and characters into more meaningful MacLachlan provide a sound overview context. of the E&N’s role in resource extraction, In the main, however, this book community growth, and local culture. should appeal to those interested in a They have conducted extensive research unique aspect of BC history. It should to provide the reader with hundreds of also appeal to those seeking a lively high-quality photographs, diagrams, 162 bc studies and first-hand accounts that reveal the and discontinuous text make it less than vital place of the railway in Vancouver ideal for close study. Island history. Despite such shortcomings, Turner is the principal contributor Turner and MacLachlan are most to this third volume of E&N history; compelling when they reveal the MacLachlan died in 2011. MacLachlan’s many ways in which the evolution of recollections of his time as an engineer the E&N has shaped the landscape on the railway are peppered throughout of communities along its route. For the volume and contribute greatly to example, pictures and descriptions the human-interest narrative Turner of trains operating on Store Street in creates. Yet Vancouver Island’s Esquimalt downtown Victoria reveal a time when and Nanaimo Railway is foremost a rail was intimately linked to city centres book about trains and their freight. in British Columbia and Canada (214- At a level of detail that is sure to please 24). Through photographic and written the most hardcore of train enthusiasts, accounts of former rail yards, trestles, Turner and MacLachlan describe and stations, it is clear why the book is the decline of steam engines and entitled Vancouver Island’s Esquimalt the coming of diesel-electric trains and Nanaimo Railway. to Vancouver Island. Of the many Turner and MacLachlan’s account of types of trains, the self-propelled Rail the E&N will speak to those interested Diesel Car (rdc) – colloquially known in local history and the history of as the Dayliner passenger service – transportation in British Columbia. will be the most recognizable to the Perhaps most significantly, the book many Vancouver Islanders who recall offers up countless stories that demand the sleek and shiny train travelling further investigation from an academic through their communities. Turner community. Rail freight trains are still and MacLachlan carefully explore operational between Nanaimo and the “Dayliner Doldrums” (179) and Duncan; however, with the Dayliner demonstrate that awkward scheduling, service suspended, it remains to be seen deferred maintenance, low ridership, what the future will hold for the E&N. and even lower profits have been a reality almost from the service’s inception. With Dayliner service The Canadian Rangers: 2011 discontinued since due to unsafe A Living History track conditions, this historical account provides important lessons for those P. Whitney Lackenbauer now advocating for commuter rail on Vancouver: ubc Press, 2013. 658 pp. Vancouver Island. $34 95 At times I questioned the materiality . paper. and layout of the book. It struggles James Wood to be both a comprehensive historical Okanagan College narrative and a coffee-table book, and the main text is often interrupted by oday the pages of photographs and insets. As Canadian Rangers are noted as a unique unit within the a result, the book can be picked up caf and leisurely flipped through, but its CanadianT Armed Forces ( ), created sometimes-cluttered landscape layout to establish a military presence in remote coastal and northern regions by Book Reviews 163 utilizing mainly Aboriginal volunteers. two hundred rounds of ammunition, a Lackenbauer’s extensive research shows crested ball-cap, an armband, a T-shirt, how and why the Canadian Rangers and a sweatshirt. Lackenbauer provides developed into a national program detailed historical context explaining with an intensely regional emphasis. the Rangers’ expansion throughout Of particular interest to BC readers the 1950s, followed by a sharp decline is his coverage of the Pacific Coast in the 1960s, largely due to a lack of Militia Rangers, a predecessor of the clear governmental focus. The 1990s current Ranger program. The original saw a revival of the organization across BC Ranger organization was created Canada, including the establishment in 1942 to meet the possible threat of a of a significant “Junior Rangers” Japanese coastal invasion following the program. By the early 2000s, the attack on Pearl Harbor. The concept Rangers continued to flourish in remote of a home defence force consisting of and coastal areas across Canada with “hardy frontiersmen” was a popular one, considerable media attention directed drawing fifteen thousand volunteers by towards Arctic sovereignty patrols. August 1943. The idea was to draw in As an informative discussion of men who knew the rugged coastline military and socio-political benefits and thickly forested interior, and who alongside the changing context of the “fit the pervasive myth that Canadians organization, The Canadian Rangers is fighting in defence of their homes the most recent addition to the Studies made the best soldiers” (35). Disbanded in Canadian Military History Series in 1945 after the Japanese surrender, published by ubc Press in association Cold War tensions led to the force with the Canadian War Museum. being resurrected and expanded two This book forms an important part years later into the Canadian Ranger of a quickly expanding literature on program. northern sovereignty, climate change, With a strong focus on both Western and the Northwest Passage. In The and Northern commands, Lackenbauer Canadian Rangers, Lackenbauer’s outlines the growth of the Canadian emphatic enthusiasm for the program Rangers as a cost-effective means of complements his earlier work with maintaining Canadian sovereignty Ken Coates, William Morrison, and in isolated areas. Rather than having Greg Poelzer in Arctic Front: Defending to station regular troops throughout Canada in the Far North (Thomas the Canadian North, the military Allen, 2008). Together they won the looked to the Rangers as its “eyes and 2009 Donner prize for their strong ears.” Their duties consist of reporting critique of Canada’s failure to develop unusual activities, supporting caf effective northern policies, warning operations, including survival training, that Canadian sovereignty was at risk surveillance and sovereignty patrols, in the Arctic. In the final section of The search and rescue, and disaster relief. Canadian Rangers, Lackenbauer paints Since its inception, many recruits an especially optimistic view of the have been drawn from Indigenous current program in a chapter entitled and non-Indigenous communities of “Very Special Forces,” in which he refers loggers, fishers, or trappers who are to the four thousand Rangers of today familiar with the local terrain. These as “citizen-soldiers plus” (23, 385, 476). Rangers are provided with a .303 Lee- In addition to his impressive list Enfield rifle, an annual allotment of of archival and research sources, 164 bc studies interviews, and national and regional describes as “the most cost-efficient newspapers, Lackenbauer includes program in the Canadian Forces” (284). a significant “Participant Observer” It has survived many challenges over section based on his experiences during the years, including questions over the several Ranger exercises. Equally advisability of a military program that impressive is the list of fellowship and lacks traditional structure, hierarchies, caf funding he has pulled together to and combat duties. Lackenbauer asserts finance his expeditions. Highlights that, by supporting sovereignty, military of the book include vivid descriptions operations, and nation building, the of operational exercises carried out Rangers represent an effective bridge in bitter Arctic conditions as well between Canada’s civilian and military as profiles of the often flamboyant realms in remote regions of the country. characters who have shaped the force, including British Columbia’s Tommy Taylor. The Canadian Rangers is Building Sanctuary: largely about success, both for the The Movement to Support Canadian military and for northern communities. Although their mandate Vietnam War Resisters in has remained basically unchanged since Canada, 1965-73 1947, today the Rangers are comprised of about 60 percent Indigenous Jessica Squires people, particularly the Inuit, with Vancouver: ubc Press, 2013. 376 pp. proportions varying in different regions $39.95 cloth. of Canada. Lackenbauer shows how the government of Canada, in conjunction Daniel Ross with Indigenous peoples, has created a York University program with strategic, social, political, and economic advantages to be gained uring the 1960s and 1970s, tens of by the military, northern communities, thousands of draft-age Americans the government, and citizens of Canada cameD north to Canada to avoid military alike. service and protest the war in Vietnam. Lackenbauer emphasizes that A few were deported, and others left cultural awareness and accommodation voluntarily; but most stayed, and the have replaced former assimilationist idea that Canada was a “refuge from policies both in government and in the militarism” stuck in our collective Canadian Armed Forces. Rangers are imagination. In Building Sanctuary, expected to draw upon their Indigenous Jessica Squires tells the story of the knowledge while out on patrol, often people who mobilized to help American consulting with their elders when war resisters stay and settle in Canada. forming decisions. Regular Force She also questions whether the image or Reservist Ranger instructors are of Canada as a safe haven from Cold careful to build solid relationships by War militarism stands up to historical following the cultural norms of the scrutiny. local community rather than traditional Groups emerged to provide American 214 military procedures and discipline ( ). war resisters with information on Diversity is seen as a way to increase employment, housing, and residency in the operational effectiveness of the Canada. By 1967 they had cropped up Ranger program, which Lackenbauer in cities across the country, including Book Reviews 165

Vancouver, where counsellors were soon The last phase of the anti-draft handling five new cases a day. Drawing movement, from 1970 to 1973, saw on interviews with former activists growing divisions between more and the files of anti-draft groups, radical, resister-led groups – like the the first third of Building Sanctuary Vancouver Yankee Refugee Group – describes how these local agencies and those that prioritized lobbying and got together, shared information, practical assistance. The final chapters and found allies in churches, student of Building Sanctuary demonstrate that unions, and other social movements. this split only further complicated The federal government, on the other the relationship between activists and hand, was ambivalent. While a few the federal government. The rcmp politicians supported the war resisters’ continued to spy on the movement, stand, others worried about provoking warning in one report that members a diplomatic incident with the United had adopted “a more militant attitude” States. Government officials questioned (180). Meanwhile, however, anti- the resisters’ suitability as immigrants, draft organizations across the country citing their (assumed) radical left worked closely with immigration politics. Documents obtained by Squires officials to promote a “last chance” indicate that the rcmp conducted program that promised to secure status surveillance on war resisters as early as for hundreds of war resisters living 1966 and probably shared information illegally in Canada. with the fbi. What kind of a refuge was Canada The Canadian government’s initial for Vietnam-era war resisters? Squires suspicion of war resisters led to the convincingly argues that it was “a first major challenge faced by the contingent and partial one, at best” anti-draft movement: a 1968 directive (228). Safe haven always depended on that encouraged border officials to the usefulness of resisters to Canada’s discriminate against immigrants based economy and, as this book highlights, on their military status. Resisters resulted from the hard work of a network were never considered refugees, of anti-draft activists. Building Sanctuary and these new instructions made makes an important contribution to our getting enough “points” to qualify understanding of anti-war activism and for residency much more difficult and 1960s social movements in Canada, and amounted to a border closure. In the it is worthwhile reading for anyone middle chapters of her book, Squires interested in the period. argues that lobbying by the anti-draft movement played a crucial role in ending this discrimination in 1969. A highlight of this section is Squires’s analysis of hundreds of letters written to the Department of Immigration, which reveal the different ways in which opponents and supporters of the border closure appealed to Canadian nationalism. By contrast, a chapter on deserters lacks focus, a problem that crops up once or twice later in what is otherwise a clearly argued book. 166 bc studies

Echoes across Seymour: wonders of Burrard Inlet and Mount A History of North Vancouver’s Seymour, North Vancouver’s eastern Eastern Communities, Including districts face the ongoing challenges associated with building a community Dollarton and Deep Cove in an increasingly affluent district that wishes to gentrify while remaining in Janet Pavlik, Desmond Smith, harmony with its natural environment. and Eileen Smith Echoes across Seymour is divided into eighteen chapters, each representing a Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2012 256 $39 95 distinct neighbourhood. Subheadings . pp. . cloth. such as “environment,” “recreation,” Jessica Hayes “communities,” “industry,” and University of British Columbia “people,” as well as a multitude of pertinent archival and contemporary anet Pavlik photographs, reveal each community’s , Desmond Smith, and individual history. Inlayed within Eileen Smith have given us another the text are relevant timelines, chapterJ in the history of the Seymour chronologies, legends, and poetry area and North Vancouver’s eastern describing the significance of these communities by recording some of the places. The anecdotal style makes for an changes that have taken place over the accessible read for curious or nostalgic last sixty years. Written as a sequel 1989 Echoes across the Inlet local inhabitants as well as newcomers to the by and visitors. Its focus on compelling Dawn Sparks, Martha Border, and Echoes across Seymour oral history and archival information Damian Inwood, makes Echoes across Seymour a valuable was compiled as a local history with contribution to BC history, and, as the contribution of the memoirs and a detailed source book opening a narratives of several residents and with window into a number of contiguous the support of the Deep Cove Heritage communities, it will also be of interest to Society. academic readers. In welcoming readers The three authors bring diverse to submit corrections and recollections expertise to the project. An engaged 1970 raised in the examination of this book, resident, Janet Pavlik has, since , the authors create a constructive space been gathering and contributing to the of knowledge production and exchange, conservation and dissemination of her which is a departure from scholarship community’s stories. Desmond Smith, in the print tradition. a retired planner with the District of Pavlik et al. do not, however, appear North Vancouver, lends a resource to have reached very far beyond their development and land use perspective. own social networks for contributions, Eileen Smith, a long-time photographer and the book suffers from an apparent in the Cove, is a writer for the Deep Cove Crier. lack of racial, cultural, and socio- Their Preface usefully economic diversity. Readers may want situates the Seymour region within to turn to Warren Sommer’s From Far the larger history of North Vancouver and Wide: Cultural Diversity in North and British Columbia; most valuable Vancouver (2000), which provides an is their central theme, which makes honest look into the struggles and a connection between the landscape lived realities of a wide spectrum and its residents. Bordered by the of immigrants through their stories Book Reviews 167 and photos. Although Pavlik et al. Creating Space: My Life and state that they do not “attempt to Work in Indigenous Education record the thousands of years of First Nations history in the Seymour area” Verna J. Kirkness 100 ( ), their chapter dedicated to the Winnipeg: University of Manitoba more recent history of the Tsleil- Press, 2013. 208 pp. $34.95 paper. Waututh Nation would have benefited greatly had they included conversations Michael Marker with the Indigenous people of this University of British Columbia community rather than simply offering the anecdotal recollections of outside here is no such thing as bodies or the second-hand integration Indigenous education. There is only of speeches given in other contexts by cross-culturalT education containing Chief Dan George and Chief Justin negotiations between both Indigenous George. To supplement the book’s people and the settler societies that limited information concerning the colonized them. Understanding the unceded territory and recent history past is essential, but even if we could of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, readers reassemble the systems of pre-contact are encouraged to consult Andrew Van learning, it would be less useful today Tsleil Waututh Nation: People of Eden’s than illuminating the persistent collision the Inlet 2010 ( ), which offers a careful points of Native and non-Native social telling of Indigenous knowledge and systems and cultural values. In more earlier relationships to the land. direct terms, an authentic analysis While this book could have done of what has been named Indigenous a better job of including the voices education is never just about Indigenous of those often silenced in histories cultures: it is always about Aboriginal- of colonization or racism, it succeeds non-Aboriginal relations. Verna in presenting the history of North Kirkness clearly makes this point in Vancouver’s eastern communities and her story of how she has created both opening a dialogue about changes space and change by traversing the within them. This volume is a welcome barricades between Indigenous and addition to the historical record of non-Indigenous societies. Dedicated North Vancouver and its eastern to integrating Indigenous knowledge satellites, which until now have not within disciplines and university degree attracted much academic attention. programs, she devoted her career to vigorously engaging with institutional power and demanding inclusion – not isolation – for Aboriginal students. Her story, if we listen closely, could cause us to rethink our current era and re-evaluate our “advances” in decolonizing the academy. In this, her autobiography, Verna ruminates on just how much space the university might be willing to concede to Indigenous knowledge systems and values. Her story suggests that change is both slow and complicated. 168 bc studies

As an Indigenous scholar, I have systems. Verna is the wise Elder we sit seen too many colleagues and new with; as we watch her make a basket programs despair of providing the kind with stories and humour, we learn to of institutional cultural critique that make the basket too. She narrates the distinguishes Verna’s legacy. Instead, conditions of life on the reserves, at there is a growing – and I think day schools, and residential schools. dangerous – trend towards moving She worked with important leaders Indigenous students and content into such as Chief Simon Baker, editing separate spaces where students and his autobiography, Khot-La-Cha. Verna ideas alike will not collide with the explains how the now famous ubc epistemic expectations of the Western initiatives such as nitep (Native Indian academy. This retreat intoNative space Teacher Education Program) and at universities is at the same time both a Ts”kel (Indigenous Graduate Studies) strategy – sometimes born of resignation began; she also narrates how the First – to provide safe haven for Aboriginal Nations House of Learning came to be students and a move to allow the built. Without overstating her role, it is globalized university to continue with safe to say that Verna played an almost business as usual without the disruptive Promethean part in this history. effects of countervailing Indigenous Verna was mentor to a fledgling knowledge systems. Indigenous group of Indigenous scholars who are students and Indigenous faculty offer now faculty at Canadian universities. a challenge to the core educational Speaking personally, many of us made tropes of progress. In classrooms, they our way through graduate school with tend to invoke an unwelcome version Verna’s patient and persistent support. of the history of colonization in North As the present director of Ts”kel, I America. Echoing the eminent Lakota am the inheritor and benefactor of the scholar Vine Deloria, Verna’s career creative problem-solving, vision, and says loudly that Aboriginal history, prodigious work ethic of Verna Kirkness. values, and knowledge are not just for While those of us who were inspired by Natives. Contained in these lifeways are her at ubc know how she changed the the templates for living in a sustainable educational landscape, many outside the ecological relationship with the land. field of cross-cultural education may not Also implicit in these knowledge be familiar with Verna’s contributions systems are the polemics to critique and to Aboriginal communities and to illuminate a self-destructive modernity. Canadian life. This book will give them In an unassuming and conversational an introduction to a widely respected style of writing, Verna chronicles educator and (now) elder. her childhood (she was born of Cree This book, for me, has one heritage on Manitoba’s Fisher Reserve disappointment – and it is minor. I in 1935), family life, and years as a wanted some mention of an article schoolteacher in rural Manitoba. A Verna co-authored with University of leader in Indigenous self-determination, Alaska’s Ray Barnhardt, a visionary she contributed to such quintessential in anthropology and education. “First policy documents as the progenitive Nations and Higher Education: The Four Indian Control of Indian Education Rs – Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, (1972), which changed the landscape Responsibility,” Journal of American of schooling by placing many bands Indian Education 30, 3 (1991): jaie.asu. in charge of their own education edu/v30/V30S3fir.htm, became a beacon Book Reviews 169 and remains a guidepost in Indigenous Like Vine Deloria and other research methods. The article contains Aboriginal scholars, Verna had her core principles for engaging power. “misgivings about Native studies An argument for Aboriginal access to departments.” She “was afraid they higher education, it also advocates the would become a ghetto for Native application of Indigenous knowledge as Students” (126). She spent her life and a tonic for an atavistic and intransigent work creating space for Indigenous academy. It would be interesting knowledge and students. She never to learn what Verna thought about wanted a separate space; rather, she this published work, what conditions wedged an integrated space into and conversations led to its writing, academia by insisting that the university and how much it actually advanced accommodate an Indigenous critique university policies regarding research of education. I recall Verna inviting with Indigenous peoples. Verna notes a ubc vice-president to meet with a that she “discouraged outright” (136) small group of us graduate students researchers who proposed projects before the Longhouse was built. The that would have been unhelpful for vice-president explained that we could Aboriginal communities. not have our elders sit on supervisory My own experience is that Verna’s committees because they didn’t have article is often used in a narrow and PhDs. Verna, in a serious but sardonic partial fashion. Many researchers now tone, said: “Oh, but you’re wrong; simply reference it perfunctorily in they do have PhDs … in our culture.” an attempt to satisfy the concerns of The vice-president was silent and left ethics committees. Such boards are shortly after that moment. I am quite increasingly aware of the political and certain that Verna was not asking social consequences of irresponsible that we suspend the requirements research performed on Aboriginal for doctoral degrees because they are people. They are unlikely to approve culturally specific forms of educational proposals unless they have some minimal accomplishment that have not validated assurance that academics will be polite Indigenous knowledge. Instead, always listeners and cautious writers, that the teacher, Verna was trying to show us they will be sensitive to the desires of the truth of what educational theorist Aboriginal communities. Verna and Ray Lisa Delpit asserts: those who are made it clear in this article that engaging immersed in the culture of power are with Indigenous knowledge systems and often the last to admit that a culture of making space for Indigenous students power exists. The standards for what would not be simply an equity move counts as valid knowledge are largely for the unproblematic inclusion of chosen in arbitrary ways that reflect a marginalized population. On the the cultural hegemony of the academy. contrary, a credible Indigenous presence Verna was simply illuminating this at universities would necessitate a fact for both the Indigenous graduate desperately needed metamorphosis students and the ubc vice-president. regarding values, policies, and the goals Perhaps, reflecting on the recent of higher education. This would mean a history of nascent Indigenous presence cultural transformation that placed land at universities, we might ask what and an ancestral ecological mind at the decolonizing or creating space centre of our understanding of what it really means. If it means that more means to be human. Aboriginal students and faculty are 170 bc studies joining campuses in segregated spaces, which tops it by a mere sixty-five well, that is one thing, and we are metres. Mount Robson is also one probably advancing (albeit ploddingly) of the province’s most challenging with regard to this goal. However, mountains to climb. But Gooch is not another, more elusive and fundamental, only concerned with telling her readers measurement might be to determine of what the mountain is composed – not to what degree Indigenous students sedimentary rock. Or where it is located are able to celebrate their culture but, – on the western edge of the Rockies rather, to what degree Indigenous near the headwaters of the Fraser River. knowledge systems are actually coming Or when Mount Robson was first scaled into contact with the culture of power – Conrad Kain, Albert MacCarthy, and in the academy. The result of our William Foster ascended the east side of advancement and healing will not the massif to reach the summit in 1913 . be found in how many Indigenous Or even how the mountain earned its students and faculty can be brought to name – Gooch offers two theories: the university but, rather, in how the Mount Robson might have been named culture of power will change because after a member of the North West of the presence of Indigenous people Company in the early 1820 s or, prior and Indigenous knowledge. to that, named by an Iroquois guide, Pierre Hatsination. However, as with her previous studies, Gooch’s main Mount Robson: concern is with the visual artists who Spiral Road of Art have portrayed Mount Robson over the last 150 years. Jane Lytton Gooch It was not uncommon for surveyors and explorers to include lightning Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, 2013 240 $25 00 sketches of landscape profiles and . pp. . paper. headlands in their official reports. However, few among these early Maria Tippett Cambridge University nineteenth-century visitors were – like the British-trained artist William Hind, who travelled through present-day ver the past several years Jane Mount Robson Provincial Park with 1862 Lytton Gooch has published the Overlanders in – accomplished booksO devoted to the sketches, artists. Hind left a stunning album of paintings, and photographs inspired watercolours and drawings rendered by the landscape of British Columbia in the Pre-Raphaelite style depicting and Alberta. Celebrating the centennial his journey through present-day of the founding of British Columbia’s British Columbia. A few decades later, second oldest provincial park, Mount Canadian-born A.P. Coleman not Robson: Spiral Road of Art joins her only sketched Mount Robson but also (The Canadian Rockies: previous studies of Bow Lake, Mount wrote about it New and Old Trail Assiniboine, and Lake O’Hara. s was published 1911 At almost four thousand metres in ). A professor of geology at above sea level, Mount Robson is the the University of Toronto, the vice- highest peak in the Rocky Mountain president of the Alpine Club of Canada chain and British Columbia’s second and a well-seasoned climber in the highest peak after Mount Waddington, Rockies and Selkirks, Coleman and his Book Reviews 171 brother, Lucius, made two unsuccessful North Face, Mt Robson, Berg Lake (1988); attempts to reach the summit of Mount Glenn Payan’s Kain Face, Mt Robson Robson in 1907 and 1908. Nevertheless, (2010) – a washed out version of Lawren the ice-blue glaciers that the artist Harris’s monumental 1929 oil sketch, captured from a height of 3.35 kilometres Mount Robson from the South East; and certainly impressed the Ontarians who Glen Boles’s more successful, Mt Robson had been viewing Coleman’s mountain North Face (2009). landscapes at the annual exhibitions of True, there is one notable work the Royal Canadian Academy since the among the images gathered together middle of the 1880s. in Mount Robson: Spiral Road of Art A.P. Coleman’s paintings offered a that, in this reviewer’s mind, avoids the visual challenge to a later generation conventional clichés characteristic of of artists, notably the better-known mountain paintings and photographs. painters associated with the Ontario Canadian Alpine Club Mount Robson Group of Seven. A.Y. Jackson and Climb, 1913 is not a painting but a Lawren Harris first painted Mount photograph. It was not taken recently Robson in 1914 and 1924, respectively. but, as its title indicates, one hundred And, as Gooch admirably demonstrates, years ago. This is tantalizing – for, while Mount Robson continues to inspire a we know that the picture was taken by a host of artists to capture its lakes and member of the Alpine Club of Canada, glaciers, its alarmingly steep rock faces, we do not know the photographer’s and its mountain peak. name. Mount Robson thus maintains Gooch might also have asked whether its image of mystery. or not it is possible for an artist to avoid giving a chocolate-box rendering of Mount Robson – or, for that matter, of Inventing Stanley Park: any mountain in the province. She does An Environmental History not fully consider how an artist with abstract leanings might capture Mount Sean Kheraj Robson; nor does she explore whether Vancouver: ubc Press, 2013. 304 pp. any of the region’s First Nations artists $29 95 have attempted to incorporate their . paper. iconography into a rendering of the Philip Van Huizen province’s second highest mountain. University of Alberta Two aspects dominate the paintings, photographs, and sketches illustrated in this slim volume. One approach ancouver’s famous park has presents a distant view of Mount Vreceived a lot of attention, including Robson, showing it anchored by from notable historians like Jean smudged forest-clad side-wings, a Barman and Robert A.J. McDonald, screen of realistically rendered trees, or prominent artists like Emily Carr, and a body of water. The other offers a more a continuous collection of journalists focused view of the upper regions of the and tourism writers who have written mountain. These conventional ways of about Stanley Park since its creation in rendering mountain landscape, first 1886. It would seem an impossible task, evident in the work of A.P. Coleman, then, to find something substantial in Berg Lake, can be seen in Mel Heath’s the park’s history that has not already Mt Robson 2010 (ca. ); Norene Carr’s been written about, but Sean Kheraj’s 172 bc studies

Inventing Stanley Park reveals that there Barman in Stanley Park’s Secret (2005) is still much to say. As celebrated as this and McDonald in “‘Holy Retreat’ or park has been for preserving wilderness ‘Practical Breathing Spot?’” (Canadian within the confines of one of Canada’s Historical Review 45, 2 (1984), 127-153), largest cities, the history of the very although Kheraj incorporates ecological nature for which it is so famous has change to a much greater degree. been curiously absent – at least in any Kheraj’s arguments really shine, meaningful way. however, in the final three chapters, Kheraj argues that putting nature which collectively set his study apart at the centre of Stanley Park’s history from previous takes on Stanley Park. shows just how unnatural the park In Chapter 3, Kheraj shows how actually is, belying the popular progressive era experts, particularly belief that it preserves an ancient engineers and foresters, grappled with and untouched forest. Kheraj pokes making the park seem “naturalistic,” holes in this myth in three different both in the ways they constructed ways. First, he argues that human- roads and buildings and in how they caused change in Stanley Park actually tried to manage the forests against increased after the park was created, hazards like fires and bugs. In rather than the opposite, ranging from Chapter 4, Kheraj outlines how Stanley the construction of things like roads, Park became integral to the urban fabric trails, restaurants, a seawall, a zoo, and of Vancouver over the course of the early an aquarium to the wholesale change of twentieth century as water mains and forest types, aquatic zones, and animal highway connectors were constructed species. Second, Kheraj points out through the park, and he compares that much of this landscape creation the varying levels of controversy that and ecological change was in reaction such construction projects caused when to the unpredictable nature of nature, Vancouverites weighed preserving particularly things like storms, insects, the forest of Stanley Park against the unwanted vegetation, and destructive perceived material needs of their city. ocean tides. Last, Kheraj shows that, In the fifth and final chapter Kheraj alongside this history of constant change focuses on the ravages of fall and winter and interference within the confines wind storms, particularly the extreme of Stanley Park, notions of public ones in 1934, 1962, and 2006-07, each of memory, conceptions of wilderness, and which blew thousands of trees down, directives of bureaucratic management showing how public memory and Park through the Vancouver Park Board Board policies together worked to erase worked to mask the impact of humans the normality of such storms and to in the park, thereby creating the myth maintain the mystique of an untouched of Stanley Park’s pristine forest in the forest, despite the fact that the Park process. Board actively worked to restore nature Kheraj makes these arguments following each one. in five thematic and chronologically As he does with his popular podcast organized chapters. The first two seem for the Network in Canadian History quite familiar, focusing on the history and the Environment, “Nature’s Past,” of the peninsula before it became Kheraj displays a commanding grasp Stanley Park and the political and social of both environmental history and ramifications of park creation. This is the scientific literatures of fields like ground that has been well covered by ecology, forestry, and entomology. He Book Reviews 173 also further strengthens influential It’s about her efforts to make sense of arguments made by William Cronon a time when nothing seemed to make in “The Trouble with Wilderness,” sense. It’s about her moving forward. Uncommon Ground (1995), regarding Perhaps taking a page or two from the social construction of wilderness Maria Coffey’s Fragile Edge (2000), areas, and by Galen Cranz in The Oakey-Baker embraces travelogue – Politics of Park Design (1982) regarding that is, she figuratively finds Haberl, the evolution of urban parks. Although and solace, through visiting the site Kheraj could have better outlined how of his death on the slopes of Ultima his study of Stanley Park pushes such Thule Peak in Wrangell-St. Elias conversations in new directions, this is National Park and by (re)visiting the a minor criticism. Overall, Inventing various adventure travel destinations Stanley Park is an original, engaging, that were formative to her and Haberl’s and beautifully crafted history that relationship (e.g., Haida Gwaii and should be indispensable for those Mount Kilimanjaro). Wilderness, who study parks, not to mention a and wilderness travel, is accorded a fascinating read for anyone with an transformative quality – a well-worn interest in the “jewel” of Vancouver. allegory among travel writers and outdoor educators that permits the predictable and penultimate “return,” Finding Jim in Oakey-Baker’s case, to life, love, and change. Susan Oakey-Baker Climbers should take note. While the larger climbing literature seems Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, commercially consumed with hyper- 2013. 368 pp. $25.00 cloth. masculine accounts of crisis, calamity, Zac Robinson risk, and danger, Finding Jim is another University of Alberta in a growing body of writing that places on view the other side of the mountaineering story – those left at inding Jim is an intimate portrayal home, those left “where the mountain F of grief. In this memoir, first-time casts its shadow,” to quote another author Susan Oakey-Baker chronicles Coffey title. Think of Joe Simpson’s her relationship with mountain guide Touching the Void (1988), Jon Krakauer’s 1958 99 Jim Haberl ( - ), a Canadian Into Thin Air (1999), or a dozen others. 1993 climber made famous for his ascent Indeed, the critic Bruce Barcott has 2 of K (a Canadian first), followed by his recently lamented the “the fatal descent 1999 1 death while climbing in Alaska, of the mountain-climbing memoir.” and the aftermath. The book is not Oakey-Baker again broaches the really about mountaineering and risk; in “taboo” subject of the impact that elite fact, it offers only a punctuated glimpse mountaineering has on the immediate into the tight-knit West Coast climbing family of those who partake of it. In this community of the 1980s and 1990s. Rather, in the spirit of Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking 2005 ( ), 1 Finding Jim is a personal catharsis. It’s Bruce Barcott, “Cliffhangers: The Fatal Descent of the Mountain-Climbing about Oakey-Baker seeking resolution, Memoir,” Harper’s Magazine, August 1996, answers, and closeness to a lost partner. 64-65. 174 bc studies sense, and others, the memoir could just Great Bear Rainforest. This region, as easily have been entitled Finding Sue. also known as the north and central Of travel writing, Ted Bishop – coast of British Columbia, is one of author of the critically praised Riding the last intact temperate rainforests in with Rilke: Reflections on Motorcycles and the world and has been home to several Books (2005) – recently told a group of First Nations for thousands of years. In my tourism students at the University this first-hand account, Arno Kopecky of Alberta that they should strive to presents a close look at the contentious make their travel writing bigger than pipeline proposal. If approved, the themselves. “YOU ARE BORING,” he pipeline will carry crude oil from said to them all, with a smile. His point the Alberta tar sands across British was not to belittle them but, rather, Columbia and to the Pacific Coast in the to emphasize that good travel writing Great Bear Rainforest. From there, oil should teach the reader something. tankers will navigate the unpredictable Oakey-Baker has the upper hand in that waters of Douglas Channel to transport she’s anything but boring. However, as that oil to Asia. The federal government travelogue, Finding Jim may have been insists that this project is in the national improved by pushing out beyond the interest of Canada. First Nations, personal, however touching. I found environmentalists, and many British myself wanting to know more about Columbians are adamantly opposed Haberl’s accomplishments in the wider to the pipeline and oil tankers. Their context of the climbing world, more concern: not if but when the oil spill about the Coast Mountains of British happens. Columbia and of Whistler, or about the In the summer of 2012, Kopecky, tourism industries of East Africa, say. along with his friend and photographer That Oakey-Baker did not expound on Ilja Herb, travelled the Great Bear these and other topics is less a criticism Rainforest by sailboat to investigate than a comment: the book left me what others, especially those who live wanting more. in the region, think about the proposed pipeline and the oil tankers it will draw to the coast. Prior to his trip, Kopecky The Oil Man and the Sea: made connections with several people Navigating the Northern in coastal communities and set out to explore all angles of the issue. In the Gateway end, he combines local history with Arno Kopecky his own journal, photos, and snippets of conversations with locals to piece Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, together a rich narrative that argues the 2013. 288 pp. $26.95 paper. reasons that this coast is not the place for oil tankers. Maggie Low The book begins with a short University of British Columbia introduction to the current politics of the region and pipeline proposal. The his book, aptly entitled The Oil people, ecosystems, and controversies Man and the Sea, is about the begin to come to life in Chapter 3, currentT threat posed by the proposed when we learn about the community Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline of Bella Bella, home of the Heiltsuk to the ecosystems and people of the Nation. For the next few chapters, Book Reviews 175

Kopecky elegantly weaves discussions of pertinent issues, including the Joint Panel Review process, the cultural importance of salmon, the relationship between First Nations and the Canadian government, and facts about oil tankers and oil spills. In Chapter 6, we are introduced to the Gitga’at Nation of Hartley Bay. Here, the author discusses the impacts of the tar sands and climate change, and grapples with the larger issue of the Western world’s dependence on fossil fuels. In Chapter 7, Kopecky heads north to the community of Kitimat and the neighbouring community of Kitimaat, home of the Haisla Nation. He examines the disagreement between different First Nations over the boundaries of their traditional territories and the continuing challenges of governance on reserves. In Kitimat he finds an engineer in favour of the pipeline. The story ends on a somewhat high note, with a visit to one of the last intact river valleys and the northernmost whale research station. Through the use of personal anecdotes, Kopecky imparts a sense of hope for the future of this region. As a researcher and visitor to the Great Bear Rainforest, and one who has met some of the same people as Kopecky, I appreciate the strands of optimism and humour with which he tells this important story. He combines local culture, history, and ecology with material derived from his own interviews and conversations to produce a convincing argument against this pipeline. I highly recommend this book if you are looking for a timely, accessible, and informative piece about a momentous issue – but be prepared to be persuaded by Kopecky’s conviction that oil tankers on the coast are not an option.