BOOK REVIEWS

The Principles of Tsawalk: of Eurocentrism, he argues that a An Indigenous Approach to way of seeing reality predicated on competitiveness and fragmentation Global Crisis has brought the world to the brink of Umeek (E. Richard Atleo) environmental and political collapse. The Principles of Tsawalk offers a Vancouver: ubc Press, 2011. 220 pp. framework for indigenous-Canadian $32.95 paper. political relations that does not embrace Damien Lee competitiveness per se but, rather, seeks to manage inherent polarities within University of Manitoba and between world views. Whereas every culture has a story to help it make o the theories and worldviews sense of reality – a story that translates Dof the Enlightenment reveal all into its world views, laws, and policies there is to know about reality? Can – Umeek argues that the Eurocentric the political relationships between theories of science and politics Canadians and indigenous peoples underpinning Canadian policy are be healed solely through Eurocentric just sub-narratives of another people’s remedies? Can settler Canadians story, namely, that of Europeans. The and indigenous peoples live together survival of the fittest mentality, Umeek respectfully? argues, has permeated Canadian These are just some of the questions politics; armed with Social Darwinism, addressed by The Principles of Tsawalk. Canadians targeted indigenous Umeek (E. Richard Atleo), a hereditary peoples’ world views for extinction. Nuu-chah-nulth chief from the By contrast, the Nuu-chah-nulth west coast of what many today call concept of Tsawalk, meaning “one,” Vancouver Island, offers us a read posits that, while competition exists, life that brings into relief the normalized is intelligent and seeks collaboration. Eurocentric concepts of reality and Living well involves finding balance politics underpinning Canadian society. between shifting polarities. By threading the various expressions It is against this backdrop that of Darwinism (e.g., social, biological, Umeek articulates a lucid political political) into a sustained critique call to action embodied in a concept bc studies, no. 77, Spring 13 171 172 bc studies he calls Hahuulism. A synthesis of today (the federal government has, as Nuu-chah-nulth and Western world recently as January 2012, recommitted views, Hahuulism is suggested as itself to upholding the Indian Act); a constitutional order predicated and they will be applicable over the on building equitable relationships next two hundred years (the Alberta between Canadians and indigenous oil sands demonstrates that colonialism nations and, just as important, between in Canada will not end overnight). humans and the rest of Creation. To Thus, students of political science, move beyond the colonizer-colonized environmental management, and relations that characterize Canada Native studies engaged in critical today, Umeek fleshes out protocols thinking will find this book useful based in recognition (mutual respect when rethinking relationships between and understanding), consent (behaviour peoples and places. that is mutually agreeable), continuity (shared harmony [all life is valuable]), and respect (truly understanding The Imaginary Indian: others) as ways to bring peoples together without naively positing The Image of the Indian in that cultural differences will simply Canadian Culture disappear. Indeed, the principles of Daniel Francis Tsawalk recognize that such polarities will continue to exist but that, through Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2011. these protocols, they can be managed. 2nd ed. 272 pp. Illus. $23.95 paper. The Principles of Tsawalk is both timely and timeless. It is timely in the Chelsea Horton sense that its underlying principles University of British Columbia can be used to rethink how settler governments are, for example, ramming wenty years after its initial the Enbridge oil pipeline down the Tpublication, The Imaginary Indian: throats of indigenous nations on the The Image of the Indian in Canadian BC coast. This is a survival-of-the- Culture remains a relevant read. fittest approach, in which indigenous Featuring a new preface and afterword, peoples continue to be dominated by this second edition of Daniel Francis’s Eurocentric market attitudes towards important popular history deserves ecology. Clearly, Canadian policy- the attention of audiences both fresh makers have a lot to learn from this and familiar. book. The argument is clear: “The Indian The book is timeless not only because is the invention of the European” the principles of Tsawalk are part of (20); “there is no such thing as a real a Nuu-chah-nulth way of being but Indian” (21). The Imaginary Indian also because settler disrespect for tracks the stereotypes, noble and not, indigenous constitutional orders has that white society has projected and only deepened since the early nineteenth imposed onto “Indians” from the mid- century. In challenging the basis of nineteenth century through today (the the colonizer-colonized relationship, new afterword opens with a discussion Umeek’s protocols of Hahuulism would of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics). have been analytically applicable two Whether in writing, painting, film, hundred years ago; they are applicable advertising, performance, or policy, Book Reviews 173

Francis posits, “the Imaginary Indian” short shrift here) in the “museum has said much more about white aims, scramble” on the Northwest Coast (117). assumptions, and anxieties than it has The Imaginary Indian is wel l about actual indigenous peoples. When written, and Francis’s use of the first it first appeared in 1992, The Imaginary person is effective in stimulating Indian was especially notable for its a sense of personal implication in application of this argument to the this history, something that is all Canadian context and for reaching a the more critical given the current wide non-academic audience. climate in Canada, which Francis The book is organized thematically refers to as “New Assimilationism” with a strong focus on English Canada (245). Francis concludes this edition, and the west, including British as he did the first, on an optimistic Columbia. As Francis illustrates, note: “The Imaginary Indian survives, this province has offered up some of but he/she is becoming increasingly Canada’s most resilient “Imaginary unrecognizable as Canadians are Indian” fodder, including the work being educated by their Aboriginal of Emily Carr and Edward Curtis fellow citizens to a new understanding and that most supernatural symbol, of White-Aboriginal relations and the totem pole. With the exception therefore to a new understanding of the of its new preface and afterword, history of the country” (250). Though this edition does not incorporate I share his generally hopeful outlook, I new sources. Readers, then, could believe we also need to ask: Is it fully effectively complement it with more the responsibility of indigenous peoples recent literature like Paige Raibmon’s to do this educating? And just what 2005 Authentic Indians: Episodes of will it take for settler society to really Encounter from the Late Nineteenth- listen? Francis himself describes being Century Northwest Coast, a study that regularly approached by readers who simultaneously stresses indigenous have not grasped his argument and agency in contexts including the 1893 still want to know what he thinks “the Chicago World’s Fair, discussed briefly real Indian” is (6). As Paulette Regan by Francis (110), and puts a sharper recently argues (in Unsettling the Settler point on the material and political Within: Indian Residential Schools, implications of “Imaginary Indianness.” Truth Telling, and Reconciliation in Francis is well aware that, in his words, Canada, 2010), decolonization demands “Images have consequences in the real a conscious process of “unsettling world: ideas have results” (207). He is the settler within.” Considered in especially eloquent in articulating how this spirit, this new edition of The a persistent settler search for belonging Imaginary Indian clearly contributes to in North America has contributed this pressing project. to land dispossession and ongoing cultural appropriation (203, 236). His discussion of “the official Indian,” however, comes late in the text, with the result that readers unfamiliar with Canadian colonial history could miss the close relationship between, say, missionaries, Indian affairs officials, and anthropologists (who receive fairly 174 bc studies

Westward Bound: Sex, Violence, Emphasizing abortion, seduction, and the Law, and the Making of a assault, Chapter 5 deals with different understandings of urban and rural Settler Society spaces. Chapter 6 analyzes how the Lesley Erickson legal system acted to shore up the patriarchal family in cases of incest, Vancouver: ubc Press, 2011. 360 pp. assault, and murder, while Chapter $34.95 paper. 7 examines the debate over female Chris Herbert offenders and the death penalty. To no one’s surprise, Erickson finds Grand Valley State University that the Canadian legal system on the Prairies acted to shape and strengthen estward Bound is a work of a colonial social hierarchy that placed Wremarkable scope and depth. Anglo-Canadian men at the head of Covering the period from 1886 to society and at the head of families. 1940, Lesley Erickson uses records An Anglo-Canadian judiciary, police from local courts, the Department of force, and Indian affairs bureaucracy Indian Affairs, and the North-West used criminal trials as a stage to convey Mounted Police to explore how lessons about Anglo-Canadian society the law functioned to shore up the – lessons that stressed the prerogatives Anglo-Canadian settler society of and power of Anglo-Canadians. But the Prairie provinces. Admirably, it is when Erickson explores how this Erickson does not tell a simple story process of using criminal trials as a of top-down legal authorities creating way to enact an idealized social order a particular colonial order; instead, actually functioned that she makes she details how various subordinated some of her most engaging and original groups (women, Aboriginals, Eastern contributions to the literature on the European immigrants, prostitutes, formation of colonial society, not only and farm labourers, among others) in Canada but globally. contested, resisted, and manipulated Many readers will be surprised to Anglo-Canadian assumptions of discover that the biases of a Canadian superiority. The result is a complex legal system that sought to maintain and nuanced picture of the meanings colonial categories and national and repercussions of sex and violence boundaries did not translate into in the Canadian west. across-the-board harsher sentences for Each chapter in Westward Bound socially marginal offenders. Instead, focuses on a particular type of crime socially marginal offenders routinely or groups of related crimes. Chapter 2 received acquittals, reduced sentences, explores the experiences of Aboriginals and fines in lieu of jail time. At the facing prosecution or regulation for local level, the Canadian justice system a wide variety of crimes, including on the Prairies was less concerned with rape, incest, murder, drinking, and meting out harsh punishment than prostitution. Chapter 3 focuses on it was with stabilizing a particular prostitutes and prostitution, while social hierarchy. Part of the ideology Chapter 4 looks at the relationship that underlay this social hierarchy between immigrant farm labour, assumed that socially marginal peoples Anglo-Canadian farming families, such as immigrants, prostitutes, and and charges of seduction and rape. Aboriginals were ignorant of the law, Book Reviews 175 mentally deficient, irrational, and/or Telling It to the Judge: Taking the products of tainted upbringings. Native History to Court Defendants who went along with these stereotypes usually received lenient Arthur J. Ray treatment from a legal system anxious Montreal and Kingston: McGill- to portray itself as benevolent and Queen’s University Press, 2011. equitable, often in stark contrast to the 304 pp. $27.95 paper. perceived inequity of the American legal system. Erickson reveals how a wide range of offenders used prevailing stereotypes to secure lesser sentences or Oral History on Trial: acquittals at the cost of strengthening Recognizing Aboriginal the logic of colonialism. However, when Narratives in the Courts offenders refused to conform to these stereotypes or when their alleged crimes Bruce Granville Miller challenged the social hierarchy, usually Vancouver: ubc Press, 2011. 212 pp. by victimizing middle-class Anglo- $29.95 paper. Canadians, then the Canadian legal system responded harshly. Though Neil Vall ance Erickson occasionally uses British University of Victoria Columbia as a point of comparison, her study, understandably, remains focused elling It to the Judge and Oral on the Prairies. It would be interesting History on Trial tack le the to know how Erickson’s findings T problematic reception by Canadian apply to the settler society west of the courts of ethno-history and oral history Rockies, and this fine book whets the presented by First Nations and their appetite for such a study. experts. However, Arthur Ray and Bruce Miller have chosen very different ways to present their material. The contrast is aptly demonstrated by the opening sentence of each book. Ray, the historian, tells a story: “In 1985 Calgary lawyer Ken Saroszik phoned me at the University of British Columbia and asked me if I would be willing to appear as an historical expert in a treaty rights case in Alberta (Regina v. Horseman 1986)” (3). Miller, the anthropologist, challenges the reader to think in new ways: “At one time, in conducting their legal affairs, the ancestors of the people who created English common law depended on the performance of actions that appealed to the human senses of touch, smell, hearing, and taste” (1). As a result, Telling It To The Judge is informative and entertaining, while 176 bc studies

Oral History On Trial is not such an easy and Alexander von Gernet, presented read, but definitely worth the effort. evidence to the contrary. The judge In the process of recounting his preferred the evidence of the Crown adventures in the archives and in experts and rejected the claim. To Ray, court, Ray introduces the reader to the this decision is inexplicable. arcane pleasures and frustrations of this Bruce Miller’s book is also much rarefied world. TheRegina v. Horseman concerned with a perceived bias of case marked his debut appearance the courts towards the evidence of as an expert witness. His historical Crown experts. However, the problems report and testimony on behalf of the experienced by First Nations with defendant First Nation were accepted respect to the treatment of their ethno- by the trial judge (pleasure), but the history pale in comparison to the wall Supreme Court of Canada reversed her of resistance encountered in their decision on other grounds (frustration). attempts to have their oral history taken The second chapter presents his version seriously by the courts. As thoroughly of the oft-told tale of the viciously documented by Miller, judges do not adversarial Aboriginal title case, seem to know what to make of oral Delgamuukw v. Regina (1991). He history, especially when it comes to then presents a detailed account of weighing it in the scale against more his extensive research on a number of familiar forms of evidence. He discusses Ontario fishing claims, none of which why this is so and offers possible came to trial. This chapter provides remedies. an excellent primer for the aspiring Miller’s first chapter provides researcher. Three chapters are devoted useful background, mostly from an to his involvement in a series of ground- anthropological perspective. In Chapter breaking Métis claims, beginning with 2 he contrasts the points of view Regina v. Powley (1998) and ending with of “tribal archivists” and “Crown Regina v. Hirsekorn and Jones (2010). researchers.” Chapter 3 features the In each chapter Ray provides response of Stó:lo “oral historian” illuminating extracts from his Sonny McHalsie to the “problem of frustrating courtroom exchanges with contamination” as raised by Crown Crown counsel and judges. In the experts (97). This is perhaps the best and concluding chapter Ray ruminates on most original section of the book. For his role as “teacher,” attempting to example, McHalsie responded to the educate a single “student,” the trial issue of “contamination from reading judge, in the unusual scholastic setting academic sources” as follows: “When of the courtroom. He concludes that I read Duff or Hill-Tout [each a well- judges, bound by the manifold rules known ethnographer], I’m not reading of court, make unpredictable if not what he wrote, but what the person who downright contrary students. An told him said. I’m not in Duff’s mind, excellent example of this is provided but that of the persons who told him” in Ray’s chapter on the case of Victor (97). In a neat turnabout, McHalsie Buffalo v. Regina (2005). Ray and seven goes on to highlight the problem of colleagues presented evidence that distortion on the part of academics. the Samson Cree did not understand The central task undertaken by Chapter Treaty 6 to include a cession of their 4 involves a detailed dismemberment territory to the Crown, while the two of a typical report prepared by star Crown experts, Thomas Flanagan Crown expert Alexander von Gernet. Book Reviews 177

The final two chapters present various in depicting the Cariboo Chilcotin in proposals for “the way forward,” but, his recent crime novel, Murder in the according to Miller: “Ultimately, the Chilcotin. His storytelling prowess, strongest approach is to accept qualified captivating story line, and intriguing oral historians as experts in their own plot leave the reader at his mercy. You right” (149). Miller acknowledges don’t want to put the book down. He that this will require a much broader cleverly waits to the very last pages to understanding, acceptance, and reveal whodunit – the butler with the incorporation of indigenous law than poker or the maid with the candlestick. the courts are at present prepared to Anyone with half an inkling of consider. Miller’s work is important knowledge of the Cariboo Chilcotin, for the contribution it makes to the particularly Anahim Lake, will roll her complex task of finding new ways for or his eyes at some of the geographical, First Nations and the Canadian courts cultural, floral, faunal, and logistic to work together. gaffes in the setting for the novel. In sum, Ray’s book is retrospective For instance, the distance between and Miller’s is prospective. Telling It Anahim Lake and Williams Lake is to the Judge provides a rare first-hand 320 kilometres, not 150 kilometres; account of the historical researcher’s kids don’t ride to school between the lot and is a welcome introduction to the two places daily, they go once a week nitty-gritty of archival research, written and stay in boarding homes; there in a style that should attract a wide are no cedar-hemlock forests on the audience. Oral History on Trial is more Chilcotin Plateau; there are no trees in academic in style and will be of most the Anahim Lake area with one-metre interest to those already working in diameter butts; and large machines the field of Aboriginal rights litigation. called feller-bunchers cut down the Both authors are inspiring not only forests on the Chilcotin Plateau, not for their long-standing commitment teams of insolent fallers. Finally, the to the search for justice on the part of country west of the Fraser River is First Nations in Canada but also for known as the Chilcotin, not the West their courage in raising uncomfortable Cariboo, unless, of course, you are a questions about the ability of the bureaucrat living in a cave somewhere Canadian courts to see that justice is in Ottawa or Victoria. There are done. other points that might enhance the authenticity of the novel, for example, helicopters that lose power don’t drop Murder in the Chilcotin out of the sky with a bang; pilots can actually land quite safely by free- Roy Innes wheeling the rotor. Edmonton: NeWest Press, 2010. Factual errors aside, Innes delves into topical issues like Vancouver’s 330 pp. $19.95 paper. Downtown Eastside safe injection Sage Birchwater site with some sensitivity and clarity. Williams Lake He offers useful insights into the psychology of the drug addict, life on the street, and some of the root causes uthor Roy Innes can be forgiven of the anger and racial unrest that Afor his less than stellar accuracy exist between First Nations and non- 178 bc studies

First Nations peoples. He also speaks The Nature of Borders: Salmon, with some clarity about the Chilcotin Boundaries, and Bandits on the War, which is still a sensitive issue in the area. He speaks intelligently about Salish Sea Native injustice and the root causes of Lissa K. Wadewitz alienation felt by marginalized people. His comment on the pine beetle Vancouver: ubc Press, 2012. 368 pp. epidemic is current. I like the way $24.95 paper. he humanizes the characters within Howard Stewart the rcmp hierarchy, from inspector, sergeant, to rookie auxiliary. University of British Columbia In his conclusions, told in the epilogue through the character of issa Wadewitz’s The Nature of rcmp inspector Mark Coswell, Innes LBorders offers valuable insights into offers his take on how racial tensions the shifting nature of boundaries on the might be improved in the Chilcotin. Salish Sea and their significance for He links murder, violence, and the Pacific salmon swimming through Aboriginal hatred of white society to it. These fish traverse the sea on their the injustices of the Chilcotin War of way from the ocean, in which they have 1864. His hope that memories of the spent most of their adult lives, back to Chilcotin War will fade as the elders their freshwater spawning grounds. pass on is perhaps a bit naïve. While she draws on material about As a resident and observer of this fishing and (mis)management of all region, I’d say First Nations anger five Pacific salmon species from across stemming from the Chilcotin War is the whole Salish Sea, Wadewitz mostly directed more at governments than at focuses on those Fraser River sockeye white guys. The incident of 1864 serves runs that pass through the Strait of Juan as a healthy reminder to the Tsilhqot’in de Fuca and the southernmost reaches that it is their prerogative to protect of the Strait of Georgia. their land from outsiders, governments, The book considers first the and/or corporations that improperly complex boundaries that Native encroach upon it. people established on various reaches While it is the prerogative of a of the sea. These were not always fiction writer to use artistic licence successful – witness the incursion of and creativity in making up names Kwakwaka’wakw speakers in search for hotels, streets, towns, and even for of rich fishing grounds at the north tribal police detachments that don’t end of the sea in the first half of the exist, it would behoove Innes to do nineteenth century. But, as a rule, First more research on the places he uses Nations people defined boundaries in for settings. With a few name changes marine and freshwater environments Murder in the Chilcotin could easily that succeeded in ensuring a “sustained be plunked down in Saskatchewan or yield” of salmon and other aquatic life. Northern Ontario because the tone of One may assume – as Arthur McEvoy this novel simply does not reflect the (1986), Jay Taylor (1999), and others character of the Cariboo Chilcotin. have suggested – that Native fisheries along the northeast shore of the Pacific were operating at close to “maximum sustained yields”; the rich and reliable Book Reviews 179 bounty of the sea sustained some of this with help from the first emperor of continent’s largest Native populations modern Germany. Running up Haro and its richest cultural heritage. The Strait, then in a ragged zed across the boundaries they created around fishing south end of the Strait of Georgia to grounds, and the rules of harvesting the mainland, it’s hard to imagine a that went with them, were sophisticated boundary less connected to the habits of and carefully crafted products of much the salmonids traversing these waters or trial and error – examples of the sort of to the Native people who had organized robust common property management their lives around them. systems that the late, great Elinor The geopolitical deliberations of Ostrom (2008) assured us are not so those who drew the new border had uncommon. little to do with fish. Even in Victoria, Wadewitz reminds us, as Richard people at the time worried mostly about Mackie (1997) earlier demonstrated, how they would defend “their inland that, by the mid-nineteenth century, sea” now that the Americans could Fraser River salmon had already become mount their guns on Haro Strait. Yet, a valuable international commodity as Wadewitz demonstrates so ably in the in the hands of the Hudson’s Bay second half of her book, these arbitrary Company. However, this initial new lines across the sea would make commodity trade depended on Native a significant contribution to settler fisheries and, as Wadewitz points out, (mis)management of the salmon. did little to upset Native boundaries By the time the settlers’ assault on on the sea. A modern “tragedy of the salmon had reached high gear around commons” would befall the sea’s rich the turn of the century, frequent salmon runs only with the arrival of complaints arose from both sides of an industrial Eurasian fishery in the the new line about how those on the final decades of the nineteenth century. other side of the border were, one way By the early twentieth century, the or another, taking an “unfair share” of price of tinned salmon on the London this prolific bounty. It is sobering to exchange had become a function of the consider that these complaints were size of that year’s Fraser River sockeye sincere and serious. The plaintiffs run, while fears were already mounting were unselfconsciously immersed in a about the depletion of what had seemed profligate and greedy assault on their like an endless bounty only a few years newly discovered “natural resource”; before. in many years, hundreds of thousands Presumably in oblique reference to and sometimes millions of salmon Cole Harris’s (2002) account of the were wasted. Accusations that fishers creation of British Columbia’s Native and canners on “the other side” were reserve system in these years, Wadewitz somehow “mismanaging” or “breaking speaks of a “Remaking of Native Space” the rules” look remarkably hypocritical on the sea. Native fishers were pushed from a twenty-first-century perspective onto tiny reserves and off many of the – a lot like when today’s suv-loving richest fishing grounds (unless they citizens of North America warn of worked for the canneries). Native fish the growing danger posed by China’s management boundaries were replaced rapidly increasing greenhouse gas by an “international border” that emissions. would eventually be agreed between The Kaiser’s new border through the the British and American empires, ancient Salish Sea – much like different 180 bc studies types of international sanctions imposed References today – inadvertently created rich new Harris, Cole. 2002. Making Native opportunities for people who knew how Space: Colonialism, Resistance to manipulate them in their favour. and Reserves in British Columbia. These people included Wadewitz’s Vancouver: ubc Press. “Bandits on the Salish Sea” – people who could see the money to be made Mackie, Richard S. 1997. Trading beyond by slipping across a border in the the Mountains: The British Fur Trade night, dipping into the teeming flesh on the Pacific,1793 -1843. Vancouver: writhing about in one of the canners’ ubc Press. vast “salmon traps,” and then selling McEvoy, Arthur F. 1986. The Fisherman’s the purloined meat to yet another Problem: Ecology and Law in the rich canner, who would be twice California Fisheries, 1850-1980. New happy: he could keep his canning lines York: Cambridge University Press. humming while beggaring the “foreign” Ostrom, Elinor. 2008. “The Challenge competition. of Common Pool Resources.” Wadewitz’s story is a valuable example Environment 50 (4): 8-21. of the shifting nature but abiding power Taylor, J.E. 1999. Making Salmon: of the diverse boundaries we humans An Environmental History of the are constantly drawing, erasing, and Northwest Fisheries Crisis. Seattle: redrawing throughout the biophysical University of Washington Press. environment. The environmental impacts of these lines can be especially grievous when those who draw them, or The Pathfinder: A.C. Anderson’s erase them, eschew any consideration of the same. Wadewitz finishes her Journeys in the West story with a brief outline of the modest Nancy Marguerite Anderson “two-steps-forward, one-step-back” style of progress achieved by “fisheries Victoria: Heritage House, 2011. managers” on both sides of the line 240 pp. Illus. $19.95 paper. during the twentieth century. Though Ken Brealey improvements have been made, the international boundary often still University of the Fraser Valley impedes effective management of this once prodigious resource, even as new lexander Caulfield Anderson challenges emerge. Open feedlots of Awas born to British parents on a Atlantic salmon, for example, share their plantation in India in 1814, raised and diseases and parasites with struggling schooled in England, and in 1831 arrived stocks of native Pacific salmon. Wild in Lachine, Lower Canada, where he salmon stocks remain unprotected by was promptly hired on as a servant the more impervious sorts of boundaries by the Hudson’s Bay Company. The one might reasonably expect to see following year he was on the Northwest placed around industrial fish farms Coast, and for the next fifty years he busy generating a steady stream of toxic worked or served variously as explorer, waste. fur trader, trailblazer, cartographer, customs agent, businessman, farmer, amateur historian, Indian reserve commissioner, and fisheries inspector, Book Reviews 181 the latter a position he held until the usual sources of the Hudson’s Bay two years before his death in 1884. Company and the British Columbia Geographically, and during this period, Archives but also having located and Anderson negotiated the Hudson’s Bay incorporated primary materials culled Company’s Columbia Department – an from public archives in Scotland expansive territory that reached from and eastern Canada and private and the Columbia River in the south, to family collections as far away as India, the Peace River in the north, up the Australia, and Japan. The text is nicely archipelago from Vancouver Island sprinkled with quotes from Anderson’s to Bella Coola in the west, and to the own journals and letters, and it is Rocky Mountains in the east. thoroughly indexed. Indeed, there are few landmark I have only two criticisms, both studies of the historical and/or geo- minor. The first is that, while this is graphical evolution of British Columbia inevitably a consequence of this style that do not, at some point, mention of writing, it is mainly only direct Anderson or elements of his work, but quotes that are footnoted. The num- Nancy Anderson, Alexander’s great- erous other references are grouped granddaughter, is the first to have de- separately in a bibliography but are not voted a separate work to his life and, in differentiated by page, the result being so doing, to have given us a more com- long sections in which factual claims plete picture of both the man and his from multiple sources are not directly legacy, and the rapidly changing cross- sourced. This surely helps readability, cultural world in which he lived. but more consistent footnoting would Part biography, part historical geog- help take readers more directly to the raphy, and several years in the making, original sources. The second is that the the book is clearly a labour of love on author might have made a little more of the author’s part and is written in the Anderson’s cartographic oeuvre. She easy accessible style of popular histor- is right to highlight the importance of ical authorship. There are thirty chap- Anderson’s 1867 masterpiece, Map of a ters telescoped into about two hundred Portion of the Colony of British Columbia, pages of text, but the author weaves as well as maps of his surveys of 1846 and them together nicely, preserving the 1848 and in the Peace River country in fluidity of the text while capturing the the 1870s, but other important maps, episodic character of Anderson’s life. such as his 1858 Map showing the dif- It is well illustrated, mostly with se- ferent Routes of Communication with the lect black-and-white historical photo- Gold Region of Fraser’s River, could have graphs and sketches but also with eight been included, especially as many of the full-colour plates showing thematic features on some of them are referenced cartographic summaries of Anderson’s in the text. travels as trader and trailblazer between Overall, however, Nancy Anderson 1833 and 1848, reproductions of some of has provided a much needed, long Anderson’s own field sketches, and por- overdue, and highly enjoyable account tions of some of the fourteen maps of of one of the more important nine- the cordillera that Anderson is known teenth-century historical geographical to have made between the late 1840s and agents on the Northwest Coast. The au- through to the 1870s. thor shows that, like many fur traders, The book is well researched, the au- Anderson loved the spirit of adventure thor’s having not only thoroughly mined that drove his exploratory, trailblazing, 182 bc studies and map-making activities, even as he in a volume of fewer than two hundred was less enamoured with the business pages, is risky. and practical exigencies of the trade To manage this, Francis relies itself. As the Northwest Coast transi- mainly on works, both academic and tioned from a fur trade frontier into a popular, that precede this volume. The place of commercial capital and settle- result is a generally clear synthesis; ment he shared with his contempor- but there is not a great deal new aries the promises of civilization, but in the text, nor, given the range of his respect for indigenous peoples was material, could much new be expected. not common to most, and it is one of What Francis does do is bring to the the reasons he was chosen as the fed- fore the actual visual materials that eral representative on the Joint Indian underpinned these campaigns. Posters, Reserve Commission in 1876. Indeed, pamphlet covers, and photographs are it is in this sense that Anderson not superbly reproduced and displayed in only “found his path” across time and this handsome volume. The author, through space but also, from a polit- publisher, and designers are to be ical economy perspective, participated congratulated. in indigenous, mercantile, commercial, There is a second challenge, however. and industrial capitalist modes of pro- It is not obvious that these three topics duction. And, at the end, he was one are linked in any meaningful way other of the agents who helped tie them all than that they all led to the production together. I am grateful that his great- of striking visual material. What ties granddaughter has finally told a story promotion of western immigration at that long needed telling. the turn of the century to the horrors and pressures of the First World War? Is commercially based tourism promotion Selling Canada: Three really similar to the central role played by either immigration promotion or the Propaganda Campaigns That life-and-death stakes surrounding the Shaped the Nation material of the Great War? Daniel Francis Francis tries to answer these questions by emphasizing two themes. Vancouver: Stanton Atkins and The first is captured by his use of Dosil, 2011. 192 pp. Illus. $45.00 the term “propaganda.” Though the cloth. formal definition is neutral, the image of the word implies a highly biased or Doug Owram misleading use of materials. Francis University of British Columbia builds on this, noting in more than one instance how materials were at best n his latest project, Daniel Francis selective and often misleading. More Itakes on three publicity campaigns, often than not, he concludes, the efforts running from the 1870s through to 1940: stopped short of outright lies but those immigration to western Canada, the who made them were happy to tell only First World War, and the promotion “truths that were convenient” (60). The of tourism from the 1880s to the Second second theme is that, buried among World War. Each of these has occupied these varied campaigns, hyperbolic much academic and popular writing, so materials, and half-truths, there is to put all three together, and to do so an emerging Canadian identity. It is Book Reviews 183 for this reason that the concluding Canada to an external audience; but chapter suddenly leaps forward from the tone, audience, and purpose of the interwar years to Expo ’67 before war propaganda were so different that, returning to what Francis concludes much as he might try, Francis cannot links the three campaigns: “Between convince this reader (at least) that these the 1880s and 1930s, three great sales three campaigns belong in the same campaigns transformed the way volume. Canadians thought about themselves and the way outsiders thought about Canada” (174). A Sisterhood of Suffering and It is a valiant effort, but, for two reasons, the attempt to put the three Service: Women and Girls of campaigns together is not completely Canada and Newfoundland successful. First, the scale of the during the First World War material means that there is more than enough to cover even if the narrative Sarah Glassford and Amy remains tightly focused on propaganda. Shaw, editors However, this is impossible in a popular Vancouver: ubc Press, 2012. 356 pp. history both because the campaigns $34.95 paper. have to be given historical context and because brief histories of western Lisa Pasolli settlement, the First World War, and University of Victoria tourism are sprinkled throughout the narrative, further diluting the book’s main theme. This dilution isn’t hen it comes to the history helped by the fact that Francis cannot Wof women in wartime Canada, resist digressions. The discussion of the Second World War has so far interwar tourist promotion is suddenly attracted the most attention from derailed by the introduction of Edward scholars. Perhaps surprisingly, given McCourt’s 1963 book on travelling in the otherwise abundant scholarship on Canada. The introduction of Expo Canada’s Great War, those interested in ’67, mentioned above, seems to set the women’s and girls’ experiences during stage for the national identity theme the First World War have had a more to be defined, only to wander off to limited historiography upon which a commentary on French-English to draw. Sarah Glassford and Amy relations, separatism, and the War Shaw’s edited collection, A Sisterhood Measures Act. of Suffering and Service, brings together The second, and most fundamental, twelve new and recent articles that reason that the attempt to fit these begin to address this scarcity. three campaigns together is not Contained within are familiar and completely successful is that they are important questions about women simply not compatible. Each had a and war: for example, the changing different audience and a different tone. dimensions of women’s work is the Maybe the immigration efforts of the focus of several chapters. But the pre-Great War era and the tourism collection also introduces readers to campaign of the interwar years were unique and innovative approaches to linked in that they extolled the virtues gender and conflict. As a case in point, of a rural, resource-rich, and empty one of the volume’s more intriguing 184 bc studies chapters features Amy Tector’s use (70). Diaries, memoirs, and literary of disability studies to explore the works reveal that transformation may concern about “authoritative” women have happened on a more personal and “emasculated” men (303). Suzanne level, even within the boundaries of Evans’s exploration of women’s markers gender norms. The poignant stories of grief is similarly fascinating. Tying contained in Terry Bishop Stirling’s all of these interdisciplinary articles chapter on Newfoundland nurses together is Glassford and Shaw’s demonstrates this well. Several chapters excellent introduction, which provides also remind us that transformation took a thorough overview of the existing on different dimensions across class, literature of women and the First World race, age, marital status, and region. War and neatly weaves together the Kori Street, for example, reveals the articles’ common themes. contrast between middle- and working- The central question that runs class women who took up wartime throughout A Sisterhood of Suffering and paid labour. For the former, war work Service is that of the war’s transformative was a temporary patriotic duty; for effect. Did the war profoundly change the latter, the war provided much- women’s and girls’ places in their needed opportunities to support their families, communities, and workplaces? families, and they feared the loss of How lasting were those changes? those opportunities at war’s end. If there is any sort of consensus across Glassford and Shaw readily admit the volume, it is that, despite dramatic that their collection has conspicuous changes in women’s lives, traditional holes – most notably, the absence of gender norms were not significantly any analysis of Quebec women or girls. challenged. Furthermore, even women’s Nevertheless, the volume (and the new and exceptional roles operated included bibliography) opens the door within the confines of acceptable to the kinds of questions that need to be femininity. The authors of this volume asked about women, girls, and gender explore the adherence to domesticity during the First World War. and maternalism from the perspective of university women (Terry Wilde), voluntary nurses (Linda J. Quiney), Canada’s Road to the Pacific young girls (Kristine Alexander), paid workers (Kori Street), indigenous War: Intelligence, Strategy, and women (Alison Norman), in poetry the Far East Crisis written by women (Lynn Kennedy and Timothy Wilford Vicki S. Hallett), and through the lens of social policy (Desmond Morton). Vancouver: ubc Press, 2012. 312 pp. Yet transformation is a complex $34.95 paper. question. The volume’s best chapters are those that go beyond societal James Wood prescriptions about gender roles University of Victoria to examine women’s individual experiences. As Margot I. Duley states anada’s Road to the Pacific War in her article about the Newfoundland C examines the role of intelligence Women’s Patriotic Association, in Canadian strategic planning during women’s and girls’ experiences of war the year preceding the Japanese attack were both “paradoxical and profound” on Pearl Harbor. Drawing on archival Book Reviews 185 resources in Canada, Britain, and Canada’s Road to the Pacific War the United States, Timothy Wilford also addresses lingering controversies has retraced Canada’s steps towards surrounding possible foreknowledge the Pacific War, revealing the extent of the Japanese attack that brought of intelligence that was available to the United States into the war. Canadian planners in 1940-41. Through Of particular interest is Wilford’s an effective analysis of these documents, discussion of an affidavit of Murton many of them only recently declassified, Seymour, released in 2001, contending Wilford has written a history that that the British and the Americans had highlights the growing probability of received convincing intelligence that war with Japan throughout 1941, while Japan would attack Pearl Harbor in also explaining why the actual targets early December 1941 (154). In contrast to and timing of the Japanese offensive Wilford’s earlier work, which endorses could not be accurately determined this view, Canada’s Road to the Pacific before it began. War is cautious in its handling of a Readers from British Columbia, the controversial issue. He clearly shows province most immediately affected that sufficient intelligence existed in by the Japanese threat, will find 1941 to predict a Japanese attack in Wilford’s examination of this period early December, but he is careful to to be of particular interest. Using a note that key evidence concerning military and political framework that the recognition and impact of this centres on rcmp and Royal Canadian intelligence remains missing or is not Navy intelligence gathering, his yet available. Likewise, Wilford shows discussion of preparations for the that active Canadian involvement in internment of Japanese Canadians intelligence gathering allowed the shows how difficult it was for an country to be better prepared for elected government to achieve a balance the Pacific War than historians had between executive authority and public previously thought (xii, 51). Carrying accountability in wartime. By focusing this argument over into a discussion on the documentary evidence, Wilford of the decision to send a contingent demonstrates the depth of concern to reinforce the British garrison at among government officials over Hong Kong, however, leads the reader possible Japanese attacks against to question whether the Canadian BC fishing fleets and the threat of government knowingly sent these clandestine activities along the coast. soldiers to certain disaster. His approach sheds new light on Canada’s Road to the Pacific War raises Canadian government investigations, awareness of the motivations behind some taking place as early as October military planning and political decision 1940, into the registration, internment, making during the final months before and repatriation of Japanese Canadians. Canada’s war with Japan. Wilford’s While Wilford clearly shows that research is methodically organized decisions were being made in light of and offers effective transitions and the available intelligence, he concludes summaries as well as rich documentation that British Columbia’s Japanese to provide an insightful explanation of community was “completely innocent” Canada’s evolving wartime relationship of any transgression and was “the object with Britain and the United States. of intense anti-Asian racism” (204). He shows the extent to which racism coloured the judgment of military and 186 bc studies government decision makers, both information about our submerged in underestimating Japanese military maritime heritage. capabilities and in overestimating the While he acknowledges the works of threat posed by Japanese Canadians the popular Rogers, even to including living in coastal British Columbia. a chapter about him, James devotes Above all, Wilford gives us an twenty original chapters to a variety intelligence-based understanding of of maritime disasters, adventures, and the Mackenzie King government’s events. What is most poignant is the decisions to prepare for the internment era of transition from sail to steam. of Japanese-Canadians, to support Many of the proud ocean windjammers the trade embargo against Japan, to ended their days cut down as barges for send Canadian soldiers to the ill-fated transporting logs and coal. The tale of defence of Hong Kong, and to be the the majestic 100-metre (329-foot) four- first Allied nation to declare war against masted steel barque Drumrock, wrecked Japan. in Smith Inlet in 1928 after less than a year’s service, is an example of how a peak technology sailing vessel was Raincoast Chronicles 21: converted into the largest and most technically innovative log barge on the West Coast Wrecks and Other BC coast. Maritime Tales The story that captured my interest Rick James involved the two smallest boats described in the book, the Chinese Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, junks Amoy (1922) and Tai Ping (1939), 2011. 128 pp. $24.95 paper. whose solitary Pacific adventures contrast with the routine voyages of David Hill-Turner the larger commercial ships and remind Nanaimo Museum us that it was possible that the first maritime explorers and visitors came ales of shipwrecks a long from Asia. The book also includes the TBritish Columbia’s coast have Comox Logging Company’s breakwater focused on adventure and tragedy at Royston, which was started in 1937 since the fur trade era. With marine from a variety of naval ships, tug boats, transportation occupying such an and sailing vessels that now served important role in our daily lives, it is a useful purpose far beyond their remarkable that so few books have builders’ expectations. been written on the topic, especially Many of the stories in the book since there are thousands of wrecks on originated as research work that the coast. In West Coast Wrecks, Rick James authored for the Underwater James, a maritime historian and field Archaeology Society of British archaeologist, has written a welcome Columbia as part of its extensive series addition to the bookshelves of wreck of regional shipwreck reports. While enthusiasts and marine historians. This serious historians will find satisfaction book joins earlier books by veteran in James’s research and writing, diver and shipwreck historian Fred his target reader is the avocational Rogers – Shipwrecks of British Columbia historian. The book offers an extensive (1973) and More Shipwrecks of British bibliography of published, unpublished, Columbia (1992) – in providing basic and personal correspondence. While Book Reviews 187 shipwreck books are often aimed at As a chronological narrative, The scuba divers, James also includes photos Uchuck Years covers the who, when, and of these ships taken close-up from land. where of the company’s development Finally, James reminds readers that in a thorough if sometimes rambling wreck sites are protected under British manner. Although not intended as a Columbia’s Heritage Conservation Act. complete history of the island’s west While wrecks offer many temptations coast, the book also chronicles the to souvenir hunters, it is illegal to industrial and social changes of the remove anything from them without a people and companies that the Uchuck permit. III serves, and, in the process, Young brings the region to life. What is remarkable, however, is the consummate The Uchuck Years: A West Coast detail that Young brings to the how and why of every aspect of the ship’s Shipping Saga operations. He describes everything David Esson Young from the changing technologies of navigation and radio communication Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, to the types and methods of launching 2012. 304 pp. 60 b/w photos. lifeboats to the complex logistics of $24.95 paper. delivering freight to remote docks and floats. All his descriptions are based Kenneth Campbell on an extensive local and maritime Victoria knowledge. His account of the ships’ repairs and refits provides considerable he Uchuck Years is the tale of how insight into the skills and processes of T two partners managed to keep a wooden shipbuilding and the problems passenger and freight service afloat on that can arise. And where else will you Vancouver Island’s west coast and pass find a page-long account of the brewing the company on to the next generation. and serving of the crew’s coffee? David Esson Young, son of one of the Apart from having many proofing founders, grew up working on the errors, the book is well presented. Maps Uchuck fleet, eventually becoming at the front are easily referred to and an skipper and part owner. His experience excellent index provides quick access of forty years sailing the west coast to the detailed information (including waters brings a unique ability to tell the coffee discussion). Black-and- this tale. white photographs enhance the text. The Uchuck III is one of the last Although books abound for the early of the coasters delivering freight and coastal steamers and BC Ferries, only passengers to British Columbia’s coastal Rob Morris’s Coasters (Horsdal and communities and camps. It, along with Schubart, 1993) deals with the postwar the Frances Barkley on Barkley Sound fleet, including the last four coasters and the Aurora Explorer on the inlets working in the 1990s, and the Aurora north of Campbell River, is the only Explorer is featured in Brian Scott’s vessel still in operation, a legacy of Marine Link: Exploring the Working BC the once ubiquitous coastal steamer. Coast (Brian Scott Fine Art Ltd., 2009). Importantly, the Uchuck III is also one The Uchuck Years is sure to become an of a diminishing number of wooden important source for anyone interested vessels at work on the coast. in British Columbia’s marine history, 188 bc studies both for specifics about the company’s influenced by and had some influence operations and for its detailed and in the making of her society. encyclopaedic description of life and Annie Garland Foster led a long activity aboard a working vessel on the and varied life during which she took BC coast during the last half of the advantage of and was affected by the twentieth century. major historical events that transformed Canada from the late nineteenth century. Following graduation from Passing through Missing Pages: unb, Foster acquired a teaching certificate and trained as a nurse in The Intriguing Story of Annie the United States. Eventually worn Garland Foster down by the physical and emotional Frances Welwood demands of nursing, Foster joined many Maritimers who were seeking work in Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2011. western Canada; after 1905, she taught 253 pp. Illus. $24.95 paper. for several years in Saskatchewan and then moved on to a teaching position in Duff Sutherland Nelson, where she met and eventually Selkirk College married William Garland Foster, the editor of the Nelson Daily News. In 1915, n the early 1990s, author Frances William Garland Foster enlisted in the IWelwood agreed to research the 54th Kootenay Battalion. He died after life of Annie Garland Foster for a being wounded during heavy fighting Nelson Museum exhibition entitled near Cambrai in the last days of the “The Women of Nelson, 1880-1950.” war. Annie followed her husband to An early woman graduate of the Britain, where she worked in military University of New Brunswick, Annie convalescent hospitals as a British Red Garland Foster was the first woman Cross nurse until 1917. elected to the Nelson city council in The war and her tragic personal 1920. Impressed by her subject’s life and losses (she also suffered a miscarriage work and intrigued by her connection on the voyage home) appear to have to a West Kootenay murder case, shaped Foster’s interests and concerns Welwood has gone on to write Passing for the remainder of her life. Now a through Missing Pages, an impressive widow and a veteran, Foster returned full-length biography of Foster. In to the West Kootenay where she Sojourning Sisters: The Lives and Letters taught, ranched briefly on the rugged of Jessie and Annie McQueen (2003), Jean Pend-d’Oreille River, and became Barman shows how two Pictou County, an activist in the Women’s Institute Nova Scotia, teachers, Annie and Jessie and Great War Veterans Association McQueen, came west after the 1886 for improvements in child health and completion of the transcontinental welfare and in veteran services. Foster railway and were shaped by and helped publicly played down her commitment shape the BC “frontier.” Although to advancing women’s political rights arriving in British Columbia in 1908, but was a vigorous and outspoken more than twenty years after the member of Nelson’s city council in McQueen sisters, a similar case could 1920; she also ran unsuccessfully to be be made for the significance of the mayor of Nelson and as a candidate for life of Annie Garland Foster: she was the Provincial Party in the early 1920s. Book Reviews 189

Welwood suggests that Foster’s social being commuted to life in prison. She and political activism led to her “third” continued her efforts on Hanley’s career as a journalist and writer, which behalf, eventually helping to obtain occupied the latter part of her life. his release from prison in 1945. Foster Eventually settling in a White Rock and Hanley married – by then she was cottage, Foster worked hard for many seventy years old, he was fifty-seven – years to support herself by writing soon after his release and lived together articles for Canadian newspapers and in White Rock until their deaths in the magazines, book reviews, and books, mid-1970s. Welwood speculates that, including the first published biography after a lifetime of social action, Foster of Pauline Johnson. likely gained satisfaction in that she had Finally, and importantly, Welwood surely helped this individual in his life. discovered that, for almost twenty Passing through Missing Pages is years, Foster maintained a private a carefully researched and written lobbying campaign on behalf of a fellow biography of a serious and productive veteran, Patrick Hanley. Passing trough life lived in interesting times. Annie Missing Pages provides the human story Garland Foster deserves to be better behind a notorious West Kootenay known in British Columbia and murder case first mentioned briefly in beyond: this book will certainly help Elsie G. Turnbull’s Trail between Two in that process. Wars (1980). In her survey, Turnbull describes Hanley’s shooting of Mildred Neilson in 1925 as the “callous” killing Yip Sang and the First Chinese of a popular young nurse. We learn little about the case beyond the fact Canadians that Hanley also wounded himself Frances Hern in the incident and had to be treated in Rossland “because of feeling in Victoria: Heritage House, 2011. Trail” (52). In Passing Through Missing 144 pp. $9.95 paper. Pages, Welwood reveals that Foster LiLynn Wan knew Hanley through her work as president of the Nelson Great War Dalhousie University Veterans Association: he was the local association’s secretary. Like her rancis Hern’s Yip Sang and the husband, Hanley had served in the 54th FFirst Chinese Canadians is the Kootenay Battalion and been blown biography of a prominent merchant up by a shell. He survived but had in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the ongoing pain from his wounds, which, late nineteenth and early twentieth according to his Trail business partner, centuries. The story begins with Yip contributed to a nervous breakdown Sang’s arrival in British Columbia after the war. Hanley claimed in his from San Francisco in 1881. Yip Sang defence that he had not meant to kill supplied and managed Chinese railway Neilson, who had rejected his romantic labourers in the 1880s and established advances. After a third trial, the jury the Wing Sang Company in 1888, found Hanley guilty of murder and which he managed until his death in the judge sentenced him to hang. 1927. Hern contextualizes biographical Along with others, Foster mounted a sketches and memoirs with broader campaign that led to Hanley’s sentence historical events, including the politics 190 bc studies of Confederation, political unrest exemplified in Hern’s use of the term in China, and the development of “Chinese Canadians,” a descriptor that Canadian immigration policies in has been the subject of criticism since the twentieth century. As part of the the late 1980s. Even in her chapter on the Amazing Stories series published “Second Canadian-Born Generation,” by Heritage House, this historical Hern continues to describe her subjects biography is geared towards “younger as “Chinese Canadians.” Such language readers [and] new Canadians” (www. reveals how deeply ideas about race heritagehouse.ca). The target audience persist: after three generations of for this book makes the telling of these permanent settlement, the ethnic prefix stories particularly important because remains. Redefining early immigrants the function of this type of history as something akin to historian Peter has as much to do with creating the Li’s term “Chinese in Canada,” and present as it has to do with learning their descendants as “Canadians,” better about the past. reflects contemporary understandings of Certain problematic aspects of this the relationship between race, ethnicity, monograph are common to literature and citizenship, and it resonates more that is intended to introduce young closely with the mindset of both Canadians to their history. Despite “young” and “new” Canadians today. Hern’s clear efforts to integrate “Chinese Canadian” history with the conventional master narrative of Dim Sum Stories: A Chinatown Canadian history, her interpretation is often Eurocentric and written from Childhood a top-down perspective. For example, Larry Wong in telling the history of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which, in this context, Vancouver: Chinese Canadian should focus on the experiences of the Historical Society of British labourers, Hern primarily describes Columbia, Gold Mountain Stories, the politics of the railway in relation 2011. 144 pp. $20.00 paper. to Ottawa and Confederation, the economics of nation building, and LiLynn Wan the Pacific Scandal. More significant, Dalhousie University however, is the fact that the racism that permeates this history is not ancouver’s Chinatown has been adequately addressed. For example, in Vthe subject of numerous notable Chapter 5, which takes discrimination academic studies, providing a focus as its focus, Hern attributes the intense that has proven to be essential to the anti-Oriental attitudes that existed Canadian historical narrative. In in Vancouver in the early twentieth analyzing the history of Vancouver’s century to the poverty and harsh living Chinatown, scholars have made conditions from which many immigrant groundbreaking theoretical and labourers suffered. What she neglects methodological contributions to the to explain is that this poverty was itself literature on such topics as race relations, a result of a complex history of racism. racial discourse, immigration, urban In Hern’s account, racism is often geography, community development, simplified into isolated incidents of citizenship, governance, crime, discrimination. This problem is further colonialism, gender relations, narcotics Book Reviews 191 legislation, identity politics, class narratives provide an understanding relations, and economic development. of generational as well as gendered Yet the task of reconstructing a past that difference in the experiences of Chinese has been obscured by racism and socio- women in Canada. Likewise, through economic marginalization can only be his descriptions of his own past, Wong partially satisfied through academia. defines himself as Canadian, in contrast For those of us whose family histories to his father’s generation and the have been lost to the tangible effects immigrant population who moved in of colonialism – to the silences of our and out of Chinatown throughout the parents’ and grandparents’ generations, twentieth century. Wong’s memoirs borne of the experiences of migration, offer a commentary on the diversity opium, poverty, and shame – theory and malleability of experiences of and methodology have their limits. racial oppression and socio-economic Larry Wong’s Dim Sum Stories offers marginalization. They are presented in a warm and welcome literary meal to a way that resonates for many, and, as feed that hunger. This collection of such, this book gives substance to the short stories and memoirs provides an scholarly narratives that have become account of experiences that are specific so central to British Columbian and to Wong’s childhood. At the same time, Canadian history. these stories tell us about the lives of multiple generations; of women and girls; of “children of immigrants”; and A Hard Man to Beat: The Story of Vancouverites (not just “Chinese”) who lived, worked, and shopped in of Bill White, Labour Leader, Chinatown; and of the lives of the Historian, Shipyard Worker, successful and those who were not so Raconteur lucky. Difference is key to the experiences Howard White of the characters brought to life in Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, Wong’s collection. Wong’s father’s life 2011. 256 pp. $21.95 paper. First story is one of success and survival. published by Pulp Press Book Like many of the early residents of Publishers, 1983. Vancouver’s Chinatown, Wong Quon Ho’s experience extended between Mark Leier China and Canada. It included love Simon Fraser University and loss, raising children, and operating a business. Wong Quon Ho’s life is contrasted with that of his friend, elected as one of ten Vancouver F.P., whose story is one of a man Sbooks reprinted to celebrate the who is ultimately consumed, both city’s 125th anniversary, A Hard Man to in body and mind, by the sojourner Beat is perhaps even more important experience. Wong includes carefully now than it was when it was first written descriptions of his mother, published. Then, Bill White’s lively Lee Shee, who came to Vancouver memoir of life on the left, from the 1930s from Kowloon as Wong Quon Ho’s to the 1950s, delivered personal insights second wife; and of his sister, Jennie, into well-known events: the Ford who left Chinatown and married a strike, labour leaders and strikes, the “Caucasian” butcher in Ontario. These ties between politicians and business 192 bc studies leaders, the role of the Communist movement and its dream of political Party, and the rise of the Co-operative action – a dream that would prove as Commonwealth Federation (ccf). utopian as any dream of revolution. Since then, much of this has passed White is, however, highly critical of from common knowledge, and White’s the machinations of the party elite, its book serves as a crash course in labour growing separation from the shop floor, history. its tactical and strategic blunders, and But it is much more than that. In the foibles of its leaders. Taken together, 1983, White’s warning that the world his analysis of the Communist Party was entering a new depression seemed is of more value than are those of its alarmist. It now seems prescient. White, opponents (who insist it was nothing who died in 2001, warned: “They call it more than the Canadian arm of the the new conservatism, but it’s the same Comintern) and those of its acolytes old conservatism to me … it’s the same (who insist it never made a misstep). broken record they’ve been playing New generations may also learn for the forty years that I’ve listened much from White’s experience as to them” (242-43). We have since seen a trade unionist and leader of the nearly thirty years of declining wages, Marine Workers and Boilermakers worsening work conditions, and the Union. He contrasts the shop steward dismantling of much of the social safety movement of the 1930s and 1940s, built net, all made possible by the weakening on militancy and direct contact with the of the labour movement by capital and rank and file, with the bureaucratized the state. labour movement of the 1980s. White As new movements look for new characterizes the contemporary ways to fight back, White has much movement as one in which “the typical to offer. He outlines plainly and union … has very little presence in the without abstraction concepts such as workplace.” Further: “Most fellas in a “hegemony,” “legitimation,” “social union today, they hardly know they’re construction of history,” “bureaucracy,” in it.” White points out the dangers of and “relative autonomy of the state.” collaboration, noting: “It’s bad enough These are expressed vividly and as part not being able to tell the bosses from of the common knowledge, common the labour leaders by looking at them sense, and experience of workers but the worst of it is half the time you rather than as the special province of can’t tell when they talk either” (241-42). academics. These observations are just as telling White belonged to the Communist today. Party for several years, and his The book offers some warnings to reflections on his experience in it are those who practise oral history. Bill particularly useful. White neither White’s blunt, common-sense language whitewashes nor red-baits the party. is carefully preserved and represented He credits its bottom-up organizing by his collaborator, Howard White (no and direct action for its successes in relation). It inspires confidence in Bill the 1930s and 1940s and notes that the White’s accounts of events and people, “party line” was of little interest to rank- much as does Orwell’s language. and-file members and most officers. He However, in both cases, the reader condemns conservative unionists for needs to look past the manipulation of their cowardice and pillories the ccf language before coming to a judgment. for its top-down capture of the labour Candour is not the same as accuracy, Book Reviews 193 and White has a few scores to settle. Victoria helped him to confirm his ideas Howard White is careful to point about the importance of regionalism out that this is Bill White’s story and in Canada. These ideas appear in his interpretation; it is not fact-checked collected essays, Challenging the Regional and corroborated. White engaged in a Stereotype (Fredericton: Acadiensis ten-year legal battle to win the closed Press, 1989). This book, however, is a shop, for example, but his version of personal memoir originally written for the conclusion to the case is only one the benefit of his children. of three competing versions. And while In 1966, Sydney Pettit of the White dismisses his opponent, Myron University of Victoria was recruiting Kuzych, as the stooge of bosses who faculty to teach multiple sections of opposed the closed shop, Kuzych was an introductory course in Canadian an anti-Stalinist, anti-bureaucratic history. He asked Peter Waite, the left-winger. Nor does White seem head of the department at Dalhousie to appreciate the irony regarding the University, to recommend a suitable Kuzych case when he notes that “the person. Ernie was then completing an closed shop ha[d] a lot to do with” the MA thesis on Nova Scotia politics. He subsequent bureaucratization of the and his wife, Irene, were planning to labour movement (241). celebrate with an extended holiday in A Hard Man to Beat is part history, Europe before returning to high school part adventure, part diagnosis, and teaching. On Waite’s recommendation, part prescription. Pointed, cranky, Forbes was offered the job, sight lively, and authentic, it has lost none unseen. He did not accept until Irene of its power to inform and entertain. It pointed out that they hadn’t seen the remains an excellent text for a range of west coast and that they would be paid history and labour relations courses, a to go to Victoria. His first encounter useful primer for social activists, and an with Victoria, a phone call to a Halifax insightful read for the general public. moving company, was not promising. The company’s agent asked why anyone would want to go to a place where it The Education of an Innocent: rained all the time. Ernie does not mention that the rain seemed so endless An Autobiography by E.R. in his first winter in Victoria that, “Ernie” Forbes as a son of the manse, he considered Ernest R. Forbes with an Intro- checking the Bible to see if Noah had provided instructions about building an duction by Stephen Dutcher ark! Nevertheless, Ernie liked Victoria, Fredericton, NB: Acadiensis Press, especially the Sooke Hills and the 2012. 142 pp. $14.95 paper. Malahat, which offered opportunities for him to hunt deer – and for cougars Patricia E. Roy to hunt him. University of Victoria His MA research had made Ernie aware of the Maritimes’ many grievances. In Victoria he learned hy should BC Studies review the that British Columbians also had a Wautobiography of E.R. “Ernie” tradition of complaining of unfair Forbes, a leading historian of Maritime treatment at the hands of the federal Canada? Because several years in government. Alas, he never turned his 194 bc studies talents to what could be an interesting music and entertainment industries hits comparison. Nevertheless, his interest the spot perfectly. In Mulligan’s Stew in regionalism increased. As part (named after the author’s current ckua, of the 1967 Centennial celebrations, Alberta, radio program) “tdm” recounts the Canadian Historical Association many fascinating stories of growing up sponsored a series of seminars on the in the BC interior and the Prairies, theme of regionalism. At the Victoria joining the rcmp in Alberta, and session one of the senior scholars was then making a radical career shift (by George Rawlyk, whom Ernie had mid-1960s standards) into commercial known at Dalhousie. Assigned the task radio broadcasting. From there, we of critiquing Rawlyk’s paper on the follow Mulligan through the trials and “paranoid style” in Nova Scotia politics, tribulations, personal and professional, Ernie listed the “rational reasons” that of moving through the mainstream Maritimers felt hard done by. Two and underground radio worlds of the Toronto graduate students, Viv Nelles late 1960s and early 1970s and into film and Michael Bliss, responded with anti- and television acting before landing Maritime jokes. Ernie was soon off a pioneering position as host of cbc’s to Queen’s, where he wrote his thesis music video show Good Rockin’ Tonite on Maritime rights, which became an in 1983. Mulligan then moved to a acclaimed book. He happily returned lengthy stint with Canada’s twenty- to Victoria, but the University of New four-hour music station (back in the Brunswick soon offered him a position. day) MuchMusic, his visage engraved Since parenthood made extended on the minds of a generation (including research trips to the Maritimes mine). From Vancouver, Mulligan impractical, he realized that he must hosted the west coast program Much either change the focus of his research West for sixteen years. or return to the east. British Columbia’s Most fascinating, although all too loss was the Maritimes’ gain. brief, are the book’s descriptions of the Vancouver music scene of the late- 1960s, including the early years of Mulligan’s Stew: My Life … Kitsilano-based radio station cfun, the Fourth Avenue scene in general, the So Far bands, and some of the venues. What Terry David Mulligan Mulligan does share, however, makes very enjoyable reading. Also enjoyable Victoria: Heritage House, 2012. are his recollections of interviews with 240 pp. $19.95 paper. artists as diverse as Janis Joplin, Jimi Vanessa Colantonio Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa, James Brown, David Bowie, Neil Vancouver Young, Tom Cochrane, and Bryan Adams. earching the Canadian literary Yet Mulligan’s Stew, filled with Spantry for a satisfying meal of entertaining and poignant tales of the rock-and-roll history can turn up very author’s meetings with rock royalty slim pickings indeed. Which is why BC (Canadian, American, and British), is veteran DJ, VJ, and actor Terry David also part-confessional: a bitter-sweet Mulligan’s memoir of moving through biography, peppered with loss and the western Canadian and national rock regret. Throughout his book Mulligan’s Book Reviews 195 narrative does not come across as one, rich in the specific geography, melancholy so much as wistful and history, and sociology of the Wells and wizened, having enjoyed the fun times Barkerville region. Safyan allies her and learned from the difficult ones. method to that of Barry Broadfoot in All of which makes Mulligan’s Stew Ten Lost Years, letting her informants a very gratifying dish of rock-and-roll speak for themselves. The music of the Canadiana. era is frequently referenced but there is no “lost garden” in Safyan’s narrative because no one could live from the land: All Roads Lead to Wells: Stories at an elevation of 1,219 metres there are no guaranteed frost-free days. Instead, of the Hippie Days Wells’s hippies worked seasonally in Susan Safyan the local parks at Barkerville and the Bowron Lakes, with highways and Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2012. forestry, and in the town’s hotels and 304 pp. $26.95 paper. restaurants. David Stouck “Filthy Larry’s” leather shop, the first hippie establishment, became the model Simon Fraser University for social organization: small groups of three or four friends living together he growing literature about hippies in the area’s abandoned buildings. Tdemonstrates that the phenomenon Because the gold rush era’s forty-five was anything but uniform. Joy Inglis, in hundred inhabitants had diminished a privately printed book, describes one to three hundred, there were many of manifestation: a commune on Quadra these: miners’ shacks, little houses, log Island that was established in 1968 by cabins. Some built their own unique Antioch College art instructor Janet dwellings: one used a car windshield Jones to provide young men with a for a living-room window, another built refuge from the Vietnam draft. Jones’s a pie-shaped tree house spanning five vision of a self-sustaining intentional trees and moving with the wind. Few arts community was steeped in the had electricity or running water; most utopian idealism of the counterculture had wood cook stoves for heat. Massive movement. The participants built an icicles grew in the corners; buildings art centre and organized a farm where caught fire. everyone worked. But Jones died Individuals emerge from Safyan’s suddenly in the fall of 1969, and while narrative as admirably ingenious at the farm continued for another thirteen coping with difficulties: spring floods, years it was shadowed by her loss. In tormenting mosquitoes, forty below Inglis’s artful narrative the hippies tell temperatures (“you wear all your clothes their stories, each chapter set to music to bed”). Dinner might be stinging with popular lyrics from that era, but nettles and rice, electricity and water throughout we are made aware of the lines might be created by rank amateurs. fleeting nature of that special time But individualism was prized and every “back to the garden” by the book’s title: dog had a name. Always Remember This. Safyan’s expert editing of her Susan Safyan’s All Roads Lead to informants’ memories highlights an Wells, by contrast, is not a nostalgic essential fact about this hippie enclave: document but a bracing, life-affirming “living off the grid” depended on a 196 bc studies vigorous communal life that often about life on the inland sea that I’ve included local old-timers. There were reviewed for BC Studies recently. Yet it social activities throughout the year: is also the one I would be least likely to dredge pond skinny-dipping, costume buy. Luckily, reviewers get free copies parties, snowball tournaments, dinners of the books that they review (that and with drums and dancing – all fuelled by the fame that comes with the genre). “serious drinking” and mind-altering In a handful of well-crafted chapters, drugs. But, especially, it consisted of Buday has nailed much of what it feels helping each other through the difficult like to move from the city to one of times. Though there was division, there the quirky little islands nearby. His was a kind of active utopianism based non-fiction snippets of life in the slow on the ideal of community rather than lane halfway between Vancouver and on communal living. Some former Victoria are as compelling and faithful hippies still live there; others return for as are those of lawyer-novelist-islander visits. William Deverell. Buday also offers us Why is it important to preserve a handful of black-and-white photos accounts of these communities? As from his personal album that nicely Inglis says: “They had a profound complement his diary-cum-portrait and humanizing impact on North of life on Mayne. His insights into his American culture. The revolutions fellow islanders’ proclivity to take the in thought which animated these law into their own hands remind us groups expanded into an ever larger that the islands, like the sea around general consciousness. It is still found them, can appear somewhat lawless to wherever the hopes of freedom, peace, newcomers until they begin to discern and equality are expressed today.” All the complex local codes of conduct that Roads Lead to Wells is a vivid collection replace the Crown’s writ. Sometimes, of stories from one such unique and like when an islander jumps off a fascinating community. passing ferry to make sure he doesn’t miss the island softball game, the two codes clash. But mostly islands like Mayne Stranger on a Strange Island: are peaceful places with competing From Main Street to standards of behaviour set by the many Mayne Island parallel groups who share their bucolic space. Sometimes the clannishness Grant Buday can feel like a bad dream return to Vancouver: New Star Books, 2011. high school. Until you remember that No. 19 in the Transmontanus series, there weren’t really that many hobby farmers, eco-warriors, Buddhists, 76 pp. Illus. $19.00 paper. strident lesbians, or tedious old farts Howard Stewart at high school. Thank God. Buday University of British Columbia captures perfectly the island's complex protocol for greetings. He doesn’t go far enough, though, in explaining rant Buday’s slim tome about his why this subtle cacophony of signals Gtransition to life on Mayne Island has evolved. The vigour and style of in the new millennium is my favourite greeting one receives depend, far more among the small pile of good books than Buday recognizes, on which of the Book Reviews 197 island’s many subcultures one is seen Vice-President Richard Nixon in June to represent and how the greeter feels 1954 at a British Embassy dinner in about those kind of people. Washington, DC. Churchill, although Peaceful, except when the boys fire describing the United States, could up their chainsaws, which of course readily have said this about northern they seem to do at the drop of a hat, British Columbia had he had the especially on those magically still opportunity to read the essays and see fall days. Buday’s musings about the the photographs included in Front Lines: inescapable need for even the greenest Portraits of Caregivers in Northern British islander to eventually embrace the Columbia. The impressions gained from terrifying power and cranky soul of the an initial, cursory inspection of the book chainsaw is one of the book’s best bits. are of a dynamic, hardy, and diverse Then, too soon, it is over, ending people committed to enjoying the on an oddly tangential note about a physicality of the northern landscape. whale-watching trip on the Strait of Close examination reveals the portraits Juan de Fuca. This delightful little book to be accounts of healthcare professionals somehow reminded me of William who work and live, with great passion, Kotzwinkle’s great but obscure classic in British Columbia’s north. They are The Fan Man. I fear the obscurity of about people who are unreservedly Buday’s Stranger on a Strange Island committed to the belief that human will be assured mostly by its excessive health and well-being are inextricably brevity in relation to its price. The linked to the well-being of the earth. people most interested in it, like me, are Author Sarah de Leeuw’s background the least likely to shell out over twenty in cultural historical geography and her bucks for a seventy-five-page book. roots in northern British Columbia are reflected in her pithy yet rich accounts of forty-four nurses, physicians, traditional Front Lines: Portraits of healers, midwives, social workers, Caregivers in Northern British opticians, and pharmacists. These health professionals’ noble work, complicated Columbia by a rugged geography, harsh climate, Sarah de Leeuw, photos by and the adverse effects of colonialism, Tim Swanky racism, and poverty, is filled with problems and obstacles. Yet de Leeuw Smithers: Creekstone Press, 2011. manages to convince the reader that 104 pp. Illus. $32.00 cloth. these people have transcended the complications of providing health care Pamela A. Ratner in the north and have found happiness University of British Columbia and a sense of well-being as they care for others. Indeed, the essays are not “ always seem to get inspiration and exclusively about their professional renewed vitality by contact with lives but, rather, are an attempt to 1 thisI great novel land of yours.” So said relate and celebrate their lives, fully Prime Minister Winston Churchill to integrated, into their social and physical environments. 1 Richard Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Tim Swanky’s joyful photographs Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset and capture the healthcare providers outside Dunlap, 1978), 158. of their professional work; they are 198 bc studies seen playing musical instruments, City Critters: Wildlife in the swimming, cycling, dancing, fishing – Urban Jungle engaged in life’s pursuits. By avoiding Nicholas Read the fixed-pose image, Swanky has managed to represent his subjects Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, bursting with exuberance and hope – 2012. 144 pp. $19.95 paper. he has captured their world of beauty and fun. Jennifer Bonnell Holism is conceptualized by many University of Guelph health professionals as the consideration of the complete person – physically, psychologically, existentially, culturally, his beautifully illustrated and socially. de Leeuw has succeeded Tvolume introduces readers young in demonstrating that the healthcare and old to the diversity of wild animals providers she has profiled are sensitive that share urban environments with to the idea of holism and know, in all of us. Through entertaining anecdotes their expressed humility, that all aspects and compelling and often humorous of their world influence their, and their narrative, Nicholas Read explains patients’, health and well-being. These where these animals live, how they have compelling, adroitly written essays adapted to life in the city, and how we and accompanying photographs situate can better coexist with them. these people squarely in the north, The book’s scope is unexpectedly within healthcare service, and within broad, ranging from more familiar their families and communities. Several urban birds and mammals to chapters of the accounts are of people who lived on marine mammals, fish and aquatic in other communities and countries species, and reptiles and insects. and who worked in many different Anecdotes and illustrations are drawn occupations before they settled in the from cities big and small from across north. Their stories are replete with North America. Readers learn about searches for meaning – meaning that the specialized habitats upon which they clearly found when they chose to these animals depend, such as the salt become healthcare providers and to put marshes and intertidal areas that are down roots in British Columbia’s north. now present only in fragments in some These are people who know how to cities. live in ways that matter. There are no But this is not simply a celebratory glum profiles of overworked, stressed catalogue of animals in the city. Read healthcare professionals struggling with takes care to document the challenges resource shortages, poor coordination that occur with coexistence, including of services, and limited technological threats to pets and children, concerns infrastructure. This somewhat about disease transfer between animals unbalanced exposition may not tell the and humans, and the hazards of exotic whole story; nonetheless, there are life pet ownership. He backs up his stories lessons here for all of us. with solid scientific evidence. Read’s account also shows how the presence of urban wildlife in North American cities has changed over time. While North American urban centres have always been home to rats and to Book Reviews 199 a selection of birds and other species, “What makes skunk spray smell so the growing presence of animals we bad?” (22). Insets on “Amazing animal typically associate with wilderness – adaptations” feature fascinating local coyotes, white-tailed deer, and, in some anecdotes, such as the story of a colony places, bears, cougars, and moose – is a of massive six-gill sharks breeding relatively new phenomenon. Even in the below the Seattle aquarium, in depths oceans, the notion of an “urban whale” twenty times shallower than their is becoming more common, given the typical breeding habitat (48). pervasiveness of urban waterways that Finally, the book offers some useful feed coastal cities like Vancouver. Other ideas for bettering human and animal animals that were once commonly relationships in cities. Simple rules, seen in cities, such as songbirds, have such as “Don’t Feed the Bears,” apply declined precipitously in recent years in cities, too. Other admonishments, due to global changes such as habitat from keeping cats indoors to improving loss, pesticide use, and climate change garden habitats for wildlife, are (59). delivered with a refreshing dose of In the reasons behind these changes humour. lies Read’s main message: rapid habitat Most refreshing in this book is the loss is threatening wild animals around absence of the “save-the-animals” the world. The way we live in North rhetoric so prevalent in children’s books America – “in big houses on big lots and television programs, in which with big roads to serve them” (5) – characters are celebrated for “rescuing” has eradicated habitat for some wild individual animals, often in exotic animals and forced others into smaller places. Here the emphasis is squarely and smaller portions of undeveloped on habitat. Read captivates readers with land. stories about the animals outside their Many animals’ survival, Read argues, doorsteps and the ways in which they is contingent upon their ability to thrive can better work to give them the space in proximity to people. Adaptation they need. to new conditions and tolerance for a variety of food sources are shared by the most successful urban wildlife – the Nowhere Else on Earth: raccoons, skunks, house sparrows, and squirrels with which we are so familiar. Standing Tall for the Great Bear The book will find ready audiences Rainforest among younger children, teens, and Caitlyn Vernon adults alike. A great resource for urban families seeking to learn more Victoria: Orca Book Publishers, about the animals around them, City 2011. Illus. 131 pp. $22.95 paper. Critters also provides an excellent foundation for classroom studies in Margaret (Maggie) Low biology, geography, and environment. University of British Columbia Key words are bolded throughout the text and defined in a companion he Great Bear Rainforest, also glossary. Colour illustrations on every Tknown as the north and central spread are carefully chosen and well coast of British Columbia, is one of the integrated with the text. Sidebars last intact temperate rainforests left in focus on quirky animal facts, such as the world. This region has received much 200 bc studies attention since 1993, when a campaign for people if it is heavily developed. under the Raincoast Conservation She gives particular attention to the Society coined the name “Great Bear impacts of old-growth logging and the Rainforest” and began efforts to protect threats to the wild salmon populations the ecologically rich rainforest valleys that support the subsistence of many from logging. The environmental and of the First Nations communities land-use controversy was resolved along the coast. In the final three somewhat in 2006 through innovative chapters, Vernon tells the success negotiations and compromise with the story of the Great Bear Rainforest signing of the Great Bear Rainforest negotiations and the scale of change Agreements. The region is now the site possible when action is taken and people of a controversial oil pipeline slated to work collaboratively. Vernon then run straight through this rainforest to assesses the ecological significance of the Pacific Ocean, where oil tankers the Great Bear Rainforest and situates will transport the bitumen from the it, as a major carbon sink, in the broader Alberta tar sands to Asia. There is context of climate change. She argues no better time to assess the social and that the health of this region and of the ecological significance of this region. planet is directly affected by Western Nowhere Else on Earth: Standing Tall for society’s dependence on oil. Finally, she the Great Bear Rainforest, carries on this uses her personal experiences, and those conversation in a nuanced way. of people who live in the region, to urge This book is written for youth. youth to become involved in issues Author and environmental activist about which they care and ultimately Caitlyn Vernon uses simple language to be part of a better future. and explanations, vivid photographs, This book was written to fill a void cartoons, “did-you-know” sections, in the current commentary about the and personal stories to teach the reader Great Bear Rainforest. While much has about the importance and beauty of the been written about the governance and Great Bear Rainforest. Further, Vernon politics of the region – the negotiations, explains the reasons one might care innovative environmental strategies, about the people and ecology of this market campaigns, ecosystem-based region and suggests ways to take action. management – little commentary The author begins by describing the has focused directly on the role of basics of the area: its geography, the youth in its future. This emphasis people who live there, and the crucial makes Nowhere Else on Earth a unique ecological role played by the rainforest and valuable contribution to juvenile both locally and globally. In ten short literature, but it will also be welcomed and rich chapters, Vernon tells us by advocacy organizations, government about the First Nations peoples who agencies, and academic institutions. have lived in the area for millennia. As the author of an academic study She then provides a description of about the innovations of the Great the forest, plant, and wildlife ecology Bear Rainforest negotiations, and as a as well as the long history of natural visitor to the region, I can attest to the resource extraction in the area. This ways in which Vernon has portrayed is followed by an assessment of the its majesty, beauty, and significance. contemporary threats to the region, Geared towards a youth audience, this including logging and oil and gas book does not provide an in-depth development, and what is at stake analysis of the political and economic Book Reviews 201 characteristics of the area; however, it addition to photographs and government does provide a clear understanding of correspondence from archival the connections between the choices collections. Organized thematically people make and the environment upon rather than chronologically, this book which they depend for life. is divided into chapters dealing with wilderness, recreation, wildlife, and “fake nature.” Manufacturing National Park As Cronin asserts, photographic imagery is powerful due to its “ability Nature: Photography, Ecology, to convince people that it records the and the Wilderness Industry of truth” (17). She argues that photographic Jasper representations created for the touring public perpetuate an iconic “National J. Keri Cronin Park Nature,” a particular “way of Vancouver: ubc Press, 2011. 208 pp. understanding place,” in which images Illus. $29.95 paper. tend to represent landscapes as pristine, animals as non-threatening and in Jenny Clayton harmony with humans, and recreation University of Victoria as having a minimal environmental impact. Repeatedly encountering these reassuring types of images, viewers do ontributing to the emerging not need to confront the ecological Cand vibrant field of national degradation that has occurred in park histories in Canada, J. Keri Jasper. Cronin shows how promotional Cronin’s Manufacturing National Park photography of apparently untouched Nature: Photography, Ecology, and the nature has helped entice visitors to the Wilderness Industry of Jasper explores park to participate in outdoor leisure how photographs created for tourist activities, while a range of manipulations consumption have depicted Jasper of the natural environment took place to National Park in the century since the support these activities, such as stocking park’s establishment in 1907. Engaging waterways with fish and maintaining with scholars of nature, culture, and permanent clear-cuts on mountainsides power such as Bruce Braun and Tina for downhill skiing, not to mention Loo, Cronin examines the role that constructing an infrastructure of roads, photography plays in shaping “how accommodation, sewage, and garbage we think about and interact with our disposal. physical environments” (28). This study A provocative central claim of this is also informed by an extensive reading study is that, “for the most part[,] the of the literature on the history of representations of this landscape have parks, wildlife, landscape art, tourism, changed very little” in the century and photography. To explore the since the park’s establishment and have relationship between photography continued to portray Jasper “as a safe and the physical nature it represents, and tranquil place, one that represent[s] Cronin mainly employs published the antithesis of social and political primary sources such as tourism change and in which Nature exist[s] brochures, postcards, films, park as a timeless entity” (20). While a reports, newspaper articles, and reports compelling case could be made for the by environmental organizations, in persistence of anti-modern portrayals 202 bc studies of national park landscapes over the consumed, experienced, or re-imagined twentieth century, this argument would “National Park Nature” when framing be more convincing if it incorporated their own pictures. subtle shifts over time in promotional photography and engaged more fully with studies such as I.S. MacLaren’s Only in Whistler: Tales of a article on Jasper in the Journal of Canadian Studies (34, 3 [1999]) and Mountain Town Alan MacEachern’s Natural Selections: Stephen Vogler National Parks in Atlantic Canada, 1935- 1970 (2001). These studies demonstrate Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, that what Canadians hope to see in 2009. 240 pp. $24.95 paper. national parks has changed over time to reflect cultural values and that the changing expectations of tourists Making Meaning Out of have, in turn, shaped the design and Mountains: The Political management of parks. Of the forty images printed here Ecology of Skiing in black and white, nine have no date Mark C.J. Stoddart and at least twelve historic postcards are reproduced from the author’s own Vancouver: ubc Press, 2012. 223 pp. collection. Using only images with $85.00 cloth. dates would strengthen the potential David A. Rossiter for historical analysis, and a detailed discussion in the introduction outlining Western Washington University Cronin’s methodology in terms of researching, acquiring, and selecting ountains play important and images would help to explain how Mcomplex roles in the lives of representative are these photographic British Columbians. As sources of depictions. material wealth, barriers to travel and Manufacturing National Park Nature communication, and sites of physical develops diverse and useful critiques and spiritual exertion and exploration, of how photographers, filmmakers, mountain landscapes have shaped and government, and the tourist industry been shaped by the histories and human have created a selective vision of geographies of the province. While parks that is careful not to disturb this relationship has been written long-standing notions of wilderness, about in the context of natural resource recreation, and wildlife, and how extraction and colonial resettlement,1 this vision threatens to override comparatively little attention has been public awareness of environmental paid to the ways in which mountain problems in parks. This study sets the landscapes have been bound up with the stage for further investigations into the role of photography in national 1 See, for example, R. Cole Harris, The parks, for example, an exploration of Resettlement of British Columbia: Essays how developments in photographic on Colonialism and Geographical Change technology affected image-making or (Vancouver: ubc Press, 1997); and Jeremy Mouat, Roaring Days: Rossland’s Mines and an analysis of the photograph albums the History of British Columbia (Vancouver: of park visitors to find out how tourists ubc Press, 2005). Book Reviews 203 production and promotion of recreation life in Whistler, including: “squatting” and tourism. In these two volumes, in the 1970s, life and labour in bars Stephen Vogler and Mark Stoddart, and restaurants, the local music scene, respectively, each with very different skiing (of course!), and home-grown methods and styles, explore this aspect journalism. The picture that emerges of mountain-society relationships in offers readers a detailed glimpse, British Columbia through the prism through crisp and witty prose, into of recreational skiing and the places the past and present of “the locals’” that have been produced around it, Whistler, a place that is very different particularly the resort municipality of from the carefully constructed tourist Whistler. Mecca that is portrayed for and sold Vogler’s Only in Whistler is the long- to travellers and tourists arriving from time local resident’s colourful account Vancouver and beyond. In this way, of the transition of the ski resort from Only in Whistler serves to provide a a small town of about five hundred valuable, if selective, popular history year-round inhabitants (a mixture of of the growth of the town and its “old school European Alpinists” and community. “snow-hippies”) in the mid-1970s to the Stoddart’s Making Meaning out of international resort destination that it Mountains is a very different read. had become on the eve of hosting the As the title indicates, the volume 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Having investigates the social production of moved to Whistler with his parents skiing landscapes within the networks and siblings in the mid-1970s at the of early twenty-first-century consumer age of twelve, Vogler brings to his capitalism – both Whistler and the narrative the perspective of a person town of Nelson (and nearby ski resort growing through adolescence and into Whitewater) in the Kootenay region adulthood; this is the same path of of the province provide the setting as development that he traces for the town well as an opportunity for comparison. of Whistler itself. The result is a very Written in a style peppered with personal account of both change and terminology common within the continuity in a place that is clearly dear critical social sciences and humanities, to the author’s heart. the book will likely find a receptive During his time working in Whistler audience among graduate students and as, variously, a dishwasher, musician, faculty members interested in analyses journalist, and author, Vogler amassed of society-environment relationships. a wealth of anecdotes that shed light on The study is based upon dozens of the growth of a town and its changing interviews with skiers as well as textual surroundings and social milieu. Only analysis and the author’s observations in Whistler is written mainly around from the field, all filtered through reminiscences elicited by the author ideas drawn from post-structuralist during recent interviews with his theory. The Introduction sets the stage large group of long-time friends and by outlining the rising importance of acquaintances in Whistler. The result the “attractive” economy of tourism in is a series of vignettes that work British Columbia as a complement to, backwards and forwards in time rather and at times as a replacement for, long- than a chronological account of the standing extractive resource activities. town’s development. As such, the ten This chapter also provides brief histories chapters focus upon different aspects of of the resorts at Whistler and Nelson, 204 bc studies a broad discussion of the networked theoretical perspective provides an corporate structure of the BC ski resort over-arching perspective on complex industry, and an overview of debates and confusing places and activities; around wilderness experiences and however, the master weaving comes environmental sustainability in the with a loss of detail and nuance.2 This context of recreational skiing. From reviewer would love to be a fly on the there, Stoddart goes on to explore four wall at a Whistler bar in which these main themes: the ongoing construction two might cross paths and exchange of skiing landscapes by a range of social notes. Perhaps something could be actors; skiing and related landscapes arranged? as hybrid “naturecultures;” politics, power, and relations between human and non-human nature; and the role of social difference along lines of class, gender, and race in producing skiing landscapes and attendant politics. The Conclusion identifies a series of implications that the study raises for consideration in an “ecopolitics of skiing,” as “skiing involves flows of power among humans and non- humans, and it should be seen as part of our political ecology, where the purified boundaries between human politics and non-human nature break down” (177). Observing that “there is more to skiing than simply having fun in the snow,” Stoddart highlights ecological impacts and attendant discourses and networks, as well as social justice issues such as First Nations claims, as areas of contention that a political ecology approach helps to illuminate. The book ends with an Epilogue that addresses Whistler’s role as host of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, indicating that the experience reflects the themes addressed throughout the study. Ultimately, these books succeed and stumble in different ways. Vogler provides a selective but intimate understanding of the history of a place that is very often regarded and experienced in a most transitory fashion. 2 An obvious instance is the erroneous And yet one closes the cover feeling account of the merger of Blackcomb and that, although Vogler’s Whistler has Whistler mountains in 1996; Intrawest, already owner of Blackcomb, bought been revealed, a larger picture remains Whistler that year, not Blackcomb, as obscured. Conversely, Stoddart’s Stoddart claims (9).