BOOK REVIEWS

Fish versus Power: An Environ­ works within which policies were mental History of the Fraser River formed, and the result is a narrative with a sort of tectonic quality about Matthew Evenden it. Steeped in primary documents Cambridge: Cambridge University produced by governments, quasi-gov- Press, 2004. 336 pp. Maps, illus. ernments, and corporations, Evenden produces a sort of Weberian morality US$65.00 cloth. play. Public and private organizations BY JOSEPH E. TAYLOR III rise, thrive, vie, and fall. Bureaucracies Simon Fraser University take on lives of their own, and original missions morph in distressing and bi­ zarre ways. Salmon often get lost in the N CIRCLES WHERE SALMON manage­ shuffle as entities maneuver for power ment gets debated, the Fraser River I or profit or fame or god-knows-what. looms large because it helps drive a neat In the end salmon survive, but this is syllogism, which goes something like not a success story. this: Columbia River runs imploded because American scientists supported Evenden draws out these lessons a massive dam-building program and* early with a sophisticated analysis of then failed to offset losses through the confusions surrounding efforts an equally massive hatchery system; to help salmon pass Hell's Gate. The Fraser River runs are vibrant because Gate, a notorious narrows on the science helped to rebuild degraded Fraser, was made far more turbulent habitat and then protected fish from after a series of railroad-induced land­ similar dam and hatchery programs; slides from 1911 to 1913. The river bed therefore Canadian salmon manage­ was so altered that adult salmon could ment was enlightened and US policies not pass, and lucrative sockeye runs were not. Unfortunately for people crashed. Nearly all understood that a who like this just-so story, Matthew catastrophe had occurred, but it took Evenden's Fish versus Power under­ years to comprehend the full impact, mines the separation of Canadian and decades to realize that problems were American in the history of salmon and festering, and nearly a half century to river management. No tidy boundaries muster the knowledge and will to fix remain but, rather, messy intellectual, things. Evenden's careful reading of material, and political relationships that the science and engineering behind this leave readers with abiding and, perhaps, project, however, reveals how tenuous a depressing respect for the contingencies solution it was. Good-intentioned sci­ of the past. entists descend into nasty, nationalistic spats, and, as Milo Bell later admitted, Although salmon frame the ques­ if anyone had understood how little was tions the author pursues, they have only known about Hell's Gate, they "might a marginal presence in this book. The not have given us authorization to build title says Fish, but the book's primary [a fish ladder]" (236). focus is "the institutional and political contexts of scientific knowledge" (12). The remainder of the book con­ Evenden's targets are the broad frame - centrates on efforts to develop hy-

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droelectricity on the Fraser. Like its cracy which drove dam-building in the neighbours to the north and south, Pacific Northwest. British Columbia was blessed with Running through this book is an at­ vast latent hydraulic energy and cursed tention to transnational themes. Na­ by limited demand. This frustrating ture, ideas, and policies transgressed blend of contingencies vexed developers borders and made it impossible to during the early twentieth century, but understand events within a provin­ whereas American boosters had willing cial or national framework. Salmon and powerful allies in the federal gov­ migrations entangled fishers in messy ernment, in British Columbia federal treaties; floods triggered major changes and provincial forces were often at in dam politics on the Fraser and the odds over funding public projects, and Columbia. An international assemblage private utilities added capacity only of scientists and engineers at Hell's after demand emerged. Ironically, BC Gate engaged each other so intensively Electric was a saving grace for Fraser that calling their work "Canadian" salmon because it would not risk capital or "American" obscured the inherent on a mainstem dam without an obvious dynamism. The most significant energy market. implication of transnationalism was A conservative strategy served BC the formation of hydroelectric policy. Electric well in the Great Depression, Well-placed boosters lobbied to dam but a rush of industrial development the Fraser and even divert the Co­ during the Second World War resulted lumbia into the Thompson River, but in chronic brownouts and calls for a they were opposed by adamant salmon more anticipatory approach to power interests. Industrial forces were evenly development. The pressures that trans­ matched, but this only forestalled the formed the Pacific Northwest in the Fraser 's fate. Although General An­ 1920s and 1930s finally reshaped British drew McNaughton insisted that more Columbia in the postwar years. Un­ dams would enable BC to be "entirely like south of the 49 th parallel, however, masters of our own destiny" (223), he industry and government could never miscalculated the entangling alliances. align behind a dam-building program. Diplomacy and technology made the Politicians cajoled BC Electric to move Fraser irrelevant in 1961 when Canada forward on projects, but the company's and the US agreed to dam.the upper main goal was to deflect efforts to Columbia so that both American river make it a public utility. The Aluminum management and Canadian economic Company of Canada (ALCAN) diverted concerns were addressed. Meanwhile the Nechako River to power a smelter engineers perfected long-distance at Kitimat, in part by playing the power transmission, ensuring that dams Nechako off the Chilko River as the on the Columbia and Peace rivers could lesser of two evils, but ALCAN'S victory substitute for the Fraser. created a potent coalition of industry, In the end the Fraser, an almost management, and science concerned completely provincial river, remained about salmon habitat. Electric policy damless because of the transnational produced a Newtonian dynamic. nature of Columbia waters and Each new project inspired an equal electrical transmission. This is why and opposite reaction. The province's facile contrasts between Canadian and fractured industrial base prevented that American management fare poorly, and coalition of cities, industry, and bureau­ why the transnational focus is impera- Book Reviews

BC researchers, seeking models initiating her ethnographic research that might help them to navigate this of Haida plant use and a meticulous rearranged academic landscape, would review of archival materials on Haida benefit greatly from an investigation culture. Since then she has continued of the works of Nancy Turner. For to visit and revisit this unique place, over three decades Turner has been in documenting and participating in the forefront of developments in col­ Haida plant use traditions that, for a laborative research with First Nations, time, seemed to be slipping away. Haida producing a corpus of ethnobotanical elders, wishing to have their knowledge works that is recognized internation­ passed on to later generations, eagerly ally for its detail and its sensitivity to invited Turner into their homes and cultural concerns. out to their families' plant gathering In many ways her most recent book, sites, providing the information and Plants of Haida Gwaii, represents the perspectives that shaped this impres­ culmination of lessons learned by Dr. sive, long-term documentation effort. Turner in the course of the last three What Turner has produced with the decades and is an effective response guidance of these elders is a document to the emergent academic paradigm. that speaks, arguably by design, to two A casual skim of this book might lead audiences. For contemporary Haida, some readers to assume that it is merely this volume is a resource of tremendous another guide to plants used by an Ab­ pedagogic value, providing a detailed original group: the book is beautifully chapter of almost forty pages entitled illustrated with colour photos of plants "The Role of Plants in Haida Culture" and people as well as paintings by Haida as well as over 130 pages of information artist Giitsxaa, and it lists species after on the traditional uses of particular species of plants that have been used plant species within the traditional traditionally for their berries, shoots, diet, toolkit, and pharmacopoeia of leaves, woods, or other products. Such the Haida people. This information "plant guides" are often associated with provides ample confirmation - one the popular literature regarding Ab­ might even say celebration - of the original peoples - literature commonly detail and sophistication of traditional fashioned into paperback guidebooks Haida plant knowledge in a format of mixed merit that provide brisk that quotes Haida elders at length, sales at tourist shops throughout the provides abundant illustrations, and province. Yet Dr. Turner's works stand is attuned to the cultural milieu of the apart. As the preface and introduction modern Haida; to wit, the volume is make clear, this volume represents the an outstanding teaching tool within the outcome of decades of earnest discus­ Haida community and will long serve sions between Turner and the Haida the purpose that its elders intended. community regarding not only the The perpetuation of dietary and me­ traditional use of plants but also the dicinal practices and the continued at­ role of the researcher in the transmis­ tachment to places of plant procurement sion of cultural knowledge today as will, in the view of many First Nations well as the competing imperatives for elders, provide for the health and cohe­ disclosure and privacy that characterize sion of their descendants far into the contemporary First Nations research. future. Long after they are gone, the elders will continue to "speak" to young Beginning in 1971, very early in her Haida through the works compiled by academic career, Turner made her Dr. Turner. •» first research trip to Haida Gwaii, Book Reviews JOf

Yet clearly this document was de­ the plants and the cultural practices signed to speak to outsiders as well. that depend on them. Turner's work While not provided with intimate de­ ensures that this message, embodied tails of ceremonial or medicinal plant in a compelling collage of images of uses, outside audiences are presented the land and quotations from the elders, with sufficient information to glimpse will reach a broad audience. No doubt the cultural, ceremonial, dietary, and the long-term research relationship economic importance of plants among between Nancy Turner and the Haida the Haida. We, too, are invited to will continue to yield dividends, for learn from the elders of Haida Gwaii both academic researchers and First regarding the uses of the myriad plants Nations communities, for many years of the BC coast so that we might also to come. share in this region's bounty. More to the point, however, this book fosters an empathetic appreciation of both Haida culture and the plants on which the Greenpeace: How a Group of Haida have depended since time imme­ EcologistSy Journalists and morial. While the book is remarkably Visionaries Changed the World thin in explicit political commentary RexWeyler or in discussion of recent land and resource conflicts in Haida Gwaii, it Vancouver: Raincoast Books, 2004. conveys Haida perspectives on these 600 pp. Illus. $39.95 cloth. matters, both explicitly and implicitly. These perspectives are perhaps best BY MICHAEL M'GONIGLE summarized in the book's brief epi­ University of Victoria logue, written by K'ii/lljuus (Barbara Wilson): "Elders teach that respect and ANCOUVER IN THE EARLY 1970S Was thanks for all things are a must. If we Va far different place from the "world do not respect, give thanks and protect class" cosmopolis it is today. Home these plants - the life-giving travelers to "draft dodgers" and a Kitsilano that share our journey - they will not counterculture, it was an open space be there for us" (217). for environmental action, like a green As this volume clearly indicates, field before the grass got all trampled plants and other non-commercial down. This is the setting for the birth of natural resources are necessary for Greenpeace, recounted in Rex Weyler's the survival of the people of Haida exciting new book entitled Greenpeace: Gwaii, individually and collectively, How a Group of Ecologists, Journalists and yet forces outside of this archipelago Visionaries Changed the World. have dramatic impacts on these re­ The book recounts how the now sources. Logging, overfishing, the global organization got started - from spread of introduced species, and the founding of the Greenpeace prede­ many other environmental impacts cessor (the Don't Make a Wave Com­ great and small thus result, indirectly mittee) in 1969 and the initial campaign but inexorably, in a cascade of adverse (in 1971) of the Greenpeace I to Amchitka cultural consequences. By gaining an Island to protest American nuclear empathetic understanding of Haida testing, through campaigns to save land and resource ethics, it is implied, the whales and seals, to the creation outsiders might be compelled to work in of Greenpeace International in 1979. It concert with the Haida to protect both hosts an engrossing cast of characters, j02 BC STUDIES with early leading roles assigned to the ness" (Quaker roots) through non-vio­ American Quaker anti-nuclear move­ lent direct action and of (2) conveying ment (Jim and Marie Bohlen, Irving the dramatic, derring-do images to and Dorothy Stowe) and Canadian the world through the visual media journalism (Ben Metcalfe and Bob (journalistic roots). In Bob Hunter's Hunter). Throughout there is a chorus memorable term, the goal was to send of characters from the Vancouver out media "mindbombs." With homage area, such as skipper John Cormack, to Marshall McLuhan, Greenpeace ecologist Pat Moore, hard-core activist recognized the constitutive role of Paul Watson, inveterate organizer Rod "discourse" and harnessed its mate­ Manning, and deal-maker David Mc- rial power long before such awareness Taggart. penetrated the academy. Greenpeace is truly a rich achieve­ At the same time, Wyler does not ment. It tells a great story that captures contemplate the limitations of the the spirit of a generation and a move­ mindbomb strategy in an already ment and that begins and ends with a corporate-controlled media and an lamentation on the birth of Greenpeace evolving culture of entertainment and International. This provides the book consumption. The organization's lack with its purpose - to reclaim Green­ of interest in grinding, less glamorous peace as a product of these amazing political work is also eschewed: "Our individuals in this special city at this job was not to resolve the nuance of historic time. ecology. Our job was to expose ecology The dust-jacket promotes the book by delivering images to people's minds. as the "definitive" record of Greenpeace 'Let the scientists and politicians sort "portrayed by someone who helped out what to do/ Hunter often said" (501). make it happen." To academics, this is For example, although Greenpeace a contradiction, of course. Such a work was represented at the International is necessarily "perspectival" rather than Whaling Commission after 1977, tnat "definitive." Indeed, rather than closing story (which led to a pelagic moratorium the book on Greenpeace, this story is an in the summer of 1979) is not told. important contribution to an ongoing The book begins and ends within understanding of the organization and a perspective set by Greenpeace of the movement of which it was such Vancouver. Those individuals and a central part. offices who challenged Vancouver's Wyler was a war résister from Colo­ continuing intellectual, financial, and rado who joined Greenpeace in 1973 legal hegemony are repeatedly criticized as photographer and, later, became (McTaggart, John Frizell, Greenpeace publisher of the magazine Greenpeace in San Francisco and Europe) or given Chronicles. His methodology falls some­ slight treatment (Allan Thornton). In where between that of an ethnographic contrast, the heavy-handed centralism study and that of a historical novel. of Greenpeace Vancouver's president Huge amounts of primary research in the late 1970s, Pat Moore, is politely (interviews, documents, notebooks) excused as insufficiently "diplomatic." are translated into direct (constructed) To move from a local movement to a dialogue. The story is recounted in global organization presented immense present time, with hindsight mixed in. challenges. The conflict created by this Under the influence of its founders, shift is recounted, but a more nuanced the brilliance of Greenpeace in the 1970s and reflective treatment is still needed. involved its strategy of (1) "bearing wit­ It is needed in order to assess events in Book Reviews joj

light of the changing characteristics of figures in the postwar era have been ably global civil society, the realpolitik of chronicled. Edgar Wayburn, a leading global political ecology, and the impera­ figure in the Sierra Club for more than tives of transnational organization that four decades, has now added his story began to emerge in this period. to the mix with an engagingly readable Those heretics who fought for a memoir entitled Your Land and Mine. vision that might work in the 1980s Working closely with his wife, Peggy, and beyond - and who, it might be Wayburn offers a chronicle of their life's argued, saved Greenpeace from 1970s work as wilderness activists. Vancouver - are neither acknowledged Wayburn begins by recalling his nor yet understood. Yet, notes Wyler, move to San Francisco as a young "our private fears about letting go would medical doctor in the 1930s, his court­ prove trifling ... Over the ensuing de­ ship and marriage to Peggy in 1947, and cades, the mystical spirit and radial their early "high trips" into the Sierra theatrics would survive a burgeoning Nevada. Ed Wayburn worked his way bureaucracy required to operate the into the high ranks of the Sierra Club, global organization" (571). serving on the executive committee of If this statement runs counter to the the San Francisco Bay chapter in the book's argument, then so much the late 1940s, gaining a seat on the board anc better for researchers in future. None of directors in 1957, ^ winning his of it detracts from Wyler's remarkable first presidency of the organization contribution to the understanding of in 1961. In the decade and a half after BC history and of the global environ­ the end of the Second World War, the mental movement. Wayburns shared the anxieties of many within the Sierra Club over sprawling subdivisions on undeveloped land near San Francisco, and they helped spear­ Your Land and Mine: Evolution head campaigns to save Point Reyes of a Conservationist National Seashore and Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Wayburn Edgar Wayburn ably narrates these campaigns, along with Allison Alsup with the bigger ones over dams in San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, Dinosaur National Monument - dams 2004. 336 pp. Illus. US$35.00 cloth. which the Sierra Club helped thwart - and the battle over the California BY MARK HARVEY redwoods. North Dakota State University For those familiar with the Sierra Club's history or with environmental ITHIN THE LAST two decades, politics in the 1950s and 1960s, Wayburn's Wseveral scholars have written book covers much familiar ground. about a number of the leading con­ He offers capsule histories of the servation activists who appeared in Sierra Club's debates over a proposed the United States and Canada in the nuclear facility at Diablo Canyon on crucial decades following the Second the California coast as well as nicely World War. Thanks to insightful drawn vignettes of the conflicts over biographies of Sigurd Olson, Ernest Point Reyes, the redwoods, and the Oberholtzer, and Aldo Leopold, as Bureau of Reclamation's plans to well as collections of their writings and dam the Grand Canyon. He recounts those of their colleagues, the lives of key the great internal struggle within the joj BC STUDIES club over David Brower's leadership, a wild lands and to pass the Alaska Na­ struggle that led to his resignation as tive Claims Settlement Act, 1971, as well executive director in 1969. Wayburn as the Alaska National Interest Lands provides character sketches of Ansel Conservation Act, 1980. Adams, Martin Litton, August Fruge, Wayburn does not much concern and Michael McCloskey, though natu­ himself with recent debates about rally he keeps himself at the centre of the social constructions of wilder­ the story. ness; instead, he simply states his own Wayburn's approach to Your Land love for and convictions regarding the and Mine, which involves blending value of wilderness. Anyone interested evocative descriptions of the lands in the main outlines of the conservation he loves with crisply drawn vignettes movement in recent decades should find of the main players in many of the Your Land and Mine of interest. Readers battles, makes for a compelling read. will also be reminded of the pronounced He draws illuminating portraits of im­ moral commitment that bound together portant players in the postwar battles: the generation of conservation and wil­ of Newton Drury, the conservative derness activists in the decades after the director of the Save-the-Redwoods Second World War. League; of the even more conservative California governor Ronald Reagan, who, in a conversation with Wayburn, Fire: A Brief History denied that he ever said "When you've seen one redwood, you've seen them Stephen J. Pyne all" (154); and of former United States Seattle: University of interior secretary Stewart Udall. In his early tenure as secretary, Udall Washington Press, 2002. 204 pp. won plaudits from Wayburn and other Illus. US$18.95 paper. conservationists; later, however, when Udall had an apparent change of heart Wildfire Wars: Frontline Stories regarding the redwoods, Wayburn ex­ ofBC's Worst Forest Fires perienced "the biggest disillusionment Keith Keller in my conservation career" (149). Nearly half of this book centres Vancouver: Harbour Publishing, on Alaska, which, by the late 1960s, 2002. 296 pp. Illus. $34.95 cloth. increasingly consumed the Wayburns' energy and time. The "great land" in­ BY CARLA M. BURTON AND spired Ed and Peggy as no other wil­ NANCY J. TURNER derness areas in the lower forty-eight University of Victoria ever had, and they eagerly returned frequently to explore Alaska's wilds by ERE ARE TWO BOOKS about fire: raft, float plane, bush plane, train, and Hboth histories and both well- on foot. Wayburn makes clear the valu­ researched and insightful, but both able role of grassroots activists such as completely different in scope and Celia Hunter and Ginny Wood, owners content. Stephen Pyne's book, Fire: of Camp Denali near Mount McKinley A Brief 'History', presents a long-term National Park, who were energetic in history of fire from an ecological and protecting the park from miners and cultural perspective. The book covers other interests. He then traces the a vast temporal and geographical scale, lengthy political effort to save Alaska's measured in epochs and millennia, Book Reviews joj and traversing the entire globe. Keith as a knife. Keller, on the other hand, Keller's book, Wildfire Wars, in contrast, captures the drama of firefighting and details the human and environmental the heroism of individuals in a per­ elements of ten of the most horrific sonal, journalistic style, using archival forest fires that have occurred in recent sources, newspaper accounts, and times in British Columbia, dating over a interviews with those who were there span of decades, from 1931 to 1998. to tell his stories. Pyne's book presents a Pyne defines three distinct "Fires" compelling account of how fire evolved in the earth's history. The First Fire is along with humankind and the ways the natural fire - sparked by lightning in which humans have harnessed it to and other natural phenomena that their advantage. Fire has been the major began probably in the early Devonian, ecosystem-level management tool for some 400 million years ago, when food production, assisting humans in biomass began to accumulate and dry the tasks of clearing forests, creating to the point that it would burn. It has and maintaining grasslands for animal shaped the evolution of species and the forage, breaking down organic mate­ formation of many different habitats, rials, reducing pests, and promoting the including those used by humans since vigorous resprouting and productivity their beginnings. The Second Fire is of certain fire-adapted berry species and anthropogenic: it came about when other food plants. Even the Third Fire humans learned to capture, kindle, - industrial fire - has provided us with and control their own fires, using the tremendous energy to run our machines fuels of their environments. These and engines, build our modern cities two Fires co- existed and intermingled and global transportation systems, and with each other until the last part of operate our agricultural equipment, the Holocene - namely, the time of the enabling us to farm on massive scales. Industrial Revolution. Then the Third The Third Fire comes with an enor­ Fire - potentially the most destructive mous price, however, with the conse­ - was born, with the discovery of vast quences of its harnessing ranging from deposits of fossil biomass: coal, oil, and pollution of groundwater, ocean, and gas, a hydrocarbon legacy that accumu­ atmosphere to global climate change lated from long-ago photosynthesis due to excessive production of the so- of the Carboniferous and Mesozoic called "greenhouse gases": water vapour conifers, ferns, equisetums, and other (H20), carbon dioxide (C02), methane vegetation. Some of these plants burned (CH ), nitrous oxide (N20), and ozone in the First Fire, but most of them fell, (O ). These are produced naturally, but decayed, and became compressed and burning from the Third Fire has added converted into the fossil fuels we now significantly to their levels. depend upon so heavily. According to Keller's book may not be so thought- Pyne, "Humans have exhumed fossil provoking intellectually as Pyne's, but biomass and are burning it on such an it has more of a personal touch, being immense scale that combustion and fire strongly rooted in the day-by-day and regimes now extend across geological even hour-by-hour accounts of specific time. What failed to burn in the old wildfires, told through the descrip­ Earth is burning in the modern" (14). tions and words of those who lived Pyne is a world authority on the through them. His documentation history of fire. He writes with passion, for each event was gleaned through energy, and imaginative inquiry, and archival research (newspaper reports with an academic scrutiny as sharp and photographs), interviews with joâ BC STUDIES

firefighters, and anecdotal recollec­ of the most important developments tions of landowners. He reports on the in the fight against forest fires was McKinney Fire of 1931 near Oliver, the the use of air support. By the late 1950s great Vancouver Island fire of 1938, the Stearman crop-dusting biplanes were in i960 Midday Fire near Merritt, the 1967 wide use, and, according to BC Forest Hound Fire near Lumby, the infamous Service employee John Weinard, they Invermere Fires of 1985, and the Silver were effective "if you could get two or Creek Fire near Salmon Arm in 1998. three working together on a smallish (This last fire prompted Premier Glen fire" (jf). However, since many fires Clark to declare British Columbia's were not "smallish," planes with more first "state of emergency.") Keller also water-carrying capacity were clearly chronicles some major fires in the needed. By 1959 Dan Mclvor had nego­ northern part of the province: the 1971 tiated the purchase of four Martin Mars Tee Fire near Liard Hot Springs, the flying boats, which were being sold as 1982 explosive Eg Fire along the Liard scrap by the US Navy. These four planes River, the 1983 Swiss Fire near Houston, formed the backbone of a new business, and the Red Deer Creek Fire of 1987. Forest Industries Flying Tankers Lim­ Prior to i960, since the northern part ited. Two of the original Martin Mars of the province was largely inaccessible planes are still in use today, based out to logging, little economic value was at­ of Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island. As tached to the forests. Forest fires, even well, helicopters are now widely used for when detected, were frequently ignored. reconnaissance and for dropping water However, as northern timber stands at strategic points. have become accessible and hence of For those who have lived in or near economic value, increasing attention British Columbia in the summers of has been paid to controlling them. 2003 and 2004, Keller's accounts may In these ten narratives Keller focuses seem both dated and prophetic. Horren­ on the awful, destructive powers of dous as the fires described in the book the fires, vividly painting the human were, the fires of these past two years struggles to control forces far beyond have been some of the worst on record the ken of most of us. He introduces the in terms of the resources required to reader to the individuals who battled control them and the number of people the blazes from every level, from the directly affected by them. Yet all major top brass of the Forest Ministry to those fires or fire years seem to have their own who dropped into the fire zone - some superlatives - in area burned, erratic who risked their lives in heroic acts, behaviour, dollars spent, or number of others who simply survived through homes lost. Even though the fires of 2003 chance or fate. Inevitably, government and 2004 are not described in Keller's bureaucracy, personality clashes, and book, it provides the opportunity to conflicting approaches in the forest compare, from many perspectives, our industry complicated many of these most recent forest fires with his historical situations. Keller also traces, through accounts of earlier remarkable fires. these stories, the development of fire It is notable that, in terms of fire- detection and firefighting technologies, fighting techniques and equipment from the use of bulldozers ("cats") to and the selection and training of fire create firebreaks to the aerial applica­ crews, things have changed little. Each tion of fire retardants and the use of fire has evoked similar responses from airborne "Rapattack" crews to stop a fire bosses, fire crews, the govern­ fire before it can spread. In fact, one ment, fire victims, the media, and the Book Reviews jo/

general public. Fire bosses have always ranging from "unknown" to arson, had to find firefighters and firefighting careless camping, sparks from log­ equipment and convince government ging equipment, and lightning. In all bureaucrats and the general public that cases, however, the initial flame spread their firefighting strategies were sound. rapidly due to extended periods of Firefighters have always faced smoke, hot dry weather; high fuel loads from heat, exhaustion, and life-threatening logging slash, deadfalls, or fire sup­ situations, resulting, sadly, in some pression; and high winds that fanned fatalities. Unlike their predecessors, the flames. As documented by Pyne, however, firefighters in the last two in the past across North America (and decades have been mostly professionals in many other parts of the world) in-, who have been rigorously trained before digenous peoples burned over certain going out on a fire. In the early days of landscapes periodically, usually in firefighting, people were conscripted, fall or spring, maintaining more open or "blue-slipped/' on the spot to fight habitats with less undergrowth and fires, some against their will. Today's "fuel load" to burn during the dry firefighters are also more fortunate in season. These human-lit fires (Second that many of their counterparts in the Fire), as well as lightning-ignited fires 1930s were never paid for their work. (First Fire), would burn themselves out The government has always been without human intervention, effectively faced with how to allocate funds to fight reducing the probability of setting off forest fires, pay firefighters, and provide enormous and hot-burning wildfires support to the victims of the fire. The such as those described by Keller. homeowners who lost property in 2003 Indigenous forest ecologist Dennis were more fortunate than were those Martinez has termed the kind of fires in the McKinney Fire of 1931, who re­ kindled by indigenous peoples to clear ceived no public compensation for their out the underbrush as "cool fires," in losses. At that time the Forest Branch's contrast to the hot-burning, crown- mandate "required it to protect crown destroying fires of Keller's narratives. timber, not private property" (28). The European newcomers, land managers, media have always reported fires in an and forest service personnel did not exciting manner, providing the public appreciate the benefits of the low-level with human interest stories, spectacular fires ignited by indigenous peoples. photography, and eye-catching head­ By the early twentieth century, lines. In 1938 journalist "Torchy" An­ officials had imposed strict sanctions derson of the Vancouver Daily Province against intentional indigenous burning described the demise of Forbes Landing and had actively suppressed forest fires Hotel forty-eight hours before it actu­ of all kinds. In British Columbia and ally burned. Sixty-five years later the elsewhere, people who tried to burn Vancouver Province sensationalized over areas the way their ancestors did the fires around Kelowna by reporting were threatened with imprisonment. stories from what they called "Ground By the time forest ecologists began to Zero." The general public has always appreciate that some ecosystems - even responded to these stories with excite­ forest ecosystems - respond well to cer­ ment and enthusiasm. tain levels of fire disturbance, and may Although these two books differ in even require periodic fires to maintain approach and scope, there is an area themselves, the widespread suppression of convergence. Keller's fires were of fire had created very different forest started in various ways, with causes structures. jo$ BC STUDIES

In a section entitled "Lost Contact: aboriginal landscapes and that can, When Fire Departs," in his second during times of drought, romp over chapter, Pyne describes an outcome large landscapes" (43). Pyne asks the of years of fire suppression in the Yel­ question, which needs to be considered lowstone region. Informed by forest by many, including British Columbia ecologists, the US National Park Ser­ land managers: "To what extent must vice reformed its fire policy in 1967-68 even natural reserves include human with a decision to follow, under an ap­ behaviour?" (43). proved set of circumstances, a "let-it- Keller's epilogue rounds out his burn" policy in the event of fire ignition. book and links it nicely to Pyne's as Yellowstone was one of the national it questions the necessity of fighting parks affected by this new policy, and all forest fires. Clearly, there are in 1972 park managers proposed a new developed areas where forest fires program in which natural fires could will always need to be suppressed run their course over large areas of the because they threaten human lives park. This program was revised but not and property, but the cost of such fully in place when major fires struck suppression is increased vigilance and in the summer of 1988. After decades management of fuel accumulation. As of active fire suppression, including scientific research becomes part of the the elimination of Aboriginal burning public domain, there is an increasing practices, the Yellowstone forests were awareness that forests are more than quite unlike their earlier configurations. just trees and that fires are an integral There had been a build-up of branches part of maintaining healthy forest eco­ and fallen trees - fuel load - so that systems. Thus many fires should just when fires started and were allowed be left to burn. However, despite our to burn as part of the new policy, they knowledge of forest ecology, and even burned fiercely and persistently, with though today's firefighters have at their far more destructive force than antici­ disposal improved predictive powers of pated. These were not the "cool fires" fire behaviour and improved techniques of bygone days. That summer, about 45 for controlling and fighting fires, the percent of the park was burned, with decision as to whether a particular forest a total of thirty-one fires. There was fire should be allowed to burn or should enormous publicity, with debates about be suppressed is never an easy one to what should have been done and much make. hindsight interpretation. Both of these books are informative Pyne points to the complexities be­ and thought-provoking. Both are well hind these fires. Yellowstone, he main­ written, well organized, and readable. tains, was being maintained as a natural We recommend both to BC Studies ecosystem when, in fact, it had been, readers and other scholars, ecologists, through and through, an anthropogenic foresters, fire scientists, land managers, landscape shaped by earlier humans as those concerned with ecological and well as by nature. He describes the ecocultural restoration, and the general probable original landscape, in which public. indigenous peoples' fires would have played a large role: "Those fires had likely been thick as mushrooms - fires kindled to drive animals, prune berries, and scour openings; signal fires, camp fires, smudge fires that typically litter Book Reviews jop

Making Waves: The Origins and Greenpeace, to the delight of many Future of Greenpeace and to the chagrin of some activists, has become the international brand-name Jim Bohlen for environmentalism. Its origins in Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2001. Vancouver and its growth into a global 181 pp. Illus. $19.99 paper. entity are swathed in myth and not a little controversy. The four books reviewed here offer quixotic views of Shadow Warrior: the founding of Greenpeace from those The Autobiography of David involved in the front lines of the group's McTaggart, Founder of early campaigns. They resound with Greenpeace International interpersonal rivalries, clashing egos, and personal agendas. While offering David McTaggart interesting accounts of famous envi­ London: Orion Books, 2002. 260 pp. ronmental encounters, these memoirs are by and large as unreflective as their Illus. £18.99 (UK) cloth. authors seem to be, and insights into the significance of the rise of Greenpeace Seal Wars: remain largely hidden between the Twenty-five Years on the Front lines. Lines with the Harp Seals Bob Hunter's journal of the in­ Paul Watson augural Greenpeace direct action cam­ paign in 1971 remained buried for thirty Toronto: Key Porter Books, 2002. years prior to its recent publication as 320 pp. Illus. $32.95 cloth. The Greenpeace to Amchitka. The ram­ bling narrative was initially rejected by The Greenpeace to Amchitka: publishers, although portions surfaced in a 1972 photo-essay and a later Hunter An Environmental Odyssey book about Greenpeace, Warriors of the Robert Hunter Rainbow (1974). Its re-emergence pro­ vides an engaging and imaginative - if Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, at times bizarre - account of the voyage 2004. 239 pp. Illus. $24.95 paper. that established the radical reputation BY ARN KEELING of a new brand of eco-warriors. In 1971 Hunter, then a columnist for the Van­ University of Saskatchewan couver Suny and eleven others chartered a halibut packer (renamed the Green­ OOGLE "GREENPEACE" and you get peace) from Vancouver to interfere with a snapshot of the global scope of G American nuclear testing in the North environmental activism undertaken by Pacific. While failing to stop the test, that organization. On any given day, the journey attracted international at­ group members can be found saving tention and sowed the seeds for the for­ jaguars in Argentina, blockading mation of the Greenpeace Foundation. logging in Alaska, opposing drag-line The crew included many who would go fisheries off New Zealand, sailing to on to shape Greenpeace in its critical confront fish farms in British Colum­ early years, including activist-ecologist bia's Broughton Archipelago, protesting Patrick Moore, itinerant journalist Ben mining developments in the Urals, or Metcalfe, and anti-nuclear activist Jim testing human hair for traces of mercury Bohlen. in Pittsburgh. jio BC STUDIES

Hunter's account sparkles with were thus steeped in the Quaker activist hippie-era imagery and detailed per­ tradition of "bearing witness" and were sonal observations reflecting the spirit infused with American pacifist and - and tribulations - of that first voyage. anti-nuclear ideals. Bohlen's version of His inimitable prose includes repeated the Amchitka voyage, however, offers references to the Lord of the Rings little reflection on his role or his rela­ books, with the (mostly) Canadian tionships with other crew members. crew cast as Hobbits sailing towards Bohlen is most notable as a repre­ an American Mordor. Crammed sentative of the technophilic tradition aboard the converted fishing boat within environmentalism. A research was an uneasy alliance of "mystics" engineer by trade, he became increas­ and "mechanics"; the motivations and ingly fascinated with "appropriate tech­ methods of the former were shaped by nology." From geodesic domes (Bohlen the counterculture and sixties-era radi­ was an acquaintance of dome guru calism, while the latter, including the Buckminster Fuller) to energy-efficient older members of the crew, possessed a wood stoves to organic farming, the ap­ "straighter" vision of the trip's purpose propriate technology and back-to-the- and tactics. Hunter traces the emerging land movements stressed human-scale schism within the ranks, one deepened and earth-friendly technology and by confrontations with the US Coast self-sufficiency as an antidote to envi­ Guard and by the repeated delays of ronmental crisis. Bohlen, who retired the test, which, ultimately, forced the to a Greenpeace demonstration farm Greenpeace to return to Vancouver. At on Denman Island, became a leading the time, Hunter agonized over what Canadian proponent of alternative he regarded as the mechanics' failure technology and a Green Party activist. of nerve, though in a retrospective note He returned to Greenpeace leadership at the end of the book he acknowledges in the 1980s as a member of the Green­ that they were probably wise to turn peace Canada board of directors and back when they did. spearheaded the group's attempts to Chief among the mechanics was net the US cruise missile being tested Jim Bohlen, a Sierra Club member and in northern Canada in 1985. While its anti-nuclear activist who co-founded final chapter offers some reflections on the Don't Make a Wave Committee the contemporary ecological challenges (the precursor to Greenpeace) to op­ facing the planet, the book fails to assess pose the Amchitka test. As he notes the historical importance and meaning in his memoir, Making Waves, the of Greenpeace and environmentalism. New York-born Bohlen moved to In contrast with Bohlen's straight- Vancouver in 1967 to protect his sons ahead style, the memoirs of Greenpeace from military service. In his recent activists David McTaggart and Paul study of Greenpeace, Frank Zelko has Watson bristle with self-aggran­ documented how Bohlen, along with dizement and mythologizing. Co- fellow expatriates Irving and Dorothy founders of Greenpeace International Stowe, brought a significant American in 1979, McTaggart and Watson became influence to the Canadian activist larger-than-life figures within the en­ community.1 Early Greenpeace actions vironmental movement, both for their swashbuckling confrontations with 1 Frank Zelko, "'Make it a Green Peace': The environmental evil-doers and for their History of an International Environmental egocentric personalities (characteristics Organization" (Ph.D. diss., University of amply displayed in these volumes). Kansas, 2003). Book Reviews jss

McTaggart's Shadow Warrior was landers and French-Canadian sealers published shortly after his fatal car ac­ (who are largely portrayed as semi-lit­ cident near his olive farm in Italy. Mc­ erate savages). People are divided into Taggart's personal story is fascinating, heroes (Watson, of course, and fellow and he unapologetically recounts his activist Walrus Oakenbough [David privileged upbringing in Vancouver, Garrick]) and villains (Greenpeace his wild youth, and his repeated per­ rival Patrick Moore, federal fisheries sonal crises. His involvement with officials). Much of the dialogue sounds Greenpeace stemmed more from his contrived, and entire sections appear to desire for adventure and risk than from be reproductions of Hunter's Warriors of a deep commitment to environmental the Rainbow and Watson's own Ocean causes. Yet his take-no-prisoners style Warrior (1994). As such, Seal Wars con­ helped define the organization's direct tributes little insight into either Green­ action tactics, beginning with his mari­ peace or the environmental movement, time disruption of French atmospheric except as they affected Watson's own nuclear tests in the South Pacific in struggle. 1972 and 1973. The difficult voyages Whatever one thinks of sealing or and his confrontations with French Watson's campaigns, the book contains officials confirmed McTaggart's - and remarkable narratives of high-seas der­ Greenpeace's - reputation for fearless, ring-do, bloody battles on the North dramatic exploits. Atlantic ice, and Watson's (dare I say?) Egocentric and a self-confessed heroic attempts to save doe-eyed seal manipulator, McTaggart at times re­ pups from slaughter. The politics and sembles a ruthless corporate CEO more science of seal hunting and protection than an environmentalist. He appears remain obscure. Watson, like Bohlen, to have treated relationships, both per­ is perhaps most notable as an avatar of sonal and professional, as means to an a particular strain of environmentalism end, whether that end be the success of - the animal rights movement. He is Greenpeace actions or the satisfaction a true believer in the value of animals of his own desires. In the memoir he (well, seals at least) as individuals and expends considerable effort to position rejects anthropocentric arguments himself as the driving force behind defending the hunt. Greenpeace International (which he Read together, the memoirs of headed for nearly twelve years) and Hunter, Watson, and McTaggart, in its successful early campaigns against particular, offer a vista into the ideology whaling and nuclear testing. Written of "first-wave" environmental activism. much as McTaggart lived - in a blaze These "muscular" environmentalists of action with few pauses for reflection believed their radical actions could - this memoir, like Bohlen's, will appeal change the world, and they saw Green­ most to movement insiders and those peace as their vehicle. They evaluated who study environmentalism. other people and events in relation to Anti-sealing activist Paul Watson their revolutionary goals. This is par­ shares much with McTaggart. Watson ticularly evident in their relationships also subordinates all relationships to with women. The masculinist world his ongoing personal crusade: ending of high-stakes environmental activism the international seal hunt. Seal Wars had little place for women as anything recounts Watson's efforts to halt sealing other than helpmates or sexual partners. in the North Atlantic, including his Watson and McTaggart especially ap­ many confrontations with Newfound­ peared to see women as activist accesso- jZ2 BC STUDIES

ries: Watson, for instance, dismisses an Regulating Eden assesses, as do other re­ early lover by noting, "she chose people cent works such as Alan MacEachern's and I chose Earth" (84), andMcTaggart Natural Selections: National Parks in was a serial philanderer who left behind Atlantic Canada (2001), the nature and abandoned children and ruined rela­ existence of the ideal. Hermer argues tionships in his environmentalist zeal. that parks are less about ecology than While women occasionally participate about creating a pleasing experience in these male-dominated campaigns, of nature, a Disneyland wilderness rarely do they penetrate the inner circle containing all the thrills with none of male activists. of the risks. Further^ he suggests that None of these books by itself provides the extensive regulatory framework much information for those interested necessary to bring this representation in the growth of Greenpeace as an orga­ of nature into being threatens both the nization or in the social phenomenon of environment and society at large. environmentalism. For these questions, Regulating Eden rests on a theoreti­ readers would do well to consult Frank cally informed reading of the various Zelko's "Make It a Green Peace"2 or documents that create the state of Rex Weyler's recent book, also reviewed "emparkment" - parks legislation and in this issue. These memoirs will, how­ regulations, staff handbooks, pam­ ever, fuel the ongoing myth-making phlets, promotional material, maps, and and controversy that surrounds the signs. Parks, Hermer argues, impose a organization and its larger-than-life heavy-handed system of moral order in builders. the name of preventing environmental damage and preserving the peace and harmony visitors look for in nature. In doing so, parks suggest that regulation Regulating Eden: The Nature of of one's individual moral behaviour Order in North American Parks - being respectful of both human and Joe Hermer non-human neighbours - is enough to solve environmental problems. Toronto: University of Toronto Regulating Eden is most effective in Press, 2002.150 pp. Illus. $45.00 its careful delineation of the way regu­ cloth, $17.95 paper. lations create the experience of park- going. The typical meandering park BY JAMES MURTON trail, Hermer shows in a fascinating University of British Columbia discussion, is designed to detailed guidelines. Its wood-chip surface N "YELLOWSTONE AT 125," the new hides the extent to which it has been Ipreface to his classic National Parks: used, thus suggesting that such use is The American Experience (1997), Alfred consistent with nature preservation. It Runte despairs that Yellowstone's func­ appears aimless and so natural, while tion as a "sanctuary" has been shattered bringing users to selected sites where by "a million cars and the drone of a carefully placed signs explain what hundred thousand snowmobiles" (xii). they are seeing. Its apparent aimless- Joe Hermer might agree. But while ness suggests the possibility of getting scholars such as Runte assessed parks lost, so adding an element of risk and for how well they lived up to the high thus a sense ôf the wild. Yet the trail, ideal of nature preservation, Hermer's like the park, is actually encrusted with regulations designed to minimize risk 2 Ibid. Book Reviews JfJ to nature and to other users. Signs and As bearers of this Utopian image, they park rangers order users to stay on the are potentially dangerous for society at trail and dictate where users are to go large, legitimizing both parks' heavy- and how they are to behave once off the handed moral order and their equation trail. This strategy of controlled risk, of moral order with environmental for Hermer, is central to emparkment. protection. This is exciting stuff, sug­ In making this argument, Hermer gesting that the study of parks is impor­ draws on primary sources from 37 US tant even for those who might have little states and eight Canadian provinces to no interest in parks or environmental and territories, as well as Parks Canada. issues. Yet without proof that visitors Oddly, the US National Park Service, really are carrying these messages out of guardian of such places as Yellowstone the parks with them, a directly opposed and Yosemite, gets only minimal at­ argument is equally plausible - that, as tention. The book is notable for the shining jewels, parks have little to tell effective use of images as evidence. us about the sordid complexities of However, somewhat like the park everyday life. trail, Hermer's book is not particularly Though other scholars have pointed easy to get through. The opening out how social concerns shape parks, chapter's literature review is impressive, Hermer's relentless peeling away of but ultimately somewhat dizzying, in the layers of park regulation exposes its scope. The book is heavily laden the quite astounding extent to which with theory, which too often clogs parks depend on careful ordering of up the prose. For instance, Hermer humanity and nature in order to create consistently refers to park signage as a desired experience of freedom and "official graffiti," but never explains the individual communion with the wild. explanatory power of the term over the For scholars interested in questions of word "sign." Use of evidence is also, at parks, wilderness, or the relationship times, problematic, Hermer seemingly between the environment and society, drawing more from his evidence than it Hermer raises important issues and can support. For example, noting that concerns, while his analysis raises parks establish boundaries between stimulating new possibilities for further different use-specific areas, he argues research and study. that these boundaries "construct park visitors as transient subjects that pass through the ostensibly wild landscape of the park that is represented as being Unnatural Lain: permanent" (61). While it is clear Rethinking Canadian how designating certain areas as, say, Environmental Law and Policy marshland, can give the environment a spurious sense of permanence, it was David R. Boyd not clear to me how it necessarily makes Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. park visitors into transient subjects. 488 pp. $85.00 cloth, $29.95 paper. Hermer's most interesting and most important conclusion also demonstrates BY JEREMY RAYNER the shortcomings of his reliance on Malaspina University College textual readings for evidence. Hermer notes that parks, as sites of nature pres­ OR SEVERAL DECADES now, Canada ervation, are popularly understood as Fhas presented itself to the world as examples of society at its most selfless. a country in the forefront of environ- j/f BC STUDIES mental stewardship and responsibility. rather more than half the book, can be The sheer size of our country, its unreservedly recommended as a reliable relatively low population density, and and up-to-date introduction to the sub­ the unsuitability of so much of the ject, supported by a solid bibliography land for agriculture have combined of current sources. Boyd does not shirk to produce a popular image of pristine the major problem of writing about lakes and endless forests that can still Canadian environment policy - the. be supported by adventurous photo - fact that so much of it is actually made journalists and is sold at home and by the provinces - and demonstrates an abroad as the official image of Canada. encyclopaedic knowledge of provincial The reality, however, is rather different. policies and issues that is a corrective to In Unnatural haw, David Boyd joins the customary focus on the activities of his voice to a growing chorus of alarm the federal government. about Canada's "Potemkin village" ap­ The two remaining sections, which proach to environmental law and policy. Boyd calls "diagnosis" and "prescrip­ It is not necessary to press very far be­ tion," are rather less satisfactory. Boyd is hind the glossy façade of official pro­ an environmental lawyer by profession nouncements to encounter a shocking and the book is dedicated to a clutch record of failure and neglect that has of other lawyers, including the doyen seen Canadian environmental perfor­ of the BC environmental bar, Thomas mance slip further and further behind Berger, who provides a characteristic the standards set by other wealthy foreword. In spite of dutifully repeating countries in the world. And there is the awkward phrase "environmental growing resentment of our hypocrisy law and policy" throughout, it's clear in international environmental forums, that Boyd's focus is on law rather than as we continue to lecture everyone else policy. His prescription amounts to a on environmental responsibility while plea for more regulation expressed in taking so little upon ourselves. clear, non-discretionary statutes to be In the first and best part of his enforced by a corps of legal activists book, Boyd presents the evidence of with appropriate access to information our decline. He notes the findings of and standing in the courts. They will a recent University of Victoria study be supported by sympathetic judges in­ showing Canada ranking second to last terpreting constitutionally entrenched (ahead only of the Americans) across a environmental rights. variety of environmental performance Legalism is certainly not the indicators compared with 28 other OECD direction being taken in most of countries. We waste water, pollute the the countries that Boyd purports to soil and atmosphere, and guzzle non­ admire and it sits uneasily with his renewable energy with such profligacy interesting discussion of the non- that it's a mercy there are only 30 mil­ regulatory approaches of countries like lion or so of us. He proceeds to analyze Sweden, which is singled put as a suit­ the problems in a series of chapters on able comparison for Canada. There we water, air, land, and biodiversity that learn that Swedish water use is reduced provide an exceptionally useful tour by full-cost pricing, air pollution by a d'horizon of the state of contempo­ "fee-bate" system, and greenhouse gas rary environmental law and policy in emissions by energy taxes - all market Canada, rounded out with well-chosen instruments rather than legal ones. case studies of particular industries and Similarly, his discussion of the vexed issues. These sections, which take up question of how to reduce consumption Book Reviews J^J in the face of our deeply entrenched Taking Stands: beliefs about individual rights and life­ Gender and the Sustainability of style choices begins from the sensible premise of the National Roundtable Rural Communities on the Environment and the Economy Maureen G. Reed that "it is much more likely that ten thousand small decisions, freely made Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. 296 pp. each day, will sustain development $85.00 cloth, $29.95 paper. than will the One Big Law flowing BY KARENA SHAW from government" (313). There follows an ail-too-short discussion of subsidies, University of Victoria perverse and virtuous incentives, and the relation of environmentally destruc­ AUREEN REED'S BOOK, Taking tive behaviour to underlying issues of MStands: Geàder and the Sustain­ social justice, all of which merit much ability of Rural Communities, tackles more serious and extended treatment a crucial but almost systematically than they receive here. neglected tangle of issues embedded in the conflicts over forestry in BC: those Of course there is a place for legal emerging from and through the lives regulation in a sensible environmental of women living in forestry-dependent policy. Market instruments, informa­ communities. It is an ambitious book, tion, and education usually need to be both conceptually and substantively, supported by a framework of law that characterized by a systematic effort will punish non-compliance and will to disrupt inherited assumptions embody, rather than contradict, key - whether of policymakers, researchers, principles like full-cost pricing and or activists - about the meaning and polluter pays. But, if we have learned motivation of women's activism on anything from the last twenty years North Vancouver Island during the of policy failure, it is that electorates early and mid-nineties, persuasively in wealthy democracies are unwilling arguing that these assumptions con­ to pay for the expensive apparatus of ceal realities that must be understood compliance and enforcement that reli­ in order to move these communities ance on regulation as a front-line envi­ towards sustainability. Grounded in ronmental policy instrument requires. a rich understanding of the diverse They are also increasingly willing and and complex realities of these women's able to evade restrictions on what they lives, Reed provides a nuanced reading see as their sovereign right to choose for of both the processes through which themselves. In the end, Boyd's prescrip­ these realities have been erased or tion is a curiously old-fashioned one, ignored and the necessity of revealing running against the trend of the leaders and engaging them in both research in environmental policy in favour of the on and policy towards sustainability in legalistic culture of that perennial lag­ these communities. gard south of our border. After a context-setting introduction, the book proceeds through an analysis of the contribution of the "greening" of public discourse to dynamics of social marginalization in rural resource-de­ pendent communities. It then moves on to examine the policy changes that have jsâ BC STUDIES influenced structural change in these and although most of the chapters could communities. The subsequent three stand alone, at times the coherence and chapters draw most directly on the consistency of the overall argument research into women's lives, detailing suffers. This problem becomes apparent the activities pursued by these women, in the juxtaposition of the analyses in the contexts in which they chose their different chapters. While the rise of actions, and the meanings they gave environmentalism figures heavily as a to them. In the process, the social causal factor in the analysis of transition dynamics of these rural communities and social marginalization of forest-de­ begin to emerge with rare detail and pendent communities in Chapter 2, for nuance. The final two chapters build on example (and the role of government the rich picture that has been painted policies is virtually absent), the subse­ to explore how policymaking in these quent chapter details a range of govern­ regions has failed to engage this rich­ ment policies that arguably have much ness, and thus has tended to ignore greater consequences for the character crucial aspects of social sustainability. of the transition faced by these commu­ The book concludes with a consider­ nities, yet little mention is made of their ation of how research agendas might be contributions to social marginalization. framed more effectively to better inform As a consequence, despite Reed's efforts future policymaking towards the social to resist "blaming" environmentalism sustainability of rural communities. for the social marginalization of these Taking Stands makes important communities, the analysis lends itself to contributions to a range of literatures that kind of scapegoating. The contri­ and offers much to a range of readers: butions of government policies, unions, researchers interested in dynamics of and forestry companies to processes of gender and sustainability, or indeed in social marginalization are never sys­ the character and implications of past tematically analyzed, and so they escape forestry conflicts in BC; policymakers blameless, an eerily familiar repetition or analysts concerned to better respond of how anti-environmental rhetoric to the challenges posed by gender, diverted blame from them during the in both the content and process of conflicts as well. The overall argument policymaking; activists seeking to craft suffers from similar failures to sustain more wide-ranging coalitions to move a consistent analytical framework communities towards sustainability throughout, itself at least partially a and students of all of the above. This consequence of the attention to de­ diversity of resources provided by the tail and context that simultaneously book also reveals its potential weakness, provides the core strength of many of however. The individual chapters are the chapters. each well researched, grounded, and This concern should not overshadow argued; each develops a focused and the very important contributions of discrete analytical territory and pur­ the book, however. It tackles highly sues this territory with considerable politicized issues from a far-too-long intricacy. The obvious reluctance to obscured perspective, negotiating the allow any thread of the analysis to slip, charged terrain that results with atten- or to oversimplify any aspect of the tiveness and care. It is generally acces­ terrain, is admirable and works well at sible, and provides those of us teaching a chapter level. However, integrating and researching in this area with a this level of detail and complexity into resource, reference point, and series of an overarching analysis is a challenge, important challenges. Reed sets a high Book Reviews JJ? standard for her own research, and the includes chapters on sixty-eight types results will help many of us who seek of mammals, birds, reptiles, and am­ to engage more effectively with similar phibians that inhabit British Columbia, terrain. Washington, and Oregon. Each chapter contains a concise package of informa­ tion, starting with a physical descrip­ tion and natural history, and followed hiving with Wildlife by a more detailed section on the in the Pacific Northwest animal's feeding habits, reproductive Russell Link behaviour, mortality, denning, nesting and roosting sites, tracks, signs, calls, Seattle and London: University of and use of the built environment. Pri­ Washington Press in association oritizing a positive perspective on wild­ with the Washington State life encounters, each chapter discusses Department of Fish and Wildlife, the animal's beneficial characteristics 2004. 350 pp. Maps, illus. and provides advice on viewing and $26.95 paper. attracting it before discussing conflicts and their prevention. Each chapter ends BY LILLIAN FORD with information on public health con­ California Coastal Commission cerns and the legal status of the animal under state, federal, and provincial ju­ HE POPULARITY OF WILDLIFE, as risdictions. The volume also includes Tidea and as icon, is near universal, several appendices, offering technical but the presence ofwildlife in our yards, specifications for devices discussed in homes, and neighbourhoods provokes the text, detailed information on trap­ reactions as diverse as the species that ping wildlife and evicting them from we encounter and the places in which buildings, advice on hiring a wildlife we find them. Responses spring from a damage control company, a discus­ variety of viewpoints: the Jane Good- sion of the impacts of cats and dogs alls among us (and within us) welcome on wildlife, and lists of local agencies opportunities to commune with fellow and resources that can provide further species, and the Elmer Fudds set up information. their traps. Misinformation abounds, Much of the text is presented in and questions loom: What is the place sidebars, boxes, or in a bulleted format, ofwildlife in our lives? How do we making the information easy to read attract wild creatures while preserving and to dissect. Excellent illustrations their ecological integrity? How can we bring the animals to life and detail coexist with wildlife while protecting techniques for providing habitat en­ public health and safety? Or, simply, hancements (such as feeders, roosting how do we get those bats out of the sites, and nest boxes) as well as various attic? Russell Link's new book, Living barriers, scare devices, traps, and with Wildlife in the Pacific Northwest, structural reinforcements designed has information for everyone whose to keep unwanted animals away. The lives or research include these kinds lively format successfully integrates the of questions. variety of information contained in each Packed with practical information chapter. for both attracting and excluding Link is an urban wildlife biologist animals in rural, suburban, and urban for the Washington State Department environments, Living with Wildlife of Fish and Wildlife, and he has a j/$ BC STUDIES background in both wildlife biology important information and presenting it and landscape architecture. Link's in a highly accessible format. The result experience in responding to wildlife is a valuable reference for those seeking complaints is evident in the book's to understand, and to act upon, the ways exhaustive inventory of conflict pre­ that wild animals inhabit the places that vention methods, and his horticultural we call home, knowledge provides inventive land­ scape solutions for both attracting and discouraging wildlife. His extensive A Passion for Wildlife: knowledge of regional wildlife, en­ compassing biology, ecology, history, The History of the Canadian and conservation, adds context and Wildlife Service dimension to the text, making Living J. Alexander Burnett with Wildlife & resource for anyone exploring wildlife-related issues. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. 346 pp. Link's approach to human-wildlife $85.00 cloth, $27.95 paper. conflicts is progressive and constructive. He emphasizes prevention of conflicts Game in the Garden: and attributes most problems to human A Human History of Wildlife in activities that unintentionally provide food, shelter, or other attractions for Western Canada to 1940 unwanted animals. Link explores a George Colpitts variety of control methods, discussing the drawbacks of many traditional Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002. 216 pp. techniques while demonstrating the $75.00 cloth, $29.95 paper. effectiveness of humane and ecological BY DARCY INGRAM solutions. This approach seems just right for our times, when attitudes to­ McGill University wards wildlife encounters are diverse but trending towards tolerance. T'S BEEN SLOW GOING for environ­ Other regional publications (in­ Imental history in Canada, British cluding Link's Landscaping for Wildlife Columbia included. Not that the en­ in the Pacific Northwest) have addressed vironment doesn't figure prominently wildlife-friendly landscaping, natural in national and regional literatures; in history, and other wildlife-related sub­ fact, it looms large in Canadian histo­ jects. Living with Wildlife\ however, is riography. Much of this work, though, the first to combine such a wide range approaches the non-human world indi­ of topics in a single volume. Despite rectly, leaving Canadian environmental its encyclopaedic scope, the book historians to turn for inspiration to the has gaps, particularly regarding less large body of American environmental common species. For instance, the literature. Colpitts's Game in the Garden chapter on hawks focuses on just three and Burnett's A Passion for Wildlife will of the thirteen species of hawk found in help to change this. Their shared focus this region, and it discusses peregrine on wildlife in Canada - Colpitts on falcons - one of the more fascinating western Canada from the fur trade to species to take up urban life - only the Second World War, Burnett on the briefly. Nonetheless, given the enor­ Canadian Wildlife Service (cws) from mous scope of his task, Link does a the Second World War on - alternately tremendous job of distilling the most bring region and nation into focus as Book Reviews J^P they explore continuity and change in "the enormous task of discovering and the relationships between human and describing the natural resources of the non-human animals. second largest country in the world" Both Colpitts and Burnett are con­ (90) shifted "from a concentration on scious of the footsteps in which they selected species to habitat conservation follow, in particular those of Janet and the preservation of biodiversity" Foster, whose 1978 text Working for (291). Beginning with the cws's work Wildlife: The Beginning of Preservation with birds, mammals, and fish, Burnett in Canada set the tone for work on goes on to explore projects related to wildlife in Canada. That said, Foster's habitat, communications, toxicology, emphasis on the role of federal civil endangered species, and governance. servants in the development of national This pattern of increasing complexity wildlife policies in Canada highlights mirrors both the evolution of the the lines that divide the two. Whereas cws and the views of the Canadian Burnett picks up the threads of Foster's public, which, Burnett argues, by the text to offer a fiftieth-anniversary his­ 1990s "had all but abandoned the his­ tory of civil servants' work with wildlife torical view of wildlife as a resource for at the national level, Colpitts favours hunters and anglers" in light of a new the local and regional over Foster's set of environmental attitudes related institutional and federal overview. to concerns such as "air quality, pollu­ In fact, Burnett follows the scope tion, climate change, and endangered and content of Working for Wildlife so species" (254). closely that he opens himself to the The devotion and intimacy dis­ same critique levelled at Foster: that played by cws employees in their work the narrow and somewhat celebratory is particularly striking in accounts of focus on civil servants and federal field research, as in the case of one re­ institutions passes too easily over the searcher who found himself applying broader historical context. To dwell artificial respiration for hours to an on this, though, would be to criticize over-tranquilized polar bear (by lifting Burnett for what he has not done, and the bear's fur to collapse and expand at 331 pages A Passion for Wildlife does its lungs) (114-15) or the three decades' a lot. Using government documents devotion of another to heron preserva­ and oral sources, including more than tion (230-6). It is through this kind of 120 interviews, Burnett sets out "to dedication, found repeatedly among outline the broad themes and activi­ cws employees and expressed at local, ties of cws to date and to capture, in a national, and international levels, that few highlighted examples, the passion Burnett challenges the "unflattering as­ to comprehend and conserve wildlife sumption among many Canadians that that has motivated most, if not all, of theirs is a bland country" (295). "On the men and women who have worked the contrary," he argues, "few nations there" (288). in the twentieth century have been more In particular, it is this "passionate ready to embrace largeness of vision in commitment" that A Passion for Wild­ the definition and stewardship of their life exposes (288), Combining brief identity and heritage, or to take bold in­ five-year summaries with longer tellectual risks in the process" (ibid.). thematic chapters, Burnett outlines By contrast, Colpitts's focus on the expansion of the cws from early western Canada emphasizes social enforcement and management duties and environmental dynamics over into research and communications as the national dynamics that have j20 BC STUDIES shaped human attitudes and practices conservation measures in the west regarding wildlife. Working with a differed significantly from those found range of archival materials, including in central and eastern Canada, where an newspapers, corporate and government international clientele of sports hunters sources, and the premise that '"wild* worked to shut down subsistence and animals are appreciated differently ac­ commercial use of game. In western cording to historical circumstances" (4), Canada the commercial trade in wild Colpitts sets out "to identify early ideas meat continued to play an important about wild animals and a wider western role in the western diet well into the context of hunting, conservation, and twentieth century. When conserva­ preservation history" (11) and, in turn, tion, preservation, and sports hunting to identify their relationship to moder­ did become issues of concern, Colpitts nity and, in particular, to a "Romantic argues, respondents sought not only legacy" that redefined the natural world to curtail the destruction of game but and the animals that inhabited it (7). In also to retain local control of shrinking doing this, he effectively maps the in­ wildlife resources. terpretive and material transformations If Game in the Garden has a weakness, regarding wildlife that occurred as the it is its brief handling of the larger con­ commercial and subsistence hunt of the ceptual apparatus it employs. Colpitts fur trade gave way to agricultural settle­ argues persuasively that the division ment, sports hunting, and tourism in a between "wild" and "domesticated" west that succeeded in linking British animals continues to hinder the spread Columbia and the Prairie provinces. of ecologically based interpretive From these contexts some striking models, but his exploration of such observations emerge. Regarding the slippery terms as "modernity" and "Ro­ fur trade, Colpitts's emphasis on manticism" would benefit from further the exchange of meat rather than elaboration. Likewise, his assertion that fur broadens the picture of social the problems westerners and others face and material relations as European regarding wildlife rest not in shortfalls traders facing periodic food shortages regarding conservation strategies but, worked to establish supplies through rather, "in trying to move the human long-distance supply, hunting, and, mind beyond the dated conception of more important, food exchanges that wildlife as a resource to be 'managed/ brought them further into relations 'husbanded/ 'harvested/ or preserved"' of dependency with their Aboriginal (13) is difficult to entertain without some counterparts. Likewise, wildlife gained assistance, given the current material significant and multiple meanings with relationship of humans to these crea­ regard to agriculture. Read as a sign of tures and their habitats and in light of the region's productivity and the extent the stress he places on the relationship of its northern agricultural limits, the between ideas and their material con­ west's superabundant wildlife popula­ texts. tion was simultaneously interpreted as Finally, do these works tell us a phenomenon that was to pass as the anything about British Columbia? western wilderness gave way to a new, Obviously, Colpitts's "unapologeti- progressive agricultural order. Such cally anthropocentric" focus speaks perspectives did not always fit with more closely to questions of ethnicity, the experiences of early settlers, who culture, region, and environment in the continued to find wild game a neces­ west than does Burnett's national and sary supplement to farming. As a result, institutional focus (11). Yet Burnett's Book Reviews ju study, too, helps to place British Co­ the Point Ellice estate of the O'Reilly lumbia both within a national wildlife family provides a glimpse into the life of strategy with international implica­ well-to-do settlers living in Victoria in tions and within a regional context the late nineteenth and early twentieth where local social and environmental centuries. Original furnishings, wall­ factors display contours of their own. paper (with spare rolls), books, maga­ Given the relatively untapped fields zines, clothes, personal letters, garden they explore, these works should be of journals, photographs, receipts, plant interest not only to those pursuing the lists, and annotated seed catalogues history of wildlife in Canada but also are among the 15,000 plus items left in to anyone trying to make sense of the the home. past as it relates to conservation, pres­ In 1867 Peter and Caroline O'Reilly ervation, and environmental concerns bought Point Ellice House, which was in northern North America. constructed around 1861. The house re­ mained in the immediate family until 1974, when the government of British Columbia purchased it as a historic From a Victorian Garden: site. Creating the Romance of a Bygone With the assistance of garden histo­ Age Right in Your Own Backyard rians, professional archaeologists, and Michael Weishan the wealth of archival information left in the house, the curators of the Point and Cristina Roig; Ellice estate have undertaken the recre­ colour photography by ation of the gardens, which is the main Susan Seubert focus of this book. The gardens played New York: Viking Studio, 2004.143 a central role in the life of the O'Reilly family. They were a venue for playing pp. Illus. US$32.95 cloth. sports such as croquet and lawn tennis, BY BRENDA PETERSON and for entertaining guests during the University of British Columbia summer months (in 1886 the O'Reillys hosted a high tea for Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and his wife). The ARDENS ARE EPHEMERAL, con­ kitchen garden provided fresh vegetables stantly changing and easily lost G and fruit for the family, and cut flowers after only a few years of neglect. The for decoration of the house interior. Point Ellice House in Victoria, British The authors make excellent use of Columbia, is an exceptional historic excerpts from the detailed archival site where the gardens, with original, records of the O'Reilly family. Letters plantings now over 120 years old, have between husband and wife, diaries, been successfully recreated. plant lists, and, most important, historic Using the story of, and remarkable photographs illustrate the story of how documentary evidence available for, the the gardens were cultivated and used Point Ellice House and gardens, From a by their owners. The book highlights Victorian Garden paints a detailed por­ the influence of popular British garden trait of a Victorian garden and provides writers on the design of this colonial readers with practical information for garden, including the use of hardscape creating a period garden. and the selection of plants. The text is Housing one of the richest collec­ rich with extensive quotations from tions of Victoriana in western Canada, Victorian garden books. j22 BC STUDIES

The main author, Michael Weishan, The restoration of the gardens at is host of the American television pro­ Point Ellice House is a work in prog­ gram The Victory Garden, which has ress, and I look forward to following over two million viewers each week. the ongoing development of this great He is a garden designer, specializing Victorian treasure. in period gardens, and lives in an 1852 farmhouse west of Boston. He is also gardening editor for Country Living Natural Light: magazine, where his monthly column, "Your Garden," is read by over eight Visions of British Columbia million subscribers. This is his second David Nunuk book on historic gardens; Ballantine published his first book, The New Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, Traditional Garden, in 1999. Given 2003.128 pp. Illiis. $49.95 cloth. Weishan's large audience, staff at Point Ellice House should brace themselves BY MOLLIE RALSTON for a surge of new visitors. Vancouver While this is primarily a book for gar­ deners, with most of the text devoted to HIS COFFEE TABLE BOOK is a jewel practical, how-to information, I recom­ Tof photographs captured by the mend it for anyone with an interest in the author after long hours of waiting for social history of Victoria. The creative "the moment" or when he just happened layout of the book, illustrations, photo­ to see light and colours juxtaposed per­ graphs, and presentation of historical fectly. The accompanying text shows information are excellent. I do have a an appreciation of spaces as well as an few complaints. The poor choice of italic engaging personal touch. As one who font for the quotations from letters and loves the many faceted views of BC and journals makes for difficult reading; and the expanses offered by its varied out­ careless copy editing resulted in some looks, my only criticism is that David errors. For example, James Douglas Nanuk has chosen well-known areas is called John Douglas, Sir John A. such as the Queen Charlotte Islands Macdonald's last name is spelled "Mc­ and the West Coast Trail, and though Donald," Kootenay is spelled "Keetnay," picturing them in a hitherto unseen and some dates are off by a year or two. I light, has neglected lesser-known sec­ was also disappointed by the absence of tions of the province. There is nothing a list of the O'Reillys' gardening books from the northwest quarter of BC, found in the house. for example, which in itself has many On my first visit to Point Ellice spectacular photographic possibilities. House many years ago, garden histo­ What about the Edziza volcanic forma­ rians were just beginning the enormous tions or the magnificent canyon of the task of restoring the gardens. After Stikine River, to mention only two sites clearing a section in the north part in that area? of the grounds, their efforts were im­ But the author has no doubt realized mediately rewarded by the sprouting of that all of BC cannot be fitted into one hollyhock seeds, which had been lying book and so has chosen his personal dormant in the soil for almost sixty best instances of natural light. In that years. With seeds purchased at the respect, the photographs very much ap­ house, I now have direct descendants peal to one's sense of beauty and colour of the Point Ellice hollyhocks growing and leave us in awe of the majesty and in my Kitsilano garden. diversity of BC.