Book Reviews
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BOOK REVIEWS Seeing Red: A History of Natives of particular interest. in Canadian Newspapers The authors’ central claim is that Mark Cronlund Anderson and mainstream Canadian newspapers have, since the nineteenth century, Carmen L. Robertson portrayed Aboriginal peoples in ways that promote colonial constructs as just Winnipeg: University of Manitoba 2011 336 $27 95 plain common sense for the majority of Press, . pp. paper. Canadians: “Colonial representations Hadley Friedland as common sense, naturalized and University of Alberta totalized, comprise the gist of what reflects Canada’s past and present colonial imaginary in the printed press” eeing Red is a tough read. It’s tough (9). These representations consist of Sbecause the sheer amount of data endless variations and intersections gathered from Canadian newspapers of three essentialized characteristics: ends up, at times, reading like endless moral depravity, innate inferiority, lists of information rather than as and a lack of evolution, or “stubborn a coherent narrative, argument, or resistance to progress” (6-7). This analysis. And it’s tough because the claim is borne out through the book, pejorative colonial, racialized, and from flashpoints around the Rupert’s essentialized images of Aboriginal Land Purchase in 1869 (Chapter 1), people in the news are as pervasive the Northwest Rebellion of 1885 and and persistent as the authors claim the hanging of Louis Riel (Chapter 3), they are. Sadly, this book’s relentless through to the Anicinabe Park standoff demonstration of this will come as in Kenora in 1974 (Chapter 9), the Oka no surprise to anyone involved in Crisis in 1990 (Chapter 11), and just Aboriginal issues in Canada. The about anything in Margaret Wente’s catalogue presented here is so columns about Aboriginal peoples in remorseless and so disturbing that the Globe and Mail to date (271-75). I would suggest reading just the The book is at its strongest at its introduction and conclusion, which most historical. It falters a bit in its contain the bulk of actual analysis, coverage of more recent news items. and, for context, perhaps one chapter It appears, for example, to skim over the bc studies, no. 8, Spring 4 127 128 bc studies excruciating coverage of the appalling References violence towards, and erasure of, Taylor, Charles. 1994. “The Politics of Aboriginal women. In addition, the Recognition.” In Multiculturalism, analysis lacks the same confidence ed. Amy Gutman, 25-74. New Jersey: and coherence as elsewhere when Princeton University Press. Aboriginal voices are present, as with the Oka crisis; or when those voices are present but divided, as with the debate 31 over Bill C- and the restoration of Imperial Vancouver Island: Indian status for many women and their descendants in 1985 (Chapter 10). Who Was Who, 1850-1950 In particular, it is in these divisive J.F. Bosher issues, and the authors’ discussion of the news stories of violence by and between Woodstock, Oxon, UK: Writer- Aboriginal people, that their central sworld, 2012. 688 pp. $41.95 paper insight – that the demeaning images Patrick A. Dunae of Aboriginal peoples in the news have become an unquestioned “common Vancouver Island University sense” in the Canadian collective imaginary – might be fruitfully he author of this work, Professor expanded to enrich their analysis. J.F. Bosher, was born in North Political and legal decision makers, non- SaanichT near Sidney, British Columbia, Aboriginal and Aboriginal people alike, and raised in a cultured English family. read the same mainstream newspapers. Having retired from York University in Philosopher Charles Taylor has pointed Toronto, where he specialized in the out that “misrecognition shows not just modern history of France and French a lack of due respect. It can inflict a Canada, he deployed his considerable grievous wound, saddling its victims research skills on a narrative history with crippling self-hatred.” It is at least entitled Vancouver Island in the Empire worth questioning to what extent the (Tamarac, FL: Llumina Press, 2012). relentless misrecognition the authors In that book, Professor Bosher assesses demonstrate throughout the book has the region within the context of the fed back into the unquestionably high British Empire, paying special attention rates of lateral violence within many to southern Vancouver Island and a few Aboriginal communities today, which, adjacent Gulf Islands. He focuses on a in turn, continues to provide ample distinctive group of residents, whom fodder for news stories that perpetuate he refers to as “Imperials.” Most of this misrecognition. If we don’t find these British subjects were born in ways to talk about the complexity of the United Kingdom of Great Britain today’s painful iterations honestly, and Northern Ireland; many had compassionately, and respectfully, attended prestigious British schools the only ones doing so in public will and seen military service in British continue to be the Margaret Wentes. India. When they settled or retired on Vancouver Island, Imperials devoted themselves to their communities, serving as municipal councillors, church wardens, and magistrates. They established Boy Scout troops and Girl Book Reviews 129 Guide companies, amateur theatre First World War attestation records and guilds and horticultural societies. family reminiscences. Imperials accounted for the genteel The author has allowed some ambience of places like Cowichan interlopers into this collection. Station, Maple Bay, and Oak Bay. Inexplicably, there is an entry for They flourished until the 1950s, when Governor James Douglas and a portrait Vancouver Island was “Canadianized” of Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. and, worse, “Americanized.” In this Chaps like Captain Charles Barrett- hefty companion volume, Professor Lennard were mere sojourners. Bosher elaborates on the origins, Ontario-born Sir Arthur Currie is careers, and memories of no less than problematic, although we learn that eight hundred Imperials and their he “felt comfortable with the Island’s friends. Imperial Vancouver Island is British gentry” and was connected, intended not simply as a “biographical via his wife and cousin, to quality appendix” to his narrative history families in the Old Country (157). But but also as a recognition of “the the credentials of most of the Imperials historic worth of Imperial soldiers, in this collection are impeccable. civil servants, engineers, and others The longest biographies belong to too often ignored in an age hostile Lieutenant General Sir Percy Lake, to what the world now disparages as a distinguished soldier and veterans’ ‘imperialism’” (12). advocate, and Major Frederick Victor This is a remarkable work insofar as Longstaff, a “many-sided figure” who the author identifies and assembles a was a noted local historian. Most remarkable number of British gentlefolk Imperials, such as Colonel Theodore in one place. It is a valuable work, but, Sandys-Wunch, lived unobtrusively and like some of the people it chronicles, it so may not be familiar to readers of this is quirky. There is no Introduction to journal. He retired to a house called place the subjects in a historical context, Dogwoods near Maple Bay: “Like and in the “Note on Sources” the author many other British officers, he took is vague. He acknowledges that he has up fishing, gardened with a passion, used the internet for vital events and growing begonias, gloxinias, and many census records, but he eschews the other things, and was president of the “rambling and ungainly” URLs that local Boy Scouts’ Association for several function as internet addresses. In a brief years” (556). list of published sources, he cites a few Imperial Vancouver Island is very almanacs, biographical dictionaries, much a compendium of Old Boys and local history books, but he devotes since there are fewer than a dozen more space to an explanatory list of biographical entries for women. The abbreviations, such as kcsi (Knight Imperial sorority includes the founders Commander of the Order of the Star of Queen Margaret’s School, Miss of India) and obe (Officer of the Order Norah Denny and Miss Dorothy of the British Empire). However, it is Geoghegan. There is an entry for Miss evident from notes in the biographical Dora Kitto, a naturalist in Victoria entries that the author has consulted a devoted to skylarks and other English wide and reputable range of sources. songbirds. “Skylarks,” the author Overall, the biographical sketches are remarks in passing, “were one of the solid. They are well-crafted, informative, features of life in North Saanich that and often enlivened with details from cheered many local residents, including 130 bc studies my parents, who were perennially St. Peter’s is a shrine to the Imperials of homesick for rural England” (548). Vancouver Island; many of the subjects The compendium includes vignettes of this entertaining and informative of public-spirited memsahibs like compendium rest in its cemetery. Mrs. Claude (Maggy) Moss, obe, of Cowichan Station. A founding director of the Queen Alexandra Solarium for The Canadian Pacific’s Children, she was in the forefront of Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway: a movement that denounced elected cpr MLAs in Victoria for increasing their The Steam Years, 1905-1949 own salaries. Imperial families on Robert D. Turner and Vancouver Island were often connected Donald F. MacLachlan by marriage. Grace Rolston, for example, the daughter of a prominent family in Winlaw: Sono Nis Press, 2012. Duncan, married Percy Skrimshire, 304 pp. $39.95 paper. who founded an independent school David Hill-Turner for boys at Quamichan Lake. Mr. Skrimshire subsequently taught at Nanaimo Museum Shawnigan Lake School, nursery of a second generation of Imperials. hile the roundhouses are This biographical dictionary confirms now mostly silent and only research by other scholars about the theW occasional freight train makes prevalence and social influence of its way up and down the Island, the emigrant gentlefolk from the United Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway Kingdom in this part of British (E&N) occupies a prominent place in Columbia.