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Book Reviews BOOK REVIEWS Making the News: Colonist articles. These historic articles A Times Colonist Look at 150 are the book’s greatest strength. They facilitate an encounter with the writing Years of History style and diction of yesteryear, and Dave Obee they allow readers to engage with the people and events that exemplified the Victoria: Times Colonist, 2008. 174 past one hundred and fifty years. Obee pp. $31.50 paper. is to be commended for the amount of Kenton Storey labour that has gone into Making the News as the articles chosen represent Dunedin, New Zealand only a fraction of the material that may be drawn upon. In addition, Making av e O b e e s t a t e s i n t h e the News is particularly enhanced by Dintroduction to this book that its collection of historic photographs, his purpose is to “give you glimpses of which are displayed to good result by the people and events that shaped our its large coffee-table format. community and our province” (1). In I anticipate, then, that Making the this goal, Obee succeeds admirably. News will appeal not only to readers Through well-chosen historic articles with a particular interest in British and photographs, Making the News Columbia but also to history instructors demonstrates how the Times Colonist across Canada. Making the News is interpreted local and international a perfect supplementary text to the events from its inception in 1858 until University of Victoria’s online edition almost the present day. Making the News of the Times Colonist and could be is organized chronologically into sixteen utilized as an introductory text to sections. Each section is prefaced by a focus students’ exploration of the Times short essay and a profile of a historic Colonist database. However, I stress figure. Obee utilizes these introductory the book’s supplementary quality. remarks to contextualize the key It does not offer an in-depth analysis persons and events that epitomize of either the Times Colonist’s particular each decade in question. Following role within Victoria’s press or how that Obee’s signposting, each section then newspaper made rather than simply features a series of historic Times reported the news over time. While it is bc studies, no. 167, Autumn 2010 135 136 bc studies important to recognize that Making the century is more detailed than are News was not written primarily for an those of other editors and owners academic audience, it is useful to reflect of the Times Colonist. De Cosmos’s on some of the assumptions implicit idiosyncratic character, important within it and its position within the political career, and role in facilitating historiography of British Columbia’s British Columbia’s federation with press. Canada have encouraged historians Obee’s choice of historic Times to analyze his use of the press as a Colonist articles implicitly stresses a political tool. This interest is reflected progressive vision of Victoria’s civic in the historiography, with analyses of development. While tragedy and De Cosmos and the press appearing in hardship are chronicled in Making works by Margaret Ross, Roland Wild, the News, their purpose is to illustrate and George Woodcock. No doubt other citizens’ triumphs over adversity. editors and owners used the Times Considering just one historical silence Colonist for similar purposes, but their within this book, Obee’s choice of preoccupations and aspirations have historic “highlights” appears to excise not been subjected to critical scrutiny. British Columbia’s experience of Notwithstanding my comments colonialism from the Times Colonist. regarding what Making the News is Hence, the book studiously avoids not, I recommend it for what it is. Obee articles that would illustrate the Times has crafted a valuable contribution to Colonist’s own role in marginalizing local Victoria’s historic memory, which will Aboriginal peoples or in articulating be a useful supplementary text to the the racial biases of a particular era. Times Colonist’s online edition. Best I imagine that Obee must have struggled of all, Making the News will inspire its with the question of what historic topics readers to explore further the Times to include in Making the News. What is Colonist itself. missing from it are examples of historic articles that display attitudes and ideas antithetical to contemporary values. The Man Game Yet they, too, are part of the Times Colonist’s legacy. Lee Henderson Certainly Obee’s conclusion is Toronto: Penguin, 2009. 528 pp. correct: that “contemporary newspapers $18.00 paper. give us history on the fly. They are essential to our understanding of the past, and are used by professional researchers and amateur historians The Chief Factor’s Daughter – and everyone in between – to flesh Vanessa Winn out the skeletons of history” (1). Yet, despite the importance of newspapers Surrey: TouchWood Editions, 2009. to historians, they have been under- 288 pp. $19.95 paper. examined as topics of analysis. Making the News implicitly reflects this lack of Mark Diotte critical scholarship on the BC press. It is University of British Columbia no coincidence that Obee’s description of Amor De Cosmos’s editorial t first glance, Lee Henderson’s manifesto in the mid-nineteenth AThe Man Game and Vanessa Book Reviews 137 Winn’s The Chief Factor’s Daughter by historical figures such as Joe Fortes could not be more different. While and R.H. Alexander, it is the race Henderson’s novel revolves around conflicts of 1887 and 1907 as well as the predominantly violent and obscene rampant, unwavering racism of the loggers in 1886 Vancouver, Winn’s characters and general society that novel, at just over half the length of create the most significant impact. Henderson’s, revolves around the five By confronting the linguistic, violent, “still-at-home” daughters of Chief racist, and even entertaining realities Factor John Work and their attempts to of a particular period of Vancouver’s find marriage and happiness in1858 Fort history, Henderson registers a Victoria. Each of these novels, however, frustration with Canadian historical makes an important contribution to the fiction and effectively challenges how understanding of BC history on the one history is told, interpreted, and written. hand and to the writing of historical I recently had the pleasure of meeting fiction on the other. and listening to Lee Henderson at the Winner of the 2009 Ethel Wilson University of British Columbia when Fiction Prize, The Man Game he spoke about his novel as a part of demonstrates a dialogue that has an the Robson Reading Series. What I uncanny dramatic, or stage, quality to appreciated most about the event was it, while the omniscient description, the passion and excitement Henderson especially that of landscape, has a so clearly expressed for his work – a poetic, alliterative quality. The novel passion and excitement that fills his is split into two intertwined narratives. novel. The dominant narrative is that of In the Spring 2010 edition of BC 1886, the story of feuding loggers and BookWorld, Joan Givner in “Shades of Samuel and Molly Erwagen. It is of Jane” compares The Chief Factor’s Molly who drives the narrative by Daughter to Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. developing the Man Game, a form of In terms of tone and style, I agree entertainment that is, in the words of completely. The novel is populated by Henderson, a “hybridization of sport, historical figures such as Lieutenant theatre and Mixed Martial Arts” as well Charles William Wilson, Governor as ballroom dance. The contemporary James Douglas, and the Work family narrative follows the encounter of Kat itself. Told through Margaret Work, and his unrequited love interest Minna a “spinster of nearly 24” (4), Winn’s with Silas and Ken, devotees of the novel focuses on the daughters of the Man Game, the latter of whom is a English gentry and their dependence descendant of the Erwagens. The Kat on marriage to attain social position and Minna plot consumes little space and privilege – except, in contrast to in the novel, and, at times, I wished Austen’s narratives, the English gentry that these characters had been given has been replaced by the Irishman John the strength and development of those Work, who has married “the daughter in the historical narrative. of a [First Nations] chief” à la façon du The strength and success of the pays, and London has been replaced by novel, in my opinion, comes from Fort Victoria. the incorporation of Chinook Jargon What impresses me most about – a trade language of the period – Winn’s novel is how she uses the and an unflinching vision of 1886 characters of Margaret Work and her Vancouver. While the book is populated sisters to unobtrusively foreground the 138 bc studies injustices they faced in terms of race, Native Peoples and Water class, and gender. The family favourite, Rights: Irrigation, Dams, and Lieutenant Wilson, is overheard to remark upon “les belles sauvages” (32). the Law in Western Canada Margaret’s reaction to the meeting Kenichi Matsui between Mr. Jackson, her future husband, and her mother is that she Montreal and Kingston: McGill- “dreaded that he might respond to her Queen’s University Press, 2009. warmth with cold civility, or perhaps 243 pp. Illus. $29.95 paper. worse, that he might fawn over her,” Jenny Clayton considering those who had “ridiculously romanticized her Indian Blood” in University of Victoria the past. The established “gentry” is bifurcated into a class system in which aking the jump from studies naval officers are often favoured over Mof static property such as land the sons of fur traders and in which to the fluid resource of water, Kenichi the Work daughters are in close and Matsui’s Native Peoples and Water Rights constant competition with the “Douglas explores new territory by examining the girls.” Their father, representative of intersection of Aboriginal rights and the patriarchal society to which they control over water in western Canada.
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