BOOK REVIEWS

The Real Thing: government wildlife management. The Natural History of From his early years as a collecting biologist for the Royal Ian McTaggart Cowan Museum to his years as professor and Briony Penn (later) head of the zoology program at ubc, and the popularity of his Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, wildlife television series in the 1950s and 2015. 558 pp. $30.00 paper. 1960s, Cowan shaped the profession of wildlife ecology and the development of conservationist thought in the country’s Ian McTaggart-Cowan: The most biodiverse province. Legacy of a Pioneering Biologist, Two books, both published in 2015, Educator and Conservationist pay tribute to the tremendous reach of this man and to the rich life of family, Ronald D. Jakimchuk, R. friends, and colleagues he cultivated in Wayne Campbell, and Dennis Vancouver and (later) Victoria. Ronald A. Demarchi D. Jakimchuk, R. Wayne Campbell, and Dennis A. Demarchi’s Ian McTaggart- Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, Cowan: The Legacy of a Pioneering 2015. 416 pp. $49.95 cloth. Biologist, Educator and Conservationist is Jennifer Bonnell a celebration of Cowan and the “golden age” of conservation biology that he York University helped to usher in. Richly illustrated with over three hundred images documenting an McTaggart-Cowan (1910-2010) Cowan’s life and the animal species Iwas a BC scientist, conservationist, he studied, the collection is divided and educator whose influence extended into three parts: (1) Life and Career, to over three hundred authored and co- a biographical overview of Cowan’s authored publications on a wide range experiences and contributions; (2) of animal species and the supervision Memories, a compendium of recollections of over ninety graduate students, many from Cowan’s former students and of whom went on to hold leadership colleagues; and (3) Legacy, a catalogue positions in academic science and of Cowan’s awards, publications, and, bc studies, no. 191, Autumn 2016 133 134 bc studies especially valuable, the student theses celebrating Cowan’s life and influence. and dissertations he supervised over his Biographical narrative from the authors is lifetime, each accompanied by a summary punctuated with at times lengthy excerpts of its principal findings. A series of from Cowan’s field journals, publications, attractive maps further documents the and his many speeches; the transcript of breadth of Cowan’s legacy, illustrating a talk Cowan gave to the BC Wildlife the locations and animal species upon Federation in May 1969, for example, which Cowan and his students focused spans nine pages (64-75). their field research. Penn’s narrative is, in contrast, Briony Penn’s The Real Thing: The more detailed and more probing in its Natural History of Ian McTaggart Cowan interpretation. Where Jakimchuk et is as much a biography of Cowan as a al. collate the recollections of others, tribute to the BC landscapes and animal Penn adds Cowan’s own reflections species that fascinated him, many of upon his life, captured over five years them since lost to a century of destructive of personal interviews. In exploring development. This detailed and highly Cowan’s “Natural History” Penn has engaging exploration of Cowan’s life, two meanings in mind: (1) Cowan’s and the places and species that shaped work, the legacy of his research and his career and his thinking as a scientist, contributions to our understanding of captures the wonder that Cowan felt for British Columbia’s natural history, and, the natural world as well as his lifelong more playfully (2) a “natural history” “insatiable appetite” for local knowledge of the man himself – that is to say, a (80). For Cowan, the act of collecting and correlation between key moments in his describing animal specimens crystallized life with the animal species and places recollections of particular places and that captivated him (and defined him) experiences, and Penn uses this principle during those periods. Commenting on of “collecting as biography” to frame her the significance of in the work. Images from Cowan’s extensive south region to the Cowans, specimen collections appear in sidebars who returned to the area “all their throughout the book, evoking the married lives,” for example, Penn uses the marginalia of his field journals. Similarly, relationship between Vaseux Lake and a table of species (rather than a list of the disturbance-averse Canyon Wrens, dissertations) appears in the Appendix as which returned to nest there each year, a legacy not so much to Cowan’s influence to illustrate the strength and resilience as to the declining biodiversity of the that Cowan’s wife Joyce provided over province over his lifetime. their sixty-six-year marriage (217). Both books follow similar signposts Both books attribute Cowan’s in highlighting key events in Cowan’s influence, and his success, to a life, but their purpose and format combination of his training as a scientist diverge considerably. Jakimchuk et and his early experience as a self-taught al.’s Ian McTaggart-Cowan, intended hunter and naturalist. For Penn, this as a centenary birthday gift with hybrid quality in Cowan is significant contributions from family, friends, and enough to form the title of her book: colleagues (sadly, McTaggart-Cowan Cowan was valued by his mentors and died two months short of his one peers as “the real thing”: not simply a hundredth birthday), presents a skilfully “made-in-college” biologist (114) but assembled compilation of biographical “one of the best shots in BC” (104), a documents, reminiscences, and anecdotes standing that garnered him respect Book Reviews 135 from trappers in the remote BC interior in the province. The significance of as well as from the leading scientists of Cowan’s network is especially apparent his generation. In this, he owed much in Penn’s examination of decades of to his mentor, H.M. Laing, the subject secret correspondence between Cowan of Richard Mackie’s Hunter-Naturalist. and members of “the B” (Brotherhood Penn carefully documents the shift in of Venery), an underground network Cowan’s thinking and practice from of conservation-minded professionals “collecting naturalist” to conservation- in and the United States who minded scientist, and it is here that her supported each other through changing contribution to the existing literature political regimes. These largely (but not on the history of wildlife management exclusively) male scientists and naturalists and conservationist thought in Canada were among Cowan’s closest professional really stands out. She shows how Cowan, confidantes and included such giants drawn to hunt to meet the subsistence in the field as US conservationist needs of his family in 1910s Vancouver, Aldo Leopold and Canadian parks was neither the elite imperial hunter commissioner J.B. Harkin. of Greg Gillespie’s Hunting for Empire Both books provide fascinating nor, in his later years, the technocratic glimpses not only into Cowan’s life wildlife manager of Tina Loo’s States but also into the province’s changing of Nature; rather, his deep and intimate environments over the twentieth century understanding of BC environments and the growth of professional wildlife and the species they support, and the science in the same period. While strong conservationist values he upheld Jakimchuk et al.’s compilation will be throughout his life, mark him as cherished as both a keepsake by those something quite different. By taking up closest to Cowan and an important Cowan and his life’s work, Penn provides source book on the early years of wildlife new insights into this important period ecology, Penn’s elegantly written and of transition in ecological knowledge and insightful biography will engage a wide practice between the early twentieth- range of readers, from BC naturalists century collector-naturalists and the and wildlife professionals to students of state-employed wildlife managers who biology, environmental studies, and the would come to dominate the postwar history of science. period. In both books, Cowan’s skill as a Works Cited “legendary” networker over time and space (Penn, 104) emerges as a factor in his Gillespie, Greg. 2008. Hunting for Empire: success. Penn in particular, to borrow one Narratives of Sport in Rupert’s Land, 1840-70. of her ecological metaphors, achieves a Vancouver: ubc Press. Loo, Tina. 2007. States of Nature: Conserving convincing biography of the man and his Canada’s Wildlife in the Twentieth Century. ecosystem: the colleagues and conditions Vancouver: ubc Press. that nurtured his success. Her work Mackie, Richard. 1985. Hamilton Mack Laing: provides considerable insight into the Hunter-Naturalist. Victoria: Sono Nis values, philosophies, and contributions of Press. Cowan’s fellow scientists and naturalists, many of them lesser-known names in Canada and British Columbia but who nonetheless made considerable contributions to ecological knowledge 136 bc studies

The Power of Feasts: primate ancestors whose food-sharing From Prehistory to behaviour, she argues, laid the foundation Brian Hayden for human feasting. Subsequent chapters discuss feasting and its role in shaping New York: Cambridge University the complexity associated with each mode Press, 2014. 435 pp. $42.95 paper. of subsistence, while Chapter 5 considers the role feasting may have played in Deidre Cullon domestication. Throughout, Hayden University of Victoria offers numerous ethnographic examples and suggests an archaeological context that exposes feasting and domestication n The Power of Feasts, Hayden, in the material record. Ian sfu archaeologist, provides a Chapters 4 and 5 are of particular “theoretical synthesis” of the history interest. In Chapter 4, Hayden uses the of feasting, explains the theory of its contact-era potlatch to exemplify feasting influence on human societies over time, among complex hunter-gatherers, an and argues that feasting contributed to example used throughout to argue socio-cultural and political complexity. that feasting was the impetus for He also offers direction for further increasing socio-cultural complexity. research and considers how feasting is Generalizing for the Northwest Coast, he represented in the material record. describes different feasts and potlatches Hayden’s argument, defined in and examines associated economic Chapter 1, is that feasting provides arrangements such as tribute, loans, and insight into social and political structures; debt. He also discusses hosts, guests, gift context for prestige technologies, giving, secret societies, timing, and rank monumental projects, small-scale and status. He then provides examples warfare, and political centralization; and of feasting among other complex hunter- an explanation for domestication, gender gatherers and flags the presence of food roles, and identity. Using “paleo-political production among them and Northwest ecology” he examines “how surplus … [is] Coast peoples, a topic visited again in used to promote the self-interests of the Chapter 5, where rhizome and clam producers and manipulators of surpluses” gardens are discussed. This information (7) – people he calls “aggrandizers.” is timely given the recent interest these According to this theory, aggrandizers cultivation technologies have generated push societal norms for self-gain. Left among other researchers. Finally, Hayden unchecked among early hunter-gatherers, considers how complex hunter-gatherer aggrandizers created, through feasting, feasting is recognized in the material “transegalitarian” societies in which record. private property and social stratification One critique of Hayden’s feasting appeared. theory is that relational ontology, a The remaining eight chapters current anthropological theory promoted discuss the origins and acts of feasting by the works of Descola, Viveiros de among complex hunter-gatherers, Castro, Bird-David, Ingold, and others, horticulturalists, pastoralists, and early is not considered. In the relational states and empires. The first of these world, human qualities exist in non- chapters (and the only one written by human entities that have agency and another author, Suzanne Villeneuve) intentionality. This is a key concept situates the origin of feasting among our among those peoples considered in Book Reviews 137

Hayden’s book and, I would argue, is At the Hearth of the Crossed important when studying the intentions Races: A French-Indian and actions behind feasting. Hayden Community in Nineteenth- presents feasts as economic and social tools that were “promotional” and Century Oregon, 1812-1859 were used to “advertise” status (85). Melinda Marie Jetté Here “aggrandizers” invoke spirits (63) Corvalis: Oregon State University to create favourable emotional states among guests, and they elevate ancestors Press, 2015. 360 pp. $22.95 paper. to “promote compliance” (168) and to mask ambition (71), knowing that “fear of the dead could be a powerful tool in Great Lakes Creoles: A French- promoting aggrandizer agendas” and Indian Community on the easily manipulated “to serve one’s wishes” (170). This approach situates the relational Northern Borderlands, Prairie world as a fabrication used to seize and du Chien, 1750-1860 legitimize power. It does not recognize Lucy Eldersveld Murphy relational world agency or how it affects one’s lived experience. New York: Cambridge University Overall, Hayden makes a compelling Press, 2014. 326 pp. $34.99 paper. argument for a feasting theory that is valuable in larger ethnographic and Jean Barman archaeological discussion. His ideas University of British Columbia on how to acknowledge feasting in the material record are useful. While the argument that feasts were the primary he inclination to characterize the impetus behind socio-cultural complexity Tfur trade as an English-speaking is persuasive, the reality is probably more enterprise is, very fortunately, behind complex. Nevertheless, this is a must- us. The determination to perceive the read for anyone interested in surplus economy as grab-and-dash has also, technologies, feasting, and how feasting for the most part, disappeared from may have contributed to socio-cultural view. Two new histories with quite and political complexity. different geographical bases attest that these long-standing perspectives are not only gone but are being replaced by thoughtful new interpretations of distinctive ways of life consequent upon the fur trade. Lucy Eldersveld Murphy takes us to Wisconsin, Melinda Marie Jetté to Oregon. That both sites are in the United States does not detract from their relevance for British Columbian and, more generally, Canadian historians. Consequent upon the fur trade moving westward across North America, the community growing up at Prairie du Chien, along the much-travelled 138 bc studies

Mississippi River, predated by two- both more inclusive as to ancestry while thirds of a century its counterpart of also retaining the sense that the people French Prairie located south of the had been born in the region” (18, emphasis large Hudson’s Bay Company post of in original). Fort Vancouver. The two sites shared That these two books are attractive, a common history in French speakers, appealing, and engaging, and have who formed the bulk of fur trade helpful maps and tables as well as employees generally and who entered appealing illustrations, cannot be allowed into relationships with local Indigenous to detract from the complexities of the women that might well bind them over research that had to be undertaken to their lifetimes to where, or near to where, get to this point. Almost all the couples they worked. The families that resulted under consideration were illiterate, for a brief moment in time thrived and leaving it to priests (when they finally even acquired land legally before being arrived) to record births, marriages, squeezed out by incoming English and deaths, and to mostly English- speakers. By virtue of the breathing space speaking passersby to note snippets of afforded by land ownership, Murphy family stories (not necessarily favourably). explains, “they gained both physical Jetté’s and Murphy’s respective research legitimacy and an important economic encompasses, in the latter’s words, “a resource that would help them to weather significant amount of genealogical the enormous demographic, economic, reconstruction in order to understand and political changes that would take both kinship networks and the cultural place” (12). Murphy and Jetté each attend influences people brought to this at length to the creative ways in which community” (11-12). Both authors have families grappled with change. painstakingly crafted family stories, one One of the key decisions for Jetté and of these, very interestingly, being Jetté’s Murphy was how to name their subjects. own (xv-xviii). Each consciously rejected “Métis” as The possibility represented by Prairie inappropriate to the times and places du Chien, French Prairie, and other such under consideration. Astutely reminding enclaves for ongoing, amiable, everyday us on her very first page of the long- Indigenous/non-Indigenous relations was time “stereotype of the happy-go-lucky not only lost on the ground but also, for French Canadian voyageur” (i), Jetté the most part, from view. It is for this opts for the straightforward “French- reason, and also for the high quality of Indian” (9) to describe families. For her the scholarship and fluid writing styles, part, Murphy turns to a French term that the ways of life Murphy and Jetté that, historically, was variously applied describe, and how they found out about in differing geographical contexts: “The them, make for compelling reading word Creole best reflects the idea that whether on their own or side by side. people of many backgrounds created a These are books to buy and to savour. culture with roots in several cultures, but also with elements unique to itself” (18). Explaining her choice, she describes how “in communities in which many people were of mixed ancestry but where cultural elements such as French language and Christianity were prevalent and unifying characteristics, the term Creole became Book Reviews 139

Canadian Pacific: The book is beautifully illustrated with The Golden Age of Travel an impressive collection of photographs, Barry Lane settlement and travel posters, sketches, and artwork from archives, personal Fredericton: Goose Lane Editions, collections, and museums around the 2015. 200 pp. $45.00 cloth. world. These illustrations show the development of Canadian Pacific’s Heather Longworth Sjoblom infrastructure and the methods the Fort St. John North Peace Museum company used to market itself to the British Empire and the world. Canadian Pacific’s services and he Canadian Pacific Railway’s decisions weren’t perfect, and this book Ttravel literature boasts marvellous is far from a whitewash of this corporate scenery, adventure, and extravagance. behemoth. For example, Lane recognizes “You shall see mighty rivers, vast the problems the company encountered forest, boundless plains, stupendous due to its decision to build a line through mountains and wonders innumerable, avalanche country. He includes the artist and you shall see all in comfort, nay in Edward Roper’s account of his 1887 luxury,” enthused a railway brochure journey, when the train encountered a in 1893 (58). In Canadian Pacific: The snowstorm, rockslide, and forest fire, all Golden Age of Travel, Barry Lane of which were at odds with the company’s considers the company’s history from premature promise of seeing everything the building of the transcontinental in comfort and safety. He acknowledges railway through to the development Canadian Pacific’s class divisions on of hotels and mountain tourism to the immigrant ships and the overcrowding creation of shipping and cruise lines. and hygiene problems associated with Lane traces the growth, decline, and third-class quarters. He shows that legacy of this global travel network from Canadian Pacific’s construction, and its the 1880s to the present. ignition of forest fires from locomotive Lane sets out to assemble a history of smokestacks, worked against the best Canadian Pacific that tells the story of interests of the First Nations along its the railway, ships, hotels, and tourism main line. “in a visual fashion that makes Canadian Though national and global in scope, Pacific’s achievements accessible to Canadian Pacific provides an overview of a general audience” (7). In this he is the company’s extensive transportation successful. Though this format does network in British Columbia. Lane not allow him to go into great depth considers the construction and regarding many aspects of Canadian operation in mountains and canyons, Pacific’s history, he includes a surprising the employment of Chinese labour, the amount of detail in few words. Canadian principal hotels and railway stations, and Pacific ran a complete and unrivalled shipping and cruises between Vancouver transportation system with first-class (the “Terminal City”) and Asia. He ships on the Atlantic and Pacific linked by shows how Canadian Pacific successfully a rapid continental express, with chateau- cultivated a world-renowned reputation style hotels and late Victorian Gothic through elegant hotels, luxury railcars, railway stations that stand as reminders and the promotion of mountain scenery. that the company spanned, and in a One of the company’s most successful corporate sense united, the young nation. campaigns involved branding itself as the 140 bc studies

“All Red Line,” enabling British subjects the Coldstream Ranch in Vernon – in to circle the world without leaving the the hopes of developing fruit farming British Empire (which, traditionally, was in the region, and their near-mythic shown in red or pink on British maps). status pops up in regional histories Canadian Pacific is a treasure trove of both places. Within a few years of of primary sources, such as posters these purchases, John Gordon served as and photographs, all of which Lane governor general of Canada under four sets in the context of early rail and prime ministers from 1893 to 1898, while steamship tourism in Canada. This Ishbel threw herself into important book is a wonderful and accessible visual causes such as the National Council introduction to what was the world’s of Women in Canada (she was its greatest transportation system. founding president) and the Victorian Order of Nurses. However, Canada is only part of the Aberdeens’ lives and times – though Liberal Hearts and Coronets: an important one, as the author notes, The Lives and Times of Ishbel as it served as a model for their second Marjoribanks Gordon and John Irish viceroyalty. By the time of Ishbel’s death in 1939, the Aberdeens were Campbell Gordon, the Aberdeens “quickly fading emblems of a bygone Veronica Strong-Boag age of socially responsible aristocrats who aimed to channel a liberal faith Toronto: University of Toronto into a somewhat better deal for ordinary Press, 2015. 384 pp. $32.95 paper. people in Britain and around the world Carolyn MacHardy and secure social betterment without resort to revolution” (199). Prior to that, University of British Columbia however, as Strong-Boag makes clear, they had their hands on many of the t the outset of her latest book, issues of the day, from enlightened AVeronica Strong-Boag announces: landlordism on the Haddo Estates in “Lords and ladies are rarely in fashion northeast Scotland to urban renewal, for critical scholars or democratic from evangelical Christianity to global activists. This is unfortunate” (3). feminism. And they supported welfare Thankfully, she decided to take on monarchism, responsible imperialism, Ishbel and John Gordon, the Aberdeens, and Home Rule for Ireland. and her meticulously researched and Ishbel, Lady Aberdeen, has received engagingly written study serves as a much attention – for her transnational timely reminder that not only is there career, for her involvement with the still much work to be done by scholars women’s movements of her time, for the of both Canadian and late British books she wrote and those she wrote with imperial history but also that the her husband, and for the posthumous Aberdeens, “this atypical lord and lady publication of her Canadian journals – [are] worth recollecting” (16). We, of but John, Lord Aberdeen, has met with course, are interested in the Aberdeens scholarly indifference. This is a shame, in British Columbia and Canada: in as Strong-Boag demonstrates. Reading the early 1890s they purchased two him through contemporary lenses of properties in the Okanagan Valley – masculinity and gender studies, class and Guisachan in what is now and race, and changing ideas about marriage Book Reviews 141 and family, she positions him in terms of Vancouver Is Ashes: hegemonic masculinities and the myth of The Great Fire of 1886 the “mighty Scot.” Lord Aberdeen was Lisa Anne Smith dogged throughout much of his life by doubts about his masculinity, rumours of Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2014. homosexuality, and the suggestion that 227 pp. $21.95 paper. he was cuckolded by their close friend Henry Drummond, an idea that Strong- Boag firmly rejects. John Gordon emerges from this study as a man who, upon Hobohemia and the Crucifixion assuming the family title on the deaths Machine: Rival Images of a New of his father and two older brothers, World in 1930s Vancouver conscientiously worked with his wife Todd McCallum on the many political and social causes that had brought them together in the Edmonton: Athabasca University first place. Qualms about his brand of Press, 2014. xi, 319 pp. $29.95 paper. masculinity had disappeared by the time of their golden wedding anniversary in John Douglas Belshaw 1927: domestic males no longer caused Thompson Rivers University ripples, and misgivings were replaced by admiration for their long and happy marriage. Ishbel, for her part, was the ere we have two books about fifth child and second “dutiful” daughter Hcrises in the history of Vancouver. of a wealthy family that had long erased They nevertheless cry out to be called its involvement in the opium trade in chalk and cheese because they strike China from its family mythology. She such a different balance between brought considerable financial resources narrative form and theoretical density. with her when she married into the Each could stand to learn a little from Aberdeens, and, of the two, she attracted the other. more controversy, some no doubt Smith by now may be called an occasioned by being a social activist in a accomplished historian of early paternalistic society. However, as Strong- Vancouver. She has – and shares – Boag writes, both husband and wife an almost tactile understanding of “could be contaminated by privilege,” and nineteenth-century . She is “they, perhaps especially Ishbel, could be alert to the sounds and smells as well as insensitive when matters did not go their the chilly water in the harbour and the way” (238). mud that clogs the streets after a rain. Strong-Boag’s research on the There are many accounts extant of the Aberdeens is exhaustive and her Great Fire, the cleansing moment that assessment of them even-handed. They prepared Granville for its emergence as may not be a fashionable topic for our a Canadian city linked to the eastern postcolonial twenty-first century, but it provinces via the Canadian Pacific would have been a shame had Strong- Railway. None provides so excellent Boag succumbed to academe’s frontier and unsettling a blow-by-blow narrative police regarding what is in and what is as does this one. Writers of historical not: this is history, its many strands being non-fiction pay attention: the first 120 deftly intertwined with critical biography, pages are exciting and terrifying and a and it is very, very good. model of how to describe a brief historic 142 bc studies event in an utterly compelling fashion. Finding explanatory models is not, Smith does first-rate work threading however, a problem in McCallum’s together scraps of singed evidence into Hobohemia. There are probably too many, individual tales and then binding them or, at the very least, some are ladled on too into a singular civic experience. Midway thick. McCallum is, in fact, so versed in through the book, however, she changes theory as to be playful. For theoreticians, gears. Uninterpreted primary materials this can be exciting; for those of us are presented, and, for twenty pages, who regard Foucault and Adorno as the thrill is pretty much gone. Then, distractions if they don’t actually do some mercifully, many of the actors who were heavy lifting, it can be frustrating. So, last observed fleeing for their lives are too, is McCallum’s prose style, which can brought back onstage and Smith reminds run to overlong sentences and fanciful us that many of the folks who survived word creations like “capitalogic” and, of 1886 (spoiler alert: some did not) went on course, “Hobohemia.” to play other roles in the city’s history. The outlines of the story are familiar. What they had in common was this one The Crash of 1929 was followed by afternoon of hell (I know that sounds convulsions in Vancouver as seasonal clichéd, but that’s the phrase for it). unemployment collided with crisis- The book concludes with an afterword level joblessness. Thousands of men on cities and fires. It is here that the hopped on board boxcars heading west project could have been hit a couple of to the mild Terminal City winters. times with the theory stick. The history Civic officials were the first level of of fire is, yes, a hot topic, and much of government to be tasked with dealing the best literature provides a variety with demands and protests. These are of challenging perspectives. Smith is charted with remarkable precision and content to reference a litany of urban attention to detail. Like the Great Fire, fires, pointing to the multitude of causes the Great Depression in Vancouver involved. She might have done more. has been described many times but Notions of “property damage” are, for never with such a masterful mustering example, tied directly to ideologies of sources. Also, the respectful way of individualism and capitalism; the in which McCallum approaches the scorching of Vancouver occurred in a literature is entirely laudable. Too many historic context of industrialization, scholarly works begin from the premise the building of a commercial town, and that everything that has gone before ideals of democratic legitimacy. It is no needs to be exposed as fundamentally accident that the most holy relics of the wrong, a task that is crowned by a new, Great Fire are Hastings Mill, which revised interpretation that finally sets the survived it; a staged photograph of a tree record straight. McCallum presents an stump that housed a real estate agent; alternative viewpoint rather than a cage and another photograph, also by Harry match. Devine, of the canvas tent that became He does, however, have his combatants. “City Hall.” Industrial forces tied to the Fordism is the straw man he seeks to business of clear-cutting the downtown knock down; Hobohemia is the positive peninsula for profit and to make way for vision held by the unemployed, the left, the cpr are directly implicated in the fire, and some of their allies of a civil society and yet there’s little here that offers any in which the surplus labour produced by explanatory historical vision. capitalism would, in bad times, be kept fed and housed. Notions of a deserving Book Reviews 143 poor managed closely by Fordist (i.e., envisioned a lean civic administration systematic and bureaucratic – explicitly that efficiently delivered these more soulless) machinery are countered by a generous cash sums to thousands of nascent social movement (Hobohemia) recipients. that demands the recognition of This book contains challenging individual circumstances, basic equalities, ideas built on superb archival research; and a sense of equity. it offers up fresh perspectives, and it Setting aside, for the moment, the contains a historical tale worth reading. position taken by the unemployed, there’s Too much theory and no small measure an opportune comparison to be made of romanticism about the hobo ethos, with Lisa Pasolli’s 2015 book, Working however, subtract from, rather than add Mothers and the Child Care Dilemma. to, the whole. Pasolli explores the arguments for and against daycare strategies in British Works Cited Columbia (mostly Vancouver) in the twentieth century. What she finds is an Pasolli, Lisa. 2015. Working Mothers and the incredibly pliable sense on the part of Child Care Dilemma: A History of British elites (and subordinate groups as well) Columbia’s Social Policy. Vancouver: ubc Press. with regard to entitlement. In other words, this wasn’t an issue isolated to the Relief Office: it was – and it remains – a fundamental element of any Conrad Kain: conversation about the redistribution of Letters from a Wandering wealth. But does it have anything to do with Fordism? One comes away with a Mountain Guide, 1906-1933 sense that McCallum himself is quietly Zac Robinson, editor undecided. Even though his loyalties Edmonton: University of Alberta to the unemployed are never in doubt, Press, 2014. 468 pp. $34.95 paper. McCallum has to concede the narrow radius within which the actors could David A. Rossiter turn: “Mass need in Vancouver meant Western Washington University mass administration, the reliance on the management methods of modern businesses. This new managerial style was ew figures in the history of designed to assuage the financial concerns Fwestern Canadian mountaineering of governments while also providing a are held in such high regard as Conrad sound basis for the investigatory and Kain. Arriving in Banff in 1909 to work disciplinary aspects of relief provision” for the young Alpine Club of Canada (246). Why, then, should we buy into the (acc), Kain came from an impoverished critique of Fordism? Being more efficient Austrian village where he had laboured in handling a massified problem seems, sporadically in local quarries and well, responsible. Surely it is better than developed a facility for guiding tourist being overwhelmed and useless? The expeditions in the Austrian Alps. communists in Vancouver advocated for a While he was not formally trained union wage paid in cash to everyone who in the manner of the Swiss guides was unemployed: as much as they (rightly) brought to the Canadian Rockies by despised the corrupt and sometimes the Canadian Pacific Railway, Kain’s brutal civic regime, they presumably reputation in Europe was such that the 144 bc studies acc’s leader, A.O. Wheeler, agreed to Zealand highlighted along the way. take him on as a guide on the basis of a Divided into four periods, covering recommendation from a wealthy client. Kain’s time guiding in Europe (1906- Kain would go on to be one of the key 09), his early years in Canada (1909-12), guides at early acc summer climbing his travels to New Zealand and back to camps, most famously leading four Europe (1912-16), and the last chapter of parties to the summit of Mount Robson his life in British Columbia (1920-33), over a two-week span in the summer the presentation makes for easy cross- of 1924. He would also accompany referencing with the narrative in Clouds. Wheeler in his surveying work along Through deft annotation, Robinson not the Continental Divide, contributing to only positions Kain’s life within the the demarcation of the border between history of Canadian mountaineering but Alberta and British Columbia. In the also locates Kain within the currents of mid-1920s, Kain married and settled immigration, class, and environmental on a small farm in Wilmer, British politics that came together in the first Columbia; from this base he continued decades of the twentieth century in the to guide, hunt, and climb until his death mountain landscapes of Alberta and in 1934. British Columbia. The effect is to reward The story of this remarkable man was readers of both Robinson’s volume and the subject of an autobiography produced Clouds with a more complex and nuanced by one of Kain’s close clients, American portrait of a man, his time, and his ophthalmologist J. Monroe Thorington, place(s) than could be gleaned from a in 1935. Where the Clouds Can Go consists reading of Thorington’s volume alone. of selected correspondence written by As such, Robinson provides a welcome Kain to Amelie Malek (an Austrian client reminder of the utility of biography in whom he had met, and with whom he helping to make sense of the . had struck up a deep friendship, prior to his departure for Canada) combined with Works Cited other writings by Kain and additional narrative by Thorington. With updated Kain, Conrad. 2009. Where the Clouds Can editions in 1979 and 2009, Clouds has Go. Edited with additional chapters by J. been the reading public’s main route to M. Thorington. Surrey: Rocky Mountain Books. knowledge of this fascinating character – until now. With the present volume, historian and mountain studies specialist Zac Robinson provides an annotated edition of the full trove of 144 letters sent by Kain to Malek over parts of four decades. Itself a fascinating story, described in the Introduction and Epilogue, the uncovering of the original correspondence provides Robinson the opportunity to present Kain’s story in a more unvarnished manner than is found in Thorington’s treatment. As with Clouds, this volume traces Kain’s journey from Austria to Canada, with travels to mountainous New Book Reviews 145

Watershed Moments: Indeed, the book’s cover photo of a 1913 A Pictorial History of horse race at the Courtenay Fair is the Courtenay and District very one featured in life-size form on the wall of today’s Lewis Recreation Centre, Christine Dickinson, Deborah near the original heart of the old town Griffiths, Judy Hagen, and on the east side of the Courtenay River. Catherine Siba Two museum employees, Executive Director Deborah Griffiths and Curator Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, of Social History Catherine Siba, have 2015. 208 pp. $34.95 cloth. teamed with local historians Judy Hagen Dan Hinman-Smith and Christine Dickinson. They have North Island College embedded the images within a text that provides a brief history of the Comox Valley, from the late eighteenth century hose who would wish to time- through to the end of the Second World Ttravel to the Comox Valley of War. Some primary documents and the First World War era need only biographical vignettes are interspersed walk the streets of contemporary throughout as a way to draw the reader Courtenay’s downtown core. There into a more personal connection with they will encounter numerous large the material presented and with the publicly displayed photographs put up local past. But it is the photographs as part of a collaboration between the themselves that are most noteworthy and, city and the local museum in celebration in particular, the remarkable series of of the centennial of Courtenay’s January turn-of-the-century glass plate negatives 1915 municipal incorporation. Thirteen documenting Comox Valley life taken two-metre-square images line the fence by Kye Bay farmer, miller, and logger by the intersection of Fifth Street and Walter Gage. The last image in the book England Avenue, now concealing a makes the break to colour technology and vacant lot that, for some seven decades, offers a glimpse of an earlier centennial as was home to the Palace Movie Theatre. Chief Andy Frank and Margaret Frank Wall-mural-sized photographs of the of the K’omoks First Nation wave from Palace Livery Feed and Sales Stable a convertible in a 1967 parade. and of the turn-of-the-century business Centennials provide ritual district decorate the outside of the opportunities not just for public Courtenay and District Museum and commemoration but also for discussions the Florence Filberg Centre. Even the of the meaning of the past. In the case garbage containers on Fifth and Sixth of Watershed Moments, the centennial streets have been refitted with images moment is perhaps not fully realized. that pay homage to the same locales a Courtenay has long had an uncertain century earlier. The museum and city identity, the result of such factors as the alike are to be congratulated for this complex relationships between it and splendid project in public history. the surrounding communities; between Watershed Moments: A Pictorial History river, ocean, and highway; and between of Courtenay and District was also inspired settlers and First Nations. The authors by the centennial. It draws upon the same of this volume are not unaware of these rich archive at the Courtenay and District complexities and use the Comox Valley Museum and Paleontology Centre that watershed as a metaphor to include serves as the base for the street display. materials not just on Courtenay but also 146 bc studies on Comox, Cumberland, Forbidden and early twentieth centuries. Yet Plateau, Merville, Royston, and Union their experiences were inescapably Bay. This may, however, be attempting intertwined with those of the mothers, too much for a relatively slender volume, wives, and daughters who stayed in especially since the authors seem China as well as with the few Chinese somewhat undecided as to the role women who lived in Canada. Shelley that analytical explanation should play Ikebuchi’s From Slave Girls to Salvation in this book. Alternative approaches and May Wong’s A Cowherd in Paradise might have seen a narrowing of focus to suggest how women played a central role the history of Courtenay alone; to the in this history. Taken together, these history of Courtenay, or to Courtenay two very different works demonstrate and District, on each side of 1915; or to the complexity and diversity of women’s the life and photographs of Walter Gage, historical experiences and cast new light if sufficient materials are available to on the early history of the Chinese in support such a study. Watershed Moments Canada. Ikebuchi’s monograph is a is nonetheless a worthwhile addition to rigorous academic study of the Chinese the small library of Comox Valley history, Rescue Home in Victoria, while Wong’s and the stunning images it contains may book is a work of creative non-fiction. well inspire local residents to become From Slave Girls to Salvation sets more deeply immersed in their past. out to investigate the collective and multi-faceted experience of the four hundred or so women who spent From Slave Girls to Salvation: time in the Chinese Rescue Home, while A Cowherd in Paradise follows Gender, Race, and Victoria’s one family’s experience. As their Chinese Rescue Home titles indicate, both books address Shelley D. Ikebuchi a persistent and formulaic trope in Canadian immigration narratives that Vancouver: ubc Press, 2015. 264 pp. is characterized by the dual stories of an $95.00 cloth. “old” life that is left behind for a “new” and better life. But where Wong’s story reinforces the celebratory narrative A Cowherd in Paradise: From of immigration, Ikebuchi’s findings challenge this convention. China to Canada Written from a postcolonial and May Q. Wong feminist perspective, From Slave Girls Victoria: Brindle & Glass Pub- to Salvation examines the reform efforts lishing, 2015. 256 pp. $24.95 paper. of the Methodist Women’s Missionary Society through Victoria’s Chinese LiLynn Wan Rescue Home. Ikebuchi’s analysis is Halifax primarily concerned with the white women who managed the Home as well as the physical space of the Home he history of the Chinese in itself. It is not, she concedes, a history TBritish Columbia tends to focus of the women of colour who lived there. on the lives of men, who formed the The book covers four main events: the vast majority of settlers and sojourners transfer of management of the Home from China in the nineteenth to the Methodist Women’s Missionary Book Reviews 147 society in 1887-88; the construction of a the intersectionality of gender, race, new Home building in 1908; two related and religion. Considering the virulent court cases pertaining to the Home that anti-Asian sentiment, racism, and occurred between 1886 and 1888; and four exclusionary practices and policies that habeas corpus cases in which the Home were predominant in British Columbia was involved between 1893 and 1900 and during this period, the Home was that were used to claim child custody. exceptional in its emphasis on cross-racial Reformers established the Home in contact and in its efforts to protect, care 1886 to “rescue” Chinese women from for, and assimilate non-white women. prostitution, teach them domestic skills Even more striking is the notion of racial and Christian values, and transform inclusion that comes out of this analysis. them into wives, domestic servants, Discussion about immigration remains and missionaries. Much of Ikebuchi’s controversial and still elicits racialized analysis rests on her interpretation of responses from the government, the “domesticity” and the centrality of media, and the Canadian public. this concept to gender roles and racial Problematizing racial inclusion, as identities. Here, “domesticity” refers not Ikebuchi does, offers a way to better only to the familial home and private understand some of these contemporary sphere but also (and at the same time) issues. While Ikebuchi’s work does not to the nation, where “domestic,” in give a voice to the Chinese women who contrast to “foreign,” implies belonging came to British Columbia in the early and citizenship. Ikebuchi situates the years of settlement, it does provide a clear Home as a space where the domestic sense of the challenges and limitations and the public/foreign came together that inevitably shaped their lives. in often contradictory ways. The Home Ikebuchi’s silence on the lived was a residence as well as an institution. experiences of Chinese women is the It was located in Canada, but it housed result of a lack of archival sources, a bodies that were perceived to be foreign long-standing problem with histories to the nation. The women who ran the of marginalized peoples. Still, voices of Home promoted Christian values of Chinese women do emerge when small family and sisterhood, but they also claims to privilege, attained through maintained Victorian notions of the literacy and/or advancement in social immutability of racial difference. Because class, allow. In A Cowherd in Paradise, of this ambiguity, Home women were May Wong provides one such voice with able to challenge gender and racial norms. her intimate reading of her own family Through the Home, white women’s history, which she derives from personal moral authority was extended beyond interviews and memoirs. Wong’s novel the private sphere, while women of colour follows the life of her parents through were able to claim better treatment within the course of the twentieth century, marriages and opportunities for work and focusing primarily on their period of education. separation from the 1920s until the From Slave Girls to Salvation reads 1950s and the equally long process of much like a dissertation. It is often reconciliation that followed. The story theoretically dense and sometimes ends in 2007, with the fulfillment of a lacking in historical context and a sense lifelong, multigenerational dream that of chronological narrative. Regardless, the family be united in Canada – almost in this case study, Ikebuchi has done twenty-five years after her father’s death. a commendable job of highlighting The BC content in this book is minimal. 148 bc studies

Her grandfather spent most of his life more realistic interpretation of Canadian working in Canada in the late nineteenth immigration history than what is offered century, but Wong has little more than by the duality of old life versus new life, this to offer regarding his experiences as a and both books acknowledge the diverse “Gold Mountain Man.” His son, Wong’s experiences of Chinese women as well father, worked in the fishing and logging as the challenges of inclusion within a industry in British Columbia in the 1920s, fundamentally racialized nation. but the stories in this novel are primarily set in Montreal, where he settled in the 1930 s. Nonetheless, Wong’s rich account Canadian State Trials, Volume 4 of the lives of the wives, daughters, and mothers of Gold Mountain Men Barry Wright, Eric Tucker, and has something to contribute to a part Susan Binnie, editors of British Columbia’s history that Toronto: University of Toronto is often neglected because it did not Press (Osgoode Society for occur on Canadian soil. A Cowherd in Paradise provides an honest and Canadian Legal History), 2015. sustained description of the experiences 544 pp. $80.00 cloth. of “Chinese Canadian” women like her Scott Eaton mother and grandmother, whose lives occupied two disparate worlds. As this Simon Fraser University story demonstrates, women, even in their absence, were one driving motivation that he fourth volume of the Osgoode brought Chinese men to Canada and TSociety’s Canadian State Trials is kept them working here despite racism a critical analysis of the powers, both and prejudice. theoretical and practical, of Canada’s The story of a family kept apart judiciary and political executive, and because of racist immigration policies, how Canadian state officials used such A Cowherd in Paradise ends with powers to react to real and perceived the victory of citizenship. In her security risks in the years between account, Wong’s family “overcame” the First World War and the Second racial discrimination to achieve success World War. The book’s twelve chapters as Canadians. In contrast, Ikebuchi’s present well-researched scholarship more subtle reading shows that, in order on a number of pivotal Canadian to find acceptance within the Canadian legal cases and reveal much about the nation, Chinese, Japanese, and mixed- state’s inventive and heavy-handed race women were detained, trained, and approach to repressing both the re-educated in ways that reproduced individuals and the groups it perceived and reinforced racial hierarchies. Still, as threats to its supremacy. Bodhan A Cowherd in Paradise is not strictly a Kordan, for instance, convincingly story of the triumph of immigration: it argues that state legislation – such also tells of exclusion, separation, and as the “15 August 1914 Proclamation prejudice. In the same way, From Slave Respecting Immigrants of German Girls to Salvation affirms white privilege, or Austro-Hungarian Nationality” but it is also about a space where cross- and Order-in-Council PC 2721 (the racial contact was encouraged and War Measures Act) – though framed benefited both white women and women around a false ethnic dichotomy and of colour. In both these works we find a enacted to intern enemy aliens during Book Reviews 149 the First World War, also worked as an reserved during his trial, and John expedient solution to dealing with the McLaren offers an exceptional analysis country’s foreign-born destitute. Peter of Doukhobor leader Peter Petrovich McDermott’s observation that “the use Veregin’s resistance to state attempts of forced labour [within internment to deport him from Canada. Still, as camps] was certainly not in accord McLaren himself admits, although with imperial policy, and not within Veregin was an undesirable minority, the spirit of the Hague Convention” his large personal fortune made his case (89) substantiates Kordan’s point, and something of an anomaly. The tactics and Jonathan Swainger confirms that, in actions of repressed Canadians in this sedition cases, the courts were willing collection are revealed in passing glances to protect individual rights to hold rather than in a protracted gaze that socialist views but were ultimately would add to the broader historiography. worried about the effect that socialist Still, Volume 4 of Canadian State agitation might have on class relations. Trials is a superb structural analysis of For all of its strengths, the collection how Canada’s courts were, and can be, is not wholly representative of Canada’s used as state instruments of tyranny. It diverse populace. While the book’s presents a number of fascinating and Foreword claims that “all regions of the valuable questions, such as: “Are the country are covered,” this is perhaps political executive and the judiciary truly misleading: no chapter explores Yukon or separate branches of government?” and the Northwest Territories. Furthermore, “What rhetoric does the state employ while there is a strong focus on the in justifying the curtailing of civil relationship between Canada’s judicial liberties?” and “How do courtroom rules processes and the country’s radicals, as and processes advantage or disadvantage well as ethnic and religious minorities, different categories of Canadians?” This there is no such analysis regarding the book will be useful to scholars of history, country’s Aboriginal, black, or – with political science, and legal studies. the exception of Andrée Lévesque’s And, in the wake of Bill C-51, it might consideration of the trial of Jeanne also generate provocative discussions Corbin – female populations. Recent regarding impending actions of the studies evaluating these relationships federal government’s Department of do exist: Barrington Walker’s Race Public Safety. Readers, however, may on Trial: Black Defendants in Ontario’s feel that important voices have regrettably Criminal Courts, 1858-1958 (2010) and been silenced. Shelley Gavigan’s Hunger, Horses, and Government Men: Criminal Law on the Aboriginal Plains, 1870-1905 (2012) are two pertinent examples. Accordingly, the decision not to include such research is disappointing. On another note, most of the chapters employ a top-down analysis and largely ignore the agency of the repressed. There are a few exceptions. David Frank offers some analysis as to why J.B. McLachlan – the infamous communist and Cape Breton labour leader – appeared so 150 bc studies

Maritime Command Pacific: Royal Canadian Navy (rcn). This book The Royal Canadian Navy’s concerns operational activity over two West Coast Fleet in the Early decades; it does not attempt to cover the oceanographic and other research Cold War conducted by defence scientists on the David Zimmerman west coast, the economic impact of maintaining the rcn on the west coast, Vancouver: ubc Press, 2015. or the social and economic impacts of the 206 pp. $95.00 cloth. naval and civilian support communities Jan Drent on Greater Victoria. It does trace how Victoria naval personnel shortages over the years preoccupied senior officers who devised measures to overcome them. his welcome new study concerns Largely chronological, the narrative Tthe operations of Canada’s west follows operations and defence planning coast fleet in the two decades after the changes through official correspondence. Second World War. Soon after 1945, Zimmerman shines light on three little- defence policy came to be dominated known episodes. The first was the demand by Canada’s contributions to nato placed on local staff as demobilization force planning, with a heavy focus shrank the wartime rcn by 83 percent on preparations to defend Western in under a year. The second was the Europe in a crisis. The roles and presence of Japanese mines along British missions of forces on the Pacific were Columbia’s long and largely uninhabited overshadowed in this Atlantic-centric coast from 1945 until the early 1950s. These planning climate. David Zimmerman anti-ship mines had broken from their sets out to demonstrate that the Pacific moorings in the western Pacific and were Fleet – termed the “Yacht Squadron” by carried east by ocean currents – indeed, the east coast navy – was in fact busy they were precursors to the debris that training under national and alliance arrived after the Fukushima disaster in plans to maintain a high standard of 2011. These drifting mines would be an operational readiness between 1945 and unwelcome problem in the immediate 1965. He also shows that planning with postwar years, necessitating regular the United States for regional defence, mine patrols to follow up on reports from which had its origins in the Second fishers and others. A handful of mines World War, resulted in close and was destroyed by naval teams; the last sustained operational relationships with event, in 1952 southeast of Prince Rupert, American forces on the Pacific coast. resulted in the death of the demolitions Zimmerman’s background as a officer and the wounding of a petty seasoned military historian and faculty officer. Zimmerman’s third striking item member at the University of Victoria of fresh information concerns how west makes this an authoritative study. coast destroyer escorts and frigates were Maritime Command Pacific is based deployed during the Cuban Missile Crisis on an extensive study of operational of October 1962. records in Library and Archives Canada. Grounded in official reports, this Zimmerman has also drawn on the volume inevitably reflects contemporary small body of academic studies, some institutional thinking. Zimmerman by his own graduate students, that meticulously records successive exercises examines various aspects of the postwar and the evolution of joint defence plans Book Reviews 151 with the United States – for example, Wake-Up Call: Tales from a the emergence of what is known as Frontier Doctor asw “strategic ” (antisubmarine warfare) Sterling Haynes to counter Soviet missile-carrying submarines that could target North Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2010. America. Zimmerman covers a range 160 pp. $19.95 paper. of issues, contemporary concerns, and oversights – for example, in June 1962, the frigate hmcs Stettler sailed hurriedly The Doc’s Side: Tales of a to investigate a Soviet trawler, rumoured Sunshine Coast Doctor to be on an electronic intelligence- gathering mission, operating near a US Eric J. Paetkau submarine exercising off Cape Flattery. Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, Embarrassingly, Stettler was deployed 2011. 224 pp. $19.95 paper. without a camera and crew members were asked to take photos, which proved unsatisfactory. House Calls by Float Plane: Maritime Command Pacific was initiated as part of the baseline research to Stories of a West Coast Doctor support a future official history of thercn Alan Swan between 1945 and 1965. It is one of a series of studies in Canadian military history Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, published by ubc Press in conjunction 2013. 224 pp. $24.95 paper. with the Canadian War Museum. Rich Megan J. Davies in detail, this is an authoritative account of the operations undertaken by west York University coast warships (and to a lesser extent by rcaf Maritime Patrol aircraft) in these he small stack of books reviewed years. While the text covers operations There are all doctors’ memoirs of on the west coast, it also serves as a practices centred primarily in remote or useful description of how Canada’s rural regions of British Columbia in the maritime forces operate in peacetime. 1960s through the 1970s. Clearly, they A useful list of abbreviations enables are not academic works, but are they the reader to decode the book’s many of use to the medical historian or to the contemporary acronyms. The illustrations BC historian? And what value are they are well chosen and there is a useful as pieces of public history? and clear map of the Canadian area of Shared themes regarding rural and responsibility under allied plans. The remote medicine will be appreciated text is supported by good endnotes and a by those with scholarly or experiential helpful description of relevant academic knowledge of health delivery in such 1965 work. While the narrative ends in , locations, particularly in earlier times, a final chapter sketches developments when communication was limited. 2014 up to . This is a nicely produced Each author describes the challenges of book, but the shocking price – ninety- reaching the injured or ill, the difficulties 165 five dollars for a slim -page narrative of transporting the very sick to hospital, – might mean that it finds its way only and the recourse to improvisation when into better academic libraries. the appropriate medicine or equipment was unavailable. They recount the fluidity 152 bc studies of professional roles as rural doctor a congenial Sunshine Coast practice becomes dentist and then veterinarian. through key decades of change, their Stories of catastrophic injury are also books stand as good popular histories common. In House Calls by Float Plane, that are also fascinating to read as a pair. Alan Swan interweaves horrific details of For instance, both men describe their the 1956 death of two loggers working with promising practice model, which allowed defective equipment on a steep slope near them to spend every fifth year upgrading with memories of his logging their skills, a move that simultaneously party antics with one of the deceased fostered a higher level of local professional men and a description of the emotional expertise and allowed for a break from intensity of his packed memorial service. the rigours of rural medicine. Given I cannot think of a better illustration of Swan’s evident difficulties managing what a good local history can deliver than the emotional stress of work – which is that passage (53-56). sensitively covered in both books, and These books recount medical practice which is another feature of practising in the early years of Medicare, enacted medicine in remote regions – these five- by three men who were educated in year breaks seem a particularly sensible post-Second World War urban medical way of balancing the hardships of rural institutions but who worked in locales medical practice. where medical conditions fell far short As a BC health historian with an of what their training had led them to interest in remote regions, I appreciated understand was required. One amusing how the conjoined narratives of the two story from Sterling Haynes’s book relates doctors allowed the reader to understand how an iron lung was sent to the Cariboo the local and the particular as part of region’s tiny Alexis Creek Hospital by broad socio-economic shifts that coastal English philanthropist Lord Nuffield. areas faced in these postwar decades. For The town had no electricity, and so the example, the difficult mid-1960s political machine became a handy repository decision to abandon the old Columbia for misplaced mittens, boots, and long Coast Mission Hospital at Garden Bay, underwear (57-58). Motifs of backwoods which had been built and sustained by masculinity and the “good woman” local citizens for thirty-five years, for a (nurse, mother, teacher) are indelibly modern hospital forty-five kilometres imprinted on the pages of these books, south in Sechelt, was both a response though we catch only glimpses of their to higher medical expectations and a often-truncated lives and the emotional reflection of a shifting settler population and logistical obstacles faced by local and the vanishing world of logging camp women. life and up-coast communities. Paetkau’s These topics should make each of these chapter on the complex finances of books an interesting read, but Haynes’s running a remote medical practice in the Wake-Up Call, which covers the Cariboo, early 1960s would be useful reading for Kamloops, and Vancouver, along with any medical historian or health policy some non-BC locales, is poorly written analyst interested in physicians and the and ill-conceived. Indeed, it is the kind transition to Medicare. This is a rare and of quickly composed lay history that relies important missive from the front lines of on stereotypes and gives such books a medical change. bad reputation. I cannot recommend it. While I am critical of Haynes’s effort, However, Swan and Paetkau are talented I consider Paetkau’s and Swan’s books storytellers, and because they shared to be engaging reading for the general Book Reviews 153 public and valuable volumes of local scrutiny. For me, reviewing these two history. However, there is an important interesting books became a reflection “public” element of remote regions of the on how we might, and must in the province that is either misrepresented or wake of the Truth and Reconciliation absent in these three books: Indigenous Commission, craft local histories peoples. As a keen knitter, I noticed that that do not privilege the perspectives Swan, in his well-illustrated volume, of certain residents and obscure and works his way through a couple of “other” discordant or different narratives. generations of Cowichan sweaters, My second-year university lecture on yet I searched in vain for stories about Indigenous health includes a tale of cross- the First Nations citizens of the many cultural collaboration shared by an old Indigenous communities with whom friend, RN Moira Coady, whose youthful he worked. Recounting his first arrival face shines out from page 171 of Swan’s on the Sunshine Coast in 1959, Paetkau narrative of his work in Telegraph Creek mentions driving past St. Augustine’s and other northern BC communities in Indian Residential School; he tells us the late 1970s. Before Coady came to the that he received twenty-five dollars from coast, she worked in Snowdrift (now the federal government for delivering a Lutselk’e), Northwest Territories. New First Nations baby and that the Sechelt to the challenges of northern nursing, Band donated eleven acres of land for the and faced with a complicated birth in the new hospital in 1961. But I could find only middle of an April snowstorm, Coady one reference to a specific Indigenous used the nursing station oven as an person in his narrative. Haynes’s liberal incubator and called on the community use of the word “Indian” is particularly for assistance: baby and mother were egregious in 2016. Despite the plethora saved with help from “an old lady of character sketches littered throughout whose parka was covered in blood [she these books, Indigenous peoples are had been skinning an animal], who put rarely given individual identities or down the cigarette she was smoking and personal characteristics; instead, they started to puff into the baby” (personal are presented as entities with a collective communication, Moira Coady, 2005). character – stoic, untrustworthy, This is a classic tale of medical indifferent parents or neglected children improvisation in a remote locale, and (Wake-Up Call); wise grandmothers, students love the “baby-in-the-oven” intuitive, unsophisticated, uneducated, piece, but I tell it because this oral history stoic, generous, kind (House Calls); poor disrupts established narratives about money managers (The Doc’s Side). medical knowledge and professional Ours is a storied world, and when practice. We need to be doing the same the doctors of the Sunshine Coast and with BC local histories, revisiting and some of their books’ male characters met revising our stories to add new meanings, each week for lunch post-retirement, holding memories that no longer make as depicted in a delightful image in sense up to the light and looking at them The Doc’s Side (169), their retrospective without flinching, accepting the kind of conversations would have given meaning non-linear chaotic narratives that leave and order to their working lives. But when local heroes and stereotypes in the dust, Swan’s and Paetkau’s life stories became and always building towards a history books, they also became public history, that is not just about our past but also and the casual racism they exhibit is now about our present and our future. And open to a wide readership and public “our” needs to encompass everyone. 154 bc studies

The Literary Storefront: wholly men, who were admitted into its The Glory Years – Vancouver’s ranks, to acquiesce to the closed world of the University of British Columbia” Literary Centre, 1978-1985 (8). A perceived division between Trevor Carolan ubc and “Downtown” persisted for decades. As an undistinguished author Salt Spring Island: Mother Tongue in Vancouver, Al Purdy found the Publishing, 2015. 252 pp. $29.95 campus at Point Grey culturally and paper. geographically remote; he imagined Nicholas Bradley Earle Birney, poet and professor of English, to be sequestered in academe, University of Victoria as though Acadia Camp might be mistaken for the Bodleian. ew bookstores figure prominently An essentially anecdotal work, The Fin modern literary history. Literary Storefront draws on writers’ Shakespeare and Company in Paris, correspondence and interviews conducted once frequented by Joyce, Stein, by Carolan, who notes that his “book Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, and City of oral history and archival research” Lights in San Francisco, made famous (11) is intended to “serve as a necessary by Ginsberg and Kerouac, are shrines archival document for students of BC’s for bookish pilgrims. But Vancouver’s literary history” (12). The volume is Literary Storefront, established in impressively detailed: Carolan, it seems, imitation of such venerable stores, was mentions every writer to have passed in its heyday relatively obscure, and, through Vancouver in the late 1970s and unlike Munro’s Books of Victoria, early 1980s. Many of their names will which shares in the glory reflected by be familiar to specialists in Canadian Alice Munro’s Nobel Prize, today it literature, yet most of them have never exists only in memory. In The Literary graced the pages of The New Yorker. Storefront Trevor Carolan recounts Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, the short history of what he terms and Michael Ondaatje appear, but “Vancouver’s first grassroots literary Carolan focuses on unsung characters, centre” (12), its “bohemian consular Fertig foremost among them. The Literary centre” (13), and “a society of friends” Storefront thus suggests not only the (13): the Storefront was significant not diversity of Canadian literature but also for commercial reasons but as a venue for the inherent difficulty of narrating the literary performance, administration, past comprehensively. At times Carolan and carousal. Founded by the young is distinctly sanguine, describing the poet Mona Fertig, it operated from Storefront’s milieu, for instance, as 1978 until 1985 and was first located a kind of Canadian North Beach: at 131 Water Street in Gastown. As “Working-class, shake and shimmy, the book’s numerous photographs down at heel, creative and cheap, the show, Vancouver before Expo ’86 was Gastown-Downtown Eastside district a different world, a smaller and less was a natural magnet for the young and cosmopolitan city than it is now. In her artistic with a dream, and for outsiders Foreword, Jean Barman observes that, of every social hue” (18). And on occasion in Vancouver during the early twentieth authors are portrayed in somewhat simple century, “to be ‘literary’ was to head terms. Birney, who in 1978 gave one of the elsewhere or, for the select few, almost first readings at the Storefront, is “the Book Reviews 155 dean of Canadian poetry” (56), Purdy ensuring that all feel observed, even is “a huge colloquial worker poet with when they’re not. But I digress, and a voice to wake the dead” (93), Robin this little nugget is where Struthers Skelton is a “celebrated poet-witch” ends his book. I mention it only as (75). But Carolan’s enthusiasm propels an example of the eclectic trove of the narrative. A champion of the local valuable jewels strewn along the reader’s literary sphere, he has produced with path, a head-spinning kaleidoscope of The Literary Storefront, as he did with similes and other (often mind-bending) Making Waves: Reading BC and Pacific images throughout the book. So many, Northwest Literature (2010), an important in fact, that the author should never addition to the record of the province’s have managed to get away with it. But literary culture. A certain wistfulness somehow, he has, haut la main, even if accompanies his verve; it is hard to leaf he has surely become persona non grata through The Literary Storefront without in Wales. experiencing nostalgia for a time before It took me a long time to get into this Amazon. Carolan demonstrates that book. Not because it isn’t engaging – it one version of the writing life has was one of the most rewarding reads I disappeared, and his book is all the more have had in a long time. I just couldn’t valuable for its evocation of another time see the BC Studies connection. Struthers and another city. begins mostly with his in-laws and others on Tofino’s Chesterman Beach, and I suppose that’s why BC Studies Around the World on Minimum was interested. The promised journey Wage: An Account of a around the world eventually takes us to Struthers’s native Britain, then Japan, Pilgrimage I Once Made to where he and his Guinevere teach Tibet by Mistake English (for much better than minimum Andrew Struthers wage) and on through China to the Tibet, Nepal, and India of the 1980s. But long Vancouver: New Star Books, 2014. before he got on the plane, I was hooked 304 pp. $24.00 paper. on his manic stream of the sublime – the sublimely ridiculous and much that Howard Stewart lies strewn somewhere between the two Denman Island (especially the delightful graphics) – which eludes classification. What genre does Around the World ndrew Struthers self-identifies fit into? None that I can think of. It Aas “L’Étranger” of the “F___ is something of a hybrid spawned of book™” age and I’m prepared to Gulliver’s Travels; William Kotwinkle’s believe him, though I’m not sure how classic, The Fan Man; and National Camus might see it. For that matter, Lampoon magazine. One reason that what would Camus make of F___ it took me so long to review – I missed book™? Struthers, however, nails it: my BC Studies deadline for the first time F___book™ is a “virtual panopticon,” – was that reading this book was like a perfect prison where no one escapes being force-fed kilos of Schwartzwaelder the jailer’s scrutiny. Unlike Jeremy Kirschtorte. And the fare gets richer when Bentham’s vision, however, today’s Struthers comes ashore in the mysterious inmates keep watch over each other, east, in search of coverings for the Great 156 bc studies

Wall of his mind, first among the giant A Sense of Place: Art at babies of Japan, a place “as matriarchal Vancouver International Airport as a barbershop quartet,” then among the Robin Laurence seamy feudal Buddhists of Tibet, where the air is “thinner than a Welshman’s Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishers, smile” and old men gape at him when 2015. 128 pp. $24.95 paper. he speaks, “as if they’d seen a talking horse.” Finally, there are the hashish- Maria Tippett driven excesses of his descent down the Cambridge University south face of the Himalayas, where he is almost carried away by the bloody flux. Part of the challenge in trying to digest n 1958, during the postwar building this tome is Struthers’s endless, seemingly Iboom, the federal government effortless, cryptic erudition. Matthias decided to devote 1 percent of airport Rust, the young German amateur pilot, construction costs to artwork. Within who landed his little plane in Red Square a few years the facades and foyers of is “as despondent as [Goethe’s] Young airports from Gander, Newfoundland, Werther,” as inept and lacking in sense to Vancouver were enlivened with bas- as Wilson (Woodrow, I think). Such reliefs and free-standing sculptures; with flourishes – I can’t even remember how paintings and murals. Vancouver-born we got sidetracked to Matthias Rust in sculptor Robert Murray and painter Moscow – probably help explain why Jack Shadbolt were among the artists it took Struthers thirty years to get it who received commissions. But there all down. We’re lucky he persevered, as was a problem: their largely abstract Around the World on Minimum Wage is work had a mixed reception. In fact, bound to be an important contribution Robert Murray’s sculpture Cumbria to this genre, once defined. (1966-67) caused such public dissent that it had to be removed from Vancouver’s airport; it is now on display at ubc. Works Cited In the early 1990s, Canada’s airports Camus, Albert. 1942. L’Étranger. Paris: Gal- experienced another building boom and limard. airport management structure changed. Kotzwinkle, William. 1874. The Fan Man. Private airport authorities rather than New York: Avon. the Department of Transport were now Swift, Jonathan. 1726. Gulliver’s Travels. London: Benjamin Motte. responsible for running the country’s airports – and commissioning works of art. And this is where Robin Laurence begins her story in A Sense of Place: Art at Vancouver International Airport. In 1992, the newly established Vancouver Airport Authority (vaa) announced that it had a mission: to celebrate the natural beauty and the cultural of the province through the work of largely First Nations artists. The decision to acquire Native, rather than non-Native, modernist works averted public criticism; it also allowed Book Reviews 157 the vaa to acquire an outstanding I also left what is essentially a coffee- collection that will always be on public table book wanting to know so much view rather than hidden in the vaults of more. Had working on such a large an art gallery. scale been difficult and what impact has Thevaa built its collection of Native it had on the artists’ subsequent work? art in various ways. Most of it was What were the challenges of putting commissioned directly from artists Indigenous works of art into a sterile who produced their work for specific airport terminal? And can we really locations in the airport. Other pieces, appreciate these works out of context? I like Nuu-chah-nulth artist Joe David’s think that Robin Laurence has convinced two Welcome Figures, which had greeted us that the answer to this question is a visitors to British Columbia’s pavilion resounding yes! at Expo ’86, were taken out of storage at the Museum of Vancouver and installed in the International Terminal Building. Vancouver Vanishes: Narratives The vaa’s most famous piece, ’s six-ton The Spirit of of Demolition and Revival – also known as The Black Canoe( 1996) Caroline Adderson, editor – was originally commissioned for the Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2015. Canadian Embassy in Washington, DC. Four years after the casting of this work, 160 pp. $32.95 paper. Reid oversaw the casting of a second Rhodri Windsor Liscombe version for the Vancouver International University of British Columbia Airport. Renamed The Jade Canoe, the vaa paid Reid a handsome $3 million for the sculpture. he cover and larger-format pages Robin Laurence is not interested Tof this handsomely produced book in the intricacies of how works were are drear images of demolition in the commissioned or even how the artists older inner suburbs of Vancouver. An made them. What she does do – and array of these is pictured on the back does splendidly – is celebrate a small cover, rather in the manner of a high number of works in the collection. school yearbook of graduates, while I came away from A Sense of Place in full inside are images of their demise and admiration of the range of work that suggestions of the former civic scenery has been commissioned: from paddles, and social pattern of Vancouver as to spindle whorls, to canoes, to masks, a provincial town as opposed to as a to the silver-coloured fish that make nascent world city. These photographs up the three giant herring balls. I was register perhaps more strongly than fascinated to see how Haida-Métis artist those showing erstwhile interior and Don Yeomans interwove European – owner. Interspersed with engaging the Celtic Knot – and Asian-Chinese accounts, historical and experiential, characters-motifs into his red cedar totem the contents constitute a fabric of loss pole Celebrating Flight (2007). And how and a nostalgia for an apparently more five Coast Salish women – Krista Point, gracious and now lost urbanscape and Robyn Sparrow, Debra Sparrow, Gina society. The narrative is compelling for Grant, and Helen Callbreath – designed, those who have lived in Vancouver since and then wove, sheep’s wool into four- before the advent of Expo ’86. That metre-long hangings. spectacle came into being on the skirts 158 bc studies of the Thatcher-Reagan deregulation Evelyn Lau and Bren Summers on the of global enterprise and hastened the unremarked or private pathos entangled transformation of Terminal City into in the redevelopment of neighbourhood. a compounding suburb of the Asias. John Mackie, Kerry Gold, Elise and Crumpets and tea, as it were, having Stephen Partridge, together with been displaced by a spicy menu of photographs by Tracey Ayton, and by profit and excess nicely manifested by Adderson in two other contributions, accelerating downtown density and unsentimentally evoke the lost lives of oversized house construction, much of both houses and occupants. it not regularly occupied. Yet, when this reviewer was preparing The book is thus a valedictory for an exhibition for the Canadian Centre for a passing way of living in a particular Architecture on a less popular era of built place. These fated, and generally quite heritage – namely, post-1945 modernism ordinary, houses are commemorated – a different viewpoint was voiced here in the life-narrative of the authors in perambulatory conversation along and in editor Caroline Adderson’s Burrard Street. While pondering the dismay at their rampant destruction. onset of rapid downtown reconstruction, She began her resistance through the as outlined by Atkin in this book, more immediate discourse of social architect Ned Pratt averred to his peer media. Some of its immediacy carries Moshe Safdie: “All architecture is into her opening chapter, prefaced by demolition!” This stands as an intriguing Michael Kluckner’s astute Introduction, comment by a victim of the volatility of which probes, among the causes of rapid capital, which, as much as aesthetics or redevelopment, the victims featured in ideology, fashions the architecture – and his Vanishing Vancouver (2012). Adderson absence thereof – moulding our everyday begins the narratology of once affordable environs. For architecture and its Vancouver domesticity with the happier overweight cousin, mere development, is fate of two simplified Tudor-styled as temporally as it is socially constituted. houses that escaped demolition through It is an outcome of contemporary relocation. A sympathetic building regimes of investment and ownership contractor, prepared to accept more and profit that, except in Indigenous ergonomic than boastful living quarters, culture, imbue real estate. Here it might enabled their generally more sustainable be noted that Donald Gutstein casts a renovation in a new but not far distant particularly lucid and prescient light on site. Our animation of the inert material an earlier phase in the city’s development artefacts of our existence is indicated industry in Vancouver Ltd. (1975) and by their being colloquially dubbed “the that, in 2012, I contributed two studies Dorothies.” The anthropomorphic tenor of advertising, commodification, and of residence, whether of specific domicile modernist urbanism in Vancouver. In or local scene, unites the variety of our time, real estate is a performance of contributions: from the more historical status, secular faith in the future, and chapters by John Atkin (justly celebrated seething discontent. In Vancouver, the for his tours of the city’s many districts) latter currently revolves around issues of on Vancouver’s growth or Eve Lazarus’s absentee ownership, money laundering, paean to potential heritage lost through and tax evasion – somewhat unfairly the pressure (sometimes criminal, as only directed against wealthy Mainland in the case of the Englesea Lodge on Chinese purchasers (most nationalities, the fringe of ) to poems by Book Reviews 159 including the United States and Russia, Norman Shaw, C.F.A. Voysey, William are represented). Morris, Edwin Lutyens, and landscapist There is, too, a deeper timeliness, or Gertrude Jekyll – this earlier phase is timefulness, about architecture. Even as indelibly stamped with Imperialist suburban tract housing makes a play at triumphalism as the admixture of time’s conquest. However shoddy those Ancient with Baroque Classicism (Wren- houses – including the modest Central aisance) in, for example, the Prairie (now Canada) Mortgage and Housing provincial legislatures. Those Crafts Corporation house types devised for and Classical architectonic languages of returning veterans, which are among alienation and imposition transformed the carnage illustrated in Vancouver the landscape of Canada, particularly Vanishes – they sought to accommodate at Terminal City, quite as much as and persist across at least a generation. has the more recent influx of offshore These were instruments of the policy, wealth. The earlier phase of building building practice, and the usual attitude settler Vancouver was traumatic for of their times – when a family of between First Nations communities and for the four and six did not require thousands environment. The impact on individual of square feet or innumerable lavatory lives and their domicile around the facilities to survive the daily round. current Stanley Park is the sad refrain Even those utilitarian domiciles denoted of Jean Barman’s Stanley Park’s Secret the conceptualizing of time’s dominion (2005). The flow of money, people, and through construction, and the edifices ideas was formerly westward by railway of High-style architecture have ever to Terminus Vancouver; now, and for the embodied claims, religious and dynastic, foreseeable future, it originates eastward. to defy time’s depredation and human Consequently, the poignancy of places of hubris. past living lost, documented in Vancouver Does such preceding speculation Vanishes, belongs in a larger topography about the mental and material combat of conflicted cultural economy. of decay (architectural Thanatos) relate Time’s passing nonetheless imposes to the disappearance of housing stock in a duty upon each generation to the middle-class enclaves of a burgeoning account for change. While history, metropolis? Yes; and not just locally as an analytic of occurrence, seldom or regionally. And here the critical attains greater precision than the purview of Vancouver Vanishes could be reflections of uncut gemstones, its faulted as being too parochial, a feature methods enable understanding of of much architectural history as well change. Adderson begins that process of as current ideation of heritage policy. comprehending the single constituents The main iconographic motifs of the of multiple and radical reconfiguration majority of demolished houses featured of Vancouver with an engaging, indeed here derive from the Tudor Gothic touching, narration of her dismay at the Revival and Arts and Crafts idioms of demolition of often perfectly habitable late Victorian and Edwardian Britain. and generally well-landscaped homes. Thus, the nostalgia coursing through That weave of melancholy and cogency the pages of Vancouver Vanishes is for distinguishes each contribution to an earlier phase in the eradication, or Vancouver Vanishes and adds dimension alienation, of an established environment. to the more traditionally framed histories Despite the village cosiness of the Arts of architecture building in western and Crafts especially – a concoction of Canada by scholars like Donald Luxton 160 bc studies

(2007) and Harold Kalman et al. (2012). Works Cited Their writings, while reflecting the Barman, Jean. 2005. Stanley Park’s Secret: The sentiment of loss coursing through Forgotten Families of Whoi Whoi, Kanaka Kluckner’s Introduction, are evocative Ranch, and Brockton Point. Madeira Park: but not sentimental. For, despite the Harbour. Gutstein, Donald. 1975. Vancouver Ltd. above comments about architectural Toronto: James Lorimer. style in relation to political reality, the Kalman, Harold, Robin Ward, and John Roaf. many forlorn piles of rubble in this 1975. Exploring Vancouver: The Architectural book and our daily observation reveal Guide. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre. profound matters of policy, particularly Kluckner, Michael. 2012. Vanishing Vancouver: with respect to the broader structure The Last 25 Years. Vancouver: Whitecap. Luxton, Donald, ed. 2007. of social justice. Moreover, Vancouver Building the West: Early Architects of British Columbia. Van- Vanishes confirms the relevance of the couver: Talonbooks. experiential dimension in assembling Windsor-Liscombe, Rhodri. 2011. “Archi- a stable historical construct. The lives tizing: Architecture, Advertising, and the of houses, to paraphrase the title of Commodification of Urban Community,” Adderson’s closing chapter, recount not in Architecture and the Canadian Fabric, ed. only the experience of inhabitants but R. Liscombe, 409-28. Vancouver: ubc Press. —. 2011. “A Study in Modern[ist] Urbanism: also the larger architecture of the times. Planning Vancouver, 1945-1965,” Urban One last Parthian shot about the History 38, 1: 124-49. underlying issue of how we understand and enact heritage. This book underscores the orphan nature of heritage in Canada and its tendency still to hierarchize Spirits of the Rockies: particular period production. The Reasserting an Indigenous movement was begun in Canada by two architects, Ramsay Traquair at McGill Presence in Banff National Park and Eric Arthur at the University of Courtney Mason Toronto, who favoured and thankfully helped preserve the regional colonial Toronto: University of Toronto architecture of settler society. Arthur Press, 2014. 195 pp. $27.95 paper. went on to encourage greater respect Jonathan Clapperton for modernist design, the often-sorry fate of which merits inclusion in Memorial University of Vancouver Vanishes. However, instead Newfoundland of irritating contestation about what is to be conserved to commemorate our he history of Indigenous peoples evolving built patrimony, let this book Tand parks – notably the former’s stand as testimony to the depressing exclusion from the latter – is a field of disinterest in all levels of government study that has blossomed over the past in Canada to heritage action, not mere two decades. Courtney Mason’s Spirits heritage rhetoric. The architectural past, of the Rockies: Reasserting an Indigenous as much as the aging population, needs Presence in Banff National Park adds to dedicated funding if it is to remain part this literature by focusing specifically of quotidian experience and enjoyment. on the Banff-Bow Valley region. The book’s title is slightly misleading because the work is primarily about Book Reviews 161 reasserting a specifically Nakoda examples of similar historical processes (Stoney) history in the region; other, and events regarding Indigenous neighbouring Indigenous communities peoples elsewhere. Engaging with a receive passing reference but are not rich body of scholarship, Mason situates extensively considered. Mason’s intent Nakoda experience within the broader is to restore Nakoda history to the North American context of Indigenous dominant discourse of Banff National peoples and colonialism, tourism, and Park, from which it was often either conservation and, at the same time, excised entirely or severely truncated assesses the applicability of theoretical and emplotted within a settler colonial insights offered by Foucault and others narrative, and to allow a more historically to Aboriginal history. However, I would accurate narrative that includes Nakoda have liked, in Chapters 2, 3, and 4, to perspectives. Drawing heavily upon see more Nakoda (or other Indigenous) post-structuralist theorists, especially voices, drawn either from the interviews Foucault, and on postcolonial theory Mason conducted or from the archival – frameworks that focus on power as records that he consulted. A similar a productive force rather than just as a point is raised in the book’s Foreword repressive mechanism – Mason argues by Rolland Rollinmud (Chiniki Nation) that popular and academic histories of and Ian Getty (research director with the Banff National Park have largely failed Stoney Nakoda Nation), who note that to recognize the previous and ongoing the application of theory interrupts the Indigenous presence in the Banff-Bow narrative flow (xii). Valley region. One of Spirits of the Rockies’ Mason’s book consists of six chapters contributions, and perhaps the most plus an introduction and a foreword. useful aspect of the book for those who Chapters 2 through 6 are meant to centre study British Columbia – which forms “on the experiences of Nakoda peoples the western boundary of Banff National in their interactions with the colonial Park – is that it is a product of long-term bureaucracy and later with tourism collaboration with the Nakoda. Mason’s industries” (145-46). The analysis proceeds Introduction describes the process of chronologically, beginning in Chapter 2 building and maintaining relationships with Nakoda experiences in the second with the Nakoda community, and half of the nineteenth century, notably his Conclusion includes a thoughtful Treaty 7, before moving, in Chapter 3, reflection on the implications of a Euro- to the creation of Rocky Mountains Canadian male writing Aboriginal (Banff) National Park and the gradual history. He also provides some Nakoda curtailment of Nakoda activity beyond responses to this topic. Further, the their reserves. Chapter 4 turns to the Appendix describes how certain emergence of the tourist economy in the knowledge gained through personal region and Nakoda participation therein, interviews was excluded from the book in while Chapter 5 focuses specifically on order to protect culturally and politically Banff Indian Days. sensitive information. I resoundingly While Mason writes that, in Chapter 1, endorse Mason’s call for academics he “establish[es] the theoretical lens working with Indigenous communities that shape[s] [his] interpretations of to establish collaborative relationships local history and colonial contexts,” (10) and to privilege their perspectives. subsequent chapters are also infused with sophisticated theoretical discussions and 162 bc studies

Indigenous Women, Work, and decades, aggressive reform modalities History, 1940-1980 endeavoured to “uplift” Indigenous Mary Jane Logan McCallum workers from perceived deprivation and the absence of economic opportunity on Winnipeg: University of Manitoba reserves. Press, 2014. 336 pp. $27.95 paper. McCallum considers the reform and re-education doctrines and programs that Carol Williams targeted Indigenous women and argues University of Lethbridge that historians cannot underestimate the state’s impact on the condition and histories of Indigenous labour from 1940 istorian Patrick Wolfe has to the 1980s, with “aboriginal women’s Hforegrounded the contradictory lives inescapably involved in modern condition of Indigenous labour labour that was highly regulated by the within Euro-American settlement Canadian nation-state” (239). Following by arguing that mythic narratives Wolfe, she shows that economic policy of settler diligence coexisted with a depended on Indigenous children being heavy reliance on colonized Indigenous placed into residential schools and other labour. As he observes in “The Settler educational schemes whose curricula Complex,” settler schemes avoided aimed to recruit and confine women to revealing their “reliance on a population occupations demanded by government [they were] simultaneously seeking to and private markets. eliminate.” Wolfe convincingly suggests Yet women, as McCallum counters, that “Natives” were deemed unsuitable were not passive in the face of such to settlement schemes even when imperatives. Training in feminine-specific they “remained in their own country.” occupations, including hairdressing, Consequently, market reliance on afforded self-sufficiency and sovereign- Indigenous labour was backed by state modern identities; and professional imperatives to territorially dispossess advocacy organizations emerged, such or remove the people from their land as the Aboriginal Nurses Association at the same time as constructing of Canada (anac, formed in 1975 from Indian workers as “lazy, dishonest, and the Registered Nurses of Canadian unreliable” (2). Once removed from Indian Ancestry, or rncia). Members their territory, Indians were reconceived of anac become “keen critics” of state- by the state, and its bureaucracies, as operated and “racist discriminatory good or suitable workers. health services,” including the federal The removal of Indigenous people Community Health Representatives – whether from their own territory or Program, analyzed in Chapter 3 (228). into occupationally organized residential McCallum’s book is extraordinary schools or, by the 1950s, into restrictive in detail, breadth, and depth. Chapter 1, urban employment programs – grounds for example, examines domestic the concrete research that Mary Jane labour as a basic prerequisite of the McCallum unfolds in her outstanding assimilation of Indigenous women. In monograph, Indigenous Women, Work, domestic capacities, women laboured in and History, 1940-1980. McCallum “federally-run, segregated Indian schools deftly reveals a sequence of federal and hospitals and the homes of the non- schemes and policies implemented local and mostly itinerant workforce of to mobilize women’s labour. In these church and government officials”23 ( ). Book Reviews 163

They also served in hotels and tourist While McCallum’s study is resorts, non-Indian hospitals, and elder geographically specific to Manitoba care facilities (24), while the “Ottawa and Ontario, the research is relevant Experiment” placed residential school to all provinces and regions because, as students in private households, including she reminds us, bureaucratic schemes those of prominent women such as to capture Indigenous women’s labour Senator Cairine Wilson (49-50). were governed by national agencies. By the late 1950s, a widening range of McCallum is not preoccupied with any bureaucrats participated in “broad efforts “single set of records” (14) but sustains of surveillance of Native Labour” (65). her focus on anglophone women who Indian placement and relocation programs were registered Indians. Some of the were transparently assimilative, with records deployed are from what Wolfe bureaucrats estimating that “permanent calls “settler-conceived bureaucracies” employment would facilitate Indian that generated “a colonial system of integration – and thus also equality identification that aimed to integrate, within – Canadian society” (66). The segregate, and penalize aboriginal Placement Program of 1957, supervised by people” (14). Nonetheless women, many Indian agents, Indian Health Services, of whom self-identified as Indians, missionaries, and school staff, was “the “eluded, avoided and/or resisted this first organized national labour program system” (14). But McCallum is not overly and it sought to place First Nations people reliant on government and health service in permanent positions in urban areas” records, many of which are inaccessible (67). due to restrictions of confidentiality, All four chapters are grounded in and chooses instead to collaborate with regional and federal sources that allow leading professionals from public health a critical intersection of topics such and nursing associations who granted as Indigenous sovereignty, labour, full access to records and offered rich empire, settler colonialism, gender, qualitative data through a telling of their history, education, and assimilation. own experiences. Yet the book is rooted in real events and showcases the organizational structures Works Cited and federal labour programs experienced by Indigenous workers. As such it will Wolfe, Patrick. 2013. “The Settler Complex: be of interest to health practitioners and An Introduction.” American Indian Culture students of labour history, transnational and Research Journal: 37, 2: 1-22. women’s history, Canadian history, and Indigenous studies. In her concluding chapter, “The Wages of Whiteness and the Indigenous Historian,” McCallum discusses labour disparities in Canadian university history departments, reflects on the professional status and glaring absence of Indigenous historians in academia, and proposes a critical revision of historiographical methods and pedagogy in Indigenous and Canadian history. 164 bc studies

Maps and Memes: Redrawing and mimesis (copying) as well as Culture, Place and Identity in inscription and wayfaring, and can be characterized as colonial or counter- Indigenous Communities colonial, traumatic or therapeutic, Gwilym Lucas Eades and identity-breaking or community- restoring. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s The importance of the book lies in University Press, 2015. 264 pp. $34.95 paper. Eades’s sophisticated and ultimately Daniel Clayton hopeful analysis of the intersections, University of St Andrews tensions, and dissimilarities between different Indigenous and non-Indigenous maps and memes. Maps are not simply n this innovative and important written off as tools of colonial power Ibook, Gwilym Eades, a geographer and white domination in Canada. from Terrace, undertakes a kaleidoscopic Eades shows how they can also work as investigation of the significance of weapons of resistance and as a means of maps, cartography, contemporary cultural rejuvenation. Drawing insights geo-coding technologies (gis, gps, from anthropology, geography, history, and Google Earth), and questions of social psychology, and cognitive science, spatial cognition in understanding the Maps and Memes enriches understanding challenges facing Indigenous cultures in of how links within Indigenous cultures northern Canada today. The originality between place, time, community, and of the book lies in the author’s multi- well-being are created, transmitted, faceted approach to maps and what damaged, and lost in spatial and he terms “place-memes” as “holistic cartographic terms. device[s] for preserving information The book is comprised of nine about place through time, and [that] may chapters and includes thirty black- be made up of multiple representations, and-white illustrations (maps, models, including maps” (xix). The concept of and photographs). It is part conceptual “meme” comes from anthropology and rumination on the significance of land, evolutionary biology, and connotes both territory, and place names to Indigenous a store of cultural information and a people, part critique of cartography as a vehicle for transmitting cultural ideas, colonizing device, and part applied and symbols, and practices. Eades brings participatory geography that seeks to a spatial dimension to the concept, reposition mapping as a tool of Indigenous and the maps he has in mind can be empowerment. Theoretical considerations linguistic or spatial, drawn or spoken, and technical exegesis are prominent in textual or visual, preserved or transient, Chapter 2 (“Place-Memes”), Chapter quotidian or generational, represented 5 (“Counter-Mapping Colonization”), or performed, and disembodied or Chapter 6 (“The Evolution of Critical embodied. Connections between map Cartographic Inscription”), and Chapter and meme can be rendered on paper 9 (“Towards an Indigenous Geoweb”). or in stories or on computer screens, Critical examination of maps as tools of involve positive and negative feedback colonization and ways of gauging the loops or topographic (locational) and vulnerability of Indigenous lifeworlds topological (relational) understandings comes to the fore in Chapter 3 (“Cree of place and identity. Place-memes can Ethnogeography”) and Chapter 4 operate as modes of capture (expression) (“Canada, Cartography, and Indigenous Book Reviews 165 peoples”). But in all of the chapters, and areas and furnish practical tools and particularly in Chapter 1 (“The Long important questions for future research. Walk”), Chapter 7 (“Commemorative Toponymies of Trauma”), and Chapter 8 (“Meme Maps”), Eades also chronicles his involvement with Indigenous mapping and naming projects in northern Blockades or Breakthroughs? British Columbia and especially in Aboriginal Peoples Confront the northern Quebec. Eades notes that Canadian State the moral and political aim of his research is to boost “recognition, rights Yale D. Belanger and P. and respect for indigenous goals and Whitney Lackenbauer, editors aspirations” (22). This aim is expedited brilliantly in the sections of the book Montreal and Kingston: McGill- that are devoted to Wemindji on the Queen’s University Press, 2014. 488 eastern shore of James Bay, where the pp. $32.95 paper. 2008 author undertook fieldwork in and Sarah Nickel 2010 and immersed himself in various Indigenous mapping projects and University of Saskatchewan problems: landscape visualization projects that seek to strengthen community anada is no s t r a n g e r t o bonds; the development of gis and gps CAboriginal direct action: “Oka, initiatives that aim to preserve and Ipperwash, Caledonia. Blockades, rekindle Indigenous relationships to land masked warriors, police snipers” and oral tradition; and “toponymies” of (3). Citing this excerpt from the Indigenous suicide that can be correlated 2006 report of the Standing Senate with “the urbanization of indigenous Committee on Aboriginal Peoples life-worlds … and [the] move away from to introduce the collection Blockades land-based life” (154). or Breakthroughs?, Yale Belanger and Maps and Memes traverses issues Whitney Lackenbauer highlight that reach far beyond Indigenous the powerful imagery of land-based life in Wemindji and will interest protest, Aboriginal militancy, and state Canadian government policy-makers intervention. Confrontations such as and Indigenous community groups Oka, Ipperwash, and Caledonia are much farther afield. However, the book well established within the Canadian has a decidedly academic tone that will imaginary, but, as the editors of this put some readers off. In places, I found important book argue, they have the theory dense and overly techy, and been overly simplified through media the analysis somewhat wandering and reports and scholarship that pigeonhole repetitive. The different parts of the book Aboriginal blockades and occupations perhaps do not add up to (or make for) under “umbrella terms such as ‘protest’ a neat or entirely fluent whole. Even so, and ‘activism’” (14) that promote one- Eades’s way of “engaging subjects with dimensional narratives. This collection their geography” (201) is stimulating successfully establishes the multivocal throughout, and Maps and Memes is an and politically formidable nature of impressive achievement that will foster blockades and occupations, in the debate in a range of contexts and subject process adding much needed depth to histories of Aboriginal direct action and 166 bc studies stimulating meaningful conversation. and land use (Sarah J. King, Thomas Structured around a chronological Flanagan, Belanger, and Winegard) and comparative case-study approach, sovereignty. Blockades or Breakthroughs? contains By complicating and contextualizing eleven chapters outlining Canadian blockades and occupations on both Aboriginal direct action campaigns, theoretical and practical levels, this beginning with the Point Pelee dispute volume explores the transformative in 1922 (John Sandlos) and ending with potential of direct action. As the title the Caledonia conflict in2006 (Timothy of the book suggests, the authors ask Winegard). These chapters offer fresh whether direct action functioned to insights into both well-known and “blockade” political solutions or whether under-analyzed events. For instance, it functioned as a catalyst for political along with the expected case studies of breakthroughs. “There is no clear verdict,” Oka, Ipperwash, Gustafsen Lake, Burnt the authors conclude (33). In his chapter on Church, and Caledonia, the collection the Lubicon Lake Cree’s quest for a land also includes chapters on Haida resistance claim and resource rights, for example, to logging on Lyell Island in Haida Thomas Flanagan argues that the “radical Gwaii, Innu opposition to low-level tactics” of the Lubicon “may have delayed flying in Labrador, and the Bay of Quinte rather than accelerated the onset of dispute. Taken together, the chapters meaningful negotiations” (111). Likewise, collected here weave a dynamic, coherent, Lackenbauer, in his examination of and significant historio-political narrative the Innu of Labrador’s protest against about direct action, shifting Aboriginal- military training operations, which state relations, community dynamics, included low-level flying exercises Aboriginal sovereignty, land claims, and over Innu hunting grounds, suggests politics. that, while the Innu did not succeed Additionally, this collection in stopping operations or achieving fundamentally disrupts Canadians’ recognition of their sovereignty, they existing preoccupation with the Oka achieved an invaluable level of political crisis of 1990 and later actions in the 1990s, cohesion through direct action (149). which have prevented deeper theoretical Despite this attention to complexity, understandings of Aboriginal direct there is something unsettling about action strategies. For instance, in his framing Aboriginal blockades and chapter on the 1922 Point Pelee occupation occupations within this success- in southern Ontario, John Sandlos failure paradigm. It tends to privilege establishes the long roots of occupation as practical political gains as evidence political resistance, while Yale Belanger’s that direct action was “worth it,” while chapter on the Pikani Lonefighters’ simultaneously emphasizing reactive opposition to the Old Man River Dam and violent political elements. Sarah construction in August 1990 reminds King’s chapter on the 1999-2002 Burnt readers that the Mohawk Nation was Church (Esgenoôpetiji) dispute engages not alone that summer in its frustration explicitly with this conceptual limitation, with state authorities. The case studies suggesting that “framing this dispute as also explore complex and interrelated either a blockade or a breakthrough also issues of environmental protection focuses attention on violent activism, and politics (David Rossiter and Yale when really a broad variety of strategies Belanger), spirituality (Nick Shrubsole and tactics were employed” (368). and P. Whitney Lackenbauer), resource Book Reviews 167

Ultimately, this innovative collection Canada. At the present time, British will appeal to a wide readership, Columbia is the home of one of the including those interested in Aboriginal most effective survivor organizations, issues in British Columbia. David Reconciliation Canada, whose leader, Rossiter’s chapter on the 1985 Haida Chief Robert Joseph, has been an logging blockade on Lyell Island is an in the investigation of important examination of environmental the schools and in the establishment politics. Likewise, Nick Shrubsole and of a reconciliation movement. And Lackenbauer’s excellent reconsideration British Columbia’s economic future, of the well-known Gustafsen Lake so dependent on resource extraction standoff adds much to our understanding and related infrastructure projects of the role played in direct action that involve First Nations territories, outcomes by media, state authorities, and is bound up with the success of the internal Aboriginal political factionalism. movement to improve relations between Indigenous peoples and the rest of the population. In June 2015, the trc issued a summary Final Report of the Truth and of its final report, which was released in full the following December. Honouring Reconciliation Commission the Truth, Reconciling for the Future traces of Canada. Volume One: the history and legacy of the residential Summary “Honouring the Truth, school system before turning to the commission’s recommendations for Reconciling for the Future” resolving the ensuing problems and Truth and Reconciliation advancing reconciliation. The mandate of Commission of Canada the commission was principally to provide a platform for the investigation of the Toronto: Lorimer, 2015. history of the schools, especially through 451 pp. $22.95 paper. the statements of those who were involved J.R. Miller in their operation, and to propose remedies (23, 43). In practice, the trc University of Saskatchewan based its understanding of the residential school history and legacy mainly on the he work of the Truth and testimony of former students. Although TReconciliation Commission (trc) the commissioners say, rightly, that between 2009 and 2015 is especially they tried to collect the testimonies of relevant to British Columbia. former staff and government officials, Residential schools and their impact the reality is that the oral testimony on are interwoven with the history, which its history relies comes almost contemporary situation, and future solely from survivors’ recollections. As development of British Columbia. the commissioners said, they “listened to Historically, the Pacific province had thousands of survivors”(39). Although a large number of schools operated the trc “made a concerted effort” to by the Roman Catholic Church, the collect the testimony of former staff, only Anglican Church, the United Church, a small proportion of its almost sixty- and the Presbyterian Church, and their seven hundred accounts came from staff effects have been felt there perhaps (26). The trc conducted ninety-six such as deeply as in any other part of interviews, and an unspecified number of 168 bc studies statements were collected at its national and only loosely connected to the trc and regional events. Hence, the sources mandate. Others, such as urging that for the report are overwhelmingly the federal government funding to the cbc views of former students. be restored and enhanced, simply are The consequence of the trc’s reliance not. The number and breadth of the on survivor accounts is a version of trc recommendations are so great that residential school history that is they raise the spectre of a repetition of unbalanced. As that history emerges in the fate of the recommendations of the the report, it is one almost solely of abuse. earlier Royal Commission on Aboriginal While the commissioners acknowledge Peoples (rcap). rcap’s proposals for a vast that there were good workers in the new governance system that included schools (117, 127), and that a small minority sixty to eighty Aboriginal governments of students had a positive experience, the and a third house of Parliament to history and legacy that emerge in these represent Aboriginal peoples at the pages deal almost totally with damage federal level were, as former deputy and demoralization. Underlying this minister of Indian affairs Harry Swain history and threatening prospects for put it in his memoirs, “dead on arrival” promoting reconciliation is the painful (Oka: A Political Crisis and Its Legacy reality that Canadians do not know the [Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, history of the schools that is revealed in 2010], 168-69). these pages. And, say the commissioners, Canadians, and more especially British until Canadians know and accept that Columbians, should hope fervently history, reconciliation is at risk (187, 137). that the same will not prove true of the To “build for the future, Canadians results of the Truth and Reconciliation must look to, and learn from, the past” Commission twenty years later. The (8). “Reconciliation is about respect” initial response of Prime Minister Justin (185). Knowledge, including historical Trudeau suggests that it will not. understanding, is the foundation of respect. From its analysis of the history and legacy of residential schooling, the trc drew ninety-four recommendations, or “Calls to Action.” Some of these propositions, such as urging provincial and territorial governments to revise their school curricula to incorporate the history of residential schools and treaties, seem obvious and closely related to the commission’s mandate. Others, such as the contention that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is “a framework for reconciliation” (187, 137), might be sound, but no explanation or elaboration is provided for it. Some, such as the call to the pope to apologize for residential schools in Canada within a year, seem extraordinarily challenging Book Reviews 169

Canada’s Residential Schools. of the Agreement a report including Volume 1, Part 1: The History, recommendations to the Government of Canada concerning the irs system Origins to 1939 and experience including: the history, purpose, operation and supervision Canada’s Residential Schools. of the irs system, the effect and Volume 1, Part 2: The History, consequences of irs (including system 1939 to 2000 harms, intergenerational consequences and the impact on human dignity) and the ongoing legacy of the residential Canada’s Residential Schools. schools.” The trc’s terms of reference Volume 2: The Inuit and also said that the commission was to Northern Experience produce its “report on historic findings, within two years of the launch of the Commission.” In part because of Canada’s Residential Schools. the abortive start of the commission Volume 3: The Métis Experience in 2008, when the original trio of commissioners imploded and had to Canada’s Residential Schools. be replaced, the trc was not able to keep to the schedule outlined in its Volume 4: Missing Children and mandate. It produced a short interim Unmarked Burials report late in 2011, a summary final report in June 2015 (six years after the Canada’s Residential Schools. second commission had commenced Volume 5: The Legacy work), and a mammoth final report in six volumes in December 2015. Canada’s Residential Schools. Even before it experienced internal problems in its early months, the trc Volume 6: Reconciliation was a groundbreaking body. As the Truth and Reconciliation commission itself notes, it “was not Commission of Canada established because of any widespread public outcry demanding justice for Montreal and Kingston: Truth and residential school survivors” (6:86). The Reconciliation Commission and genesis of the inquiry in a negotiated McGill-Queen’s University Press, settlement of a class action would shape, 2015. $19.95-39.95 paper. and sometimes limit, the commission’s efforts to discharge its complex mandate. J.R. Miller And, as Chief Commissioner (now University of Saskatchewan Senator) Murray Sinclair often pointed out, it was the only public inquiry that was created to investigate the treatment portion of the Truth and and fate of children. Those origins were A Reconciliation Commission’s constantly before the commissioners (trc’s) mandate laid out in Schedule as they consistently gave primacy to N to the Indian Residential Schools residential school survivors – those Settlement Agreement (irssa) of children – in their labours. 2006 stated that the commission was The various reports of thetrc show to “produce and submit to the Parties variety and increasing maturity of analysis 170 bc studies over the commission’s life. The first, or of what it was like to attend a residential interim, report, entitled They Came for school. The accounts in all three reports the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, are, appropriately, negative in tone, but and Residential Schools, is “based largely the summary final report stands out for on published material” because in 2011 its less balanced depiction of residential the trc was still experiencing difficulty schooling. extracting “all relevant documents” What does not change through that the Settlement Agreement had the successive commission reports is promised it from government and the commissioners’ insistence on the denominational archives.1 Although, primacy of history in understanding in 2011, the interim report had been what residential schools had represented confident that the commission would and in finding a way forward towards have the documents it needed to support reconciliation. Fully 2,382 of the final its final report, when it issued a summary report’s 3,232 pages are devoted to history. final report in June2015 , the trc had This total includes Volume 1, Part 1, The to note that it had been to court three History, Origins to 1939 (962 pages) and times regarding three issues of access to Volume 1, Part 2, The History, 1939 to documents.2 Accordingly, the summary 2000 (813 pages); Volume 2, The Inuit and final report rests to a great extent on Northern Experience (260 pages); Volume former students’ testimony collected in 3, The Métis Experience (an inadequate trc National Event sharing circles and 81 pages); and Volume 4, Missing Children trc statement-gathering operations. and Unmarked Burials (266 pages). The Although the documents issue was not other two volumes of the final report fully resolved by December 2015, when focus on The Legacy (Volume 5) and the commission issued its massive final Reconciliation (Volume 6). Beyond the report, there were enough records in page count, the final report, like the two hand to produce a report that relied on before it, hammers away at the centrality both documentary and oral evidence. of history in understanding residential The different evidence bases of the three schools and promoting reconciliation. reports led to different emphases. The “Too many Canadians know little or interim report of 2012 is a fairly even- nothing about the deep historical roots handed account of residential school life, of these conflicts” over schools and the the summary final report of June2015 is “Sixties Scoop” (6:4). “Schools must much harsher in its depiction of students’ teach history in ways that foster mutual experience, and the large final six-volume respect, empathy, and engagement. All report of December 2015, reviewed here, Canadian children and youth deserve to once more provides a balanced treatment know Canada’s honest history, including

1 what happened in the residential schools” Truth and Reconciliation Commission of (6:17). “History plays an important role Canada, They Came for the Children: Canada, Aboriginal Peoples, and Residential Schools in reconciliation; to build for the future, Canadians must look to, and learn from (Winnipeg: Truth and Reconciliation 6 4 Commission, 2012), 85. the past” ( : ). 2 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Although the commissioners’ Canada, Final Report of the Truth and Rec- understanding of what constitutes onciliation Commission of Canada. Vol. One: reconciliation is simple, the implications Summary “Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future” (Winnipeg/Toronto: Truth and consequences of their definition and Reconciliation Commission/James are enormous. “As Commissioners, Lorimer and Co., 2015), 27-29. we believe that reconciliation is about Book Reviews 171 respect. This includes both self-respect education requirement for Kindergarten for Aboriginal people and mutual to Grade Twelve students.” Calls to respect among all Canadians. All Action 67 through 70 push the federal young people need to know who they government, museums, and Library and are and from where they come” (6:21). Archives Canada to improve the way in Moreover, they define reconciliation “as which the history of Aboriginal peoples an ongoing process of establishing and is depicted. Two recommendations (CA maintaining respectful relationships” 6:77 and 78) urge governments to support (6:11). The commissioners insist that it the work of the National Centre for is imperative that Canada begin to take Truth and Recollection, which houses the steps necessary to ensure that a new the records collected and generated regime of “mutual respect” would be by the trc, and to facilitate efforts by established quickly. “The urgent need “communities to research and produce for reconciliation runs deep in Canada. histories of their own residential school Expanding public dialogue and actions experience.” The federal Historic Sites on reconciliation beyond residential and Monuments Board, whose work is schools will be critical in the coming roundly criticized in the Reconciliation years” (6:4). volume, is told to pull up its socks and To pursue the restoration of give less attention to celebratory history conditions of mutual respect, the trc and to “integrate Indigenous history, laid out ninety-four “Calls to Action,” heritage values and memory practices or recommendations, fully fifty-two of into Canada’s national heritage and which are found in the Reconciliation history” (CA 6:79). volume (vol. 6). Not surprisingly, given Other Calls to Action urge government the commission’s insistence on the to redress the deficits in service to centrality of history in understanding the Indigenous peoples that the trc’s residential school story and promoting final report did so much to expose. relations of mutual respect, the trc’s Governments at all levels should recommendations have a lot to say about work to improve the health outcomes how the teaching of history should of Aboriginal populations (CA 6:18- be improved. Law schools across 24), tackle the running sore that the the country should ensure that their justice system represents for Indigenous graduates “receive appropriate cultural populations (CA 6:25-42), and create competency training, which includes the structures that would institutionalize history and legacy of residential schools, the pursuit of reconciliation. So, for the United Nations Declaration on the example, the federal government Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and should develop with Aboriginal peoples Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and “a Royal Proclamation of Reconciliation Aboriginal Crown-relations” (Call to to be issued by the Crown” modelled Action [CA], 6:27). Recommendation on the historic Royal Proclamation of 62 calls on governments at all three 1763 that had proven such a useful tool levels, “in consultation and collaboration in efforts to protect Indigenous lands with Survivors, Aboriginal peoples, in the courts (CA 6:45). Parliament and educators, to: 1. Make age- should also establish a national council appropriate curriculum on residential for reconciliation to “monitor, evaluate, schools, Treaties and Aboriginal and report annually to Parliament and peoples’ historical and contemporary the people of Canada” the government’s contributions to Canada a mandatory efforts to promote reconciliation, 172 bc studies including the pace of implementation implementation of its recommendations. of the trc’s Calls to Action (CA 6:53). The fact that the new Liberal government For their part, the churches that had lifted the “cap” on increases to the operated the residential schools and were Department of Indigenous Affairs in its parties to the Settlement Agreement first budget in March2016 suggests that are called to support reconciliation. the commission’s strategy or expectation Roman Catholics should get “the Pope was not without merit. to issue an apology to Survivors, their What the trc did not do is highly families, and communities … within significant, too. In marked contrast one year of the issuing of this report to some of the inquiries that have … to be delivered by the Pope in profoundly influenced policy in Canada, Canada” (CA 6:58). All the churches are it did not have a research program that expected to “develop ongoing education resulted in influential published studies. strategies to ensure that their respective The Royal Commission on Dominion- congregations learn about their church’s Provincial Relations (Rowell-Sirois) role in colonization,” develop curricula for not only released a report that helped theological schools and seminaries that to shape federal-provincial relations in would “respect Indigenous spirituality the 1940s and beyond but also sponsored in its own right,” and teach “the history established scholars to conduct research and legacy of residential schools and on topics related to its mandate. Donald the roles of the church parties in that Creighton, for example, was funded system” (CA 6:60). And the churches to produce British North America at should “establish permanent funding to Confederation (King’s Printer, 1939), and Aboriginal people for … [c]ommunity- economist W.A. Mackintosh’s research controlled healing and reconciliation for the commission yielded Economic projects” and other programs to Background of Dominion-Provincial support “reconciliation projects,” Relations (King’s Printer, 1940). Similarly, “language revitalization projects,” and half a century later the Royal Commission “[c]ommunity-controlled education and on Aboriginal Peoples (rcap) was relationship-building projects” (CA 6:61). the source of important research and The daunting scope of the Calls to publications. Although the final report Action signals clearly that the commission and recommendations of rcap proved is writing for the ages, not just for decision abortive because the federal government makers in 2015 or 2016. The call on the refused to engage with most of it, some federal government to fully adopt the of the research it sponsored has proved United Nations Declaration on the Rights of enduringly influential. Psychologist Indigenous Peoples, something from which Roland Chrisjohn, for example, released the government of Stephen Harper had The Circle Game: Shadow and Substance in recoiled, as well as a recommendation the Indian Residential School Experience that Ottawa “restore and increase funding in Canada (Theytus Books, 1997), and to the CBC/Radio-Canada to enable historian John Milloy’s work for rcap Canada’s national public broadcaster led to the publication of A National to support reconciliation” (CA 6:84), Crime: The Canadian Government and shows that the commission, as Murray the Residential School System, 1879 to Sinclair said publicly in 2015, is looking 1986 (University of Manitoba Press, beyond the government that it had 1999). Chrisjohn and Milloy, the latter jousted with over access to documents especially, have arguably been more and that was in office when it reported for influential in shaping some Canadians’ Book Reviews 173 understanding of residential schooling missing children and the staff experience. than has the Royal Commission that Investigation of the heart-wrenching sponsored their work. story of thousands of residential school Thetrc began its work in a manner students who disappeared, their fates that suggested it would emulate inquiries often unknown to their families, was such as Rowell-Sirois and rcap, and, agreed to very early in the trc's work. in December 2009, it convened a In fact, it was during the summer and research symposium at the University autumn of 2008, when the first trio of of Toronto Law School to discuss the commissioners was falling apart, that commission’s research directions. Several the decision was made to pursue such an dozen researchers with expertise in investigation. As the research evolved, various aspects of residential school the lead was an archaeologist who focused history and reconciliation met with mainly on identifying cemeteries that the three commissioners and trc likely would have held the remains of staff for intensive discussions, and the students who died at the schools. The researchers were urged to submit reports provenance of a study of staff experience to the commission that outlined what was somewhat different. In large part research they thought the trc should the commission found it necessary conduct. Although at least some of those to put special effort into locating and attending the 2009 research symposium interviewing former residential school did provide the commission with written workers because relatively few such suggestions, there is no evidence that the staff came forward to testify at National trc followed up their recommendations Events or to be interviewed by the trc’s by commissioning independent research statement-gathering team. Eventually, studies. Undoubtedly, part of the one of the most experienced of the problem was that the commission lost commission’s staff was assigned the its director of research, John Milloy, in task of working up a report on the staff 2010. Thereafter, research was always experience. Serious difficulties arose, something of an orphan within the however, in the spring of 2012, when commission, with no one overseeing the commissioners found it necessary, work by outside experts for any length presumably for financial reasons, to give of time. Another problem, probably, was notice of termination to the two women that money that would have supported who were the leads on missing children research related to the commission’s and staff experience. Under the public mandate was allocated instead to service commission regulations that supporting the trc’s seven National governed the trc, terminated staff had Events and statement-gathering. The to be given a year’s notice, time that they increasing emphasis the commissioners could work out on the job if they wished. gave these two areas of their work, both One of the two research leads in question of which related and responded to the chose to do this and filed a report, but views of residential school survivors, the other departed before the year was of course, reflected the survivors-first out, leaving her work incomplete. approach that they had taken from the The commission had to scramble to beginning of their work. patch together material on these two The result of orphaned research, topics for its final report. The result is that however, is that some aspects of the trc’s the material on missing children and staff work ends up falling short of what was experience in the final report falls well hoped for or needed. Two such topics are short of what was expected. Moreover, 174 bc studies the trc will not leave behind stand- that is all too prevalent in historical and alone studies of the quality of the work other writing in this country. Based that Creighton, Mackintosh, Milloy, on the original Indian Act of 1876, it and Chrisjohn did for earlier inquiries. notes that the Crown “had the right to Some people might associate Unsettling strip First Nations individuals of their the Settler Within: Indian Residential Indian Act status” if they were holders Schools, Truth Telling, and Reconciliation of a university degree or members of in Canada (ubc Press, 2010) by Paulette liberal professions such as law or holy Regan, at one point briefly the director religious orders. The Legacy volume of research for the commission and a suggests that this provision was in force long-serving staff member, with thetrc . for a long time (5:86). The Indian Act In fact, though, the direct observation did, indeed, contain such a provision that informs that important volume – from 1876 until 1880. An amendment comes from Regan’s work between 2002 of the Indian Act in 1880 modified and 2004 as a residential schools claims the provision to say that that a First manager for government rather than from Nations male “may upon petition to her valuable contribution to the labour the Superintendent-General ipso facto of the trc (Regan, Unsettling, 12-13). become and be enfranchised” without The problems created by deficient the examination and probationary research are not confined to the period that were normally part of the absence of separate research reports, enfranchisement procedure. In fact, however. The final report contains far involuntary enfranchisement for First too many errors, some of them serious. Nations males was part of the Indian Sometimes the problem seems to be Act only in 1920-22 and, with significant simply sloppy interpretation of data. In modifications, again in 1933-51. No the History volume, for example, the evidence has yet been uncovered to writer does a good job of explaining how indicate that the provisions introduced officials in the late nineteenth century in 1920 and later were ever invoked to considered making attendance of First enfranchise a First Nations male against Nations children at some type of school his wishes. That is not the impression the mandatory before concluding that the trc report gives. question being debated “was when – not In a report of more than three if – parents would be compelled to send thousand pages some slips are bound their children to residential schools” to occur. The trc report, however, (vol. 1, pt. 1, 251; see ibid., 255). At no time does seem to have more than its fair in the history of residential schooling in share. Moreover, the errors usually Canada were parents “compelled to send tend to strengthen the image of Indian their children to residential schools.” Affairs as an interfering and coercive Sometimes the error is comparatively agency that blighted the lives of First minor, as with the statement: “By the Nations. Enough historical research end of the 1820s, Treaties also began to and publication has been produced over include provisions for the establishment the last thirty or so years to condemn of reserves for First Nations” (vol. 1, pt. 1, the Department of Indian Affairs and 57). In fact, treaty-making that included its policies from the government’s own provision of reserves began only with the documents. There is really no need to Robinson Treaties in Ontario in 1850. invent more. The Legacy volume perpetuates another In 2008, as the appointment of the significant error about the Indian Act first set of commissioners was awaited, Book Reviews 175 the small commission staff based in Colonial Genocide in Ottawa carried out consultations with Indigenous North America former residential school students and A.J. Woolford, J. Benvenuto, other interested parties concerning what they hoped for from the trc. Many and A.L. Hinton, editors survivors emphasized that they wanted an Durham, NC: Duke University accessible report, one in which they could Press, 2014. 360 pp. $26.95 paper. see themselves. It was obvious late in 2015 that the final report of the trc would not be what those people had hoped for. This Benevolent Experiment: The report that was issued in December Indigenous Boarding Schools, 2015 is mammoth in scope and largely Genocide, and Redress in Canada scholarly in tone and approach. It is also extremely ambitious, with ninety-four and the United States recommendations that cover a vast area – Andrew Woolford even to the Vatican and the headquarters Winnipeg: University of Manitoba of the cbc. It stresses the importance of history in understanding the residential Press, 2015. 253 pp. $27.95 paper. school phenomenon and in promoting J.R. Miller reconciliation between Indigenous and University of Saskatchewan immigrant peoples in Canada. At the end of the commission’s labours, no one could dispute that the second set hen discussing genocide in of commissioners had worked long and Whistory, precision of language hard to fulfill the mandate spelled out and analysis is essential. “Genocide” in Schedule N of the Indian Residential is a powerfully emotional term whose School Settlement Agreement. But, misuse will enflame people and inhibit ironically, only history, in the form of an rather than facilitate understanding. indeterminate future, will tell if Canada’s Careless use of the term “genocide” Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be exposed, and the exposure accomplished the goals that its creators will discredit the arguments most and supporters set for it. of its proponents want to make for advancing reconciliation. Scholars who argue that Canadians must get the history right if the country is to undo some of the worst mistakes in its past sometimes then turn around and create a revised version of the past that is equally erroneous, though in a different way. And using “genocide” imprecisely not only discredits a scholar’s argument but also debases the term itself and runs the danger of partially emptying it of its meaning and force. There is no better illustration of the perils of using the term “genocide” carelessly than the recent experience of Justice, now Senator, Murray Sinclair, 176 bc studies chief commissioner of the Truth and 90 percent die-off among Native people Reconciliation Commission (trc). In but contends that “genocide” is not the a keynote talk to the workshop at the correct term for what happened (CG 50). University of Manitoba in 2012 that Gros Ventre psychologist Joseph Gone preceded the production of Colonial similarly examines the grisly experience Genocide in Indigenous North America, of the Gros Ventres, who declined by Sinclair referred to Canada’s Indigenous 80 percent even though, unlike many residential schools as an example of other western US nations, they never genocide (CG 278-79). He would come fought the American army, and concludes to reconsider his interpretation. that the term “genocide” is not applicable Colonial Genocide and This Benevolent in their case (CG 284). On the other Experiment contain innumerable hand, University of Guelph political examples of scholars who loosely toss scientist David MacDonald does provide about the term “genocide.” Although a systematic argument that Canada’s most of the contributors to these two residential schools constitute an instance volumes are credible researchers, there of genocide and does pay close attention is wide variation in the care with which to the UN standard. He argues that they approach their subjects. A recurrent Canada’s residential schools experience deficiency in the Colonial Genocide satisfies the UN criterion that refers to collection is the failure to establish the the forcible transfer of children from one applicability of the criteria in the United group to another as genocide. Noting Nations Convention on Genocide to the that there is no settled jurisprudence subject under examination. Many who on how large a proportion of a people’s support the view that Native-newcomer young must be coercively transferred to history in general, and the history of satisfy the criterion, he suggests that residential schools in particular, reveals one-third, a widely accepted estimate of genocide at work simply assume that how many status First Nations children the term applies to their subject. This attended residential schools, is enough approach is particularly pronounced for this purpose (CG 310). But then the in a chapter by University of Manitoba complications set in. What is the target political scientist Keira Ladner, who group whose children were transferred? not only creates a new term, “political MacDonald alludes repeatedly to genocide,” but simply takes it for “Aboriginal” students (CG 308-9, 310, 311- granted, without discussion or analysis, 13, 315, 316) rather than to First Nations that the country’s history of relations youth with status. If “Aboriginal” with Indigenous peoples is one of state people, including numerous Métis and genocide. But many other contributors some Inuit, comprise the group whose are similarly casual in attributing the children were transferred forcibly, applicability of the UN criteria to their then the proportion who attended a subject. residential school falls well below one- It is striking that the authors in Colonial third. If one-fifth or fewer “Aboriginal” Genocide who do take pains to examine children attended residential school, can their chosen topic in light of the UN the experience be judged as genocide? standard do not conclude that genocide MacDonald’s chapter, which at least was involved. University of Mississippi attempts to address a central question, anthropologist Robbie Ethridge, for epitomizes several of the problems with example, in discussing the “Mississippian speaking precisely about genocide in shatter zone,” notes that there was a relation to residential schools. Book Reviews 177

Andrew Woolford, a political scientist the term “genocide” is instructive. at the University of Manitoba, takes When he spoke to the workshop that a cautious comparative approach to a led to Colonial Genocide in 2012 he also sample of boarding schools in New recounted how, after using the term Mexico and Manitoba. He emphasizes “genocide,” he reached out “to a Jewish “that genocide is conceived in this book survivor of the Nazi concentration camp as a process and not as a total outcome. at Buchenwald to ‘apologize’ for perhaps In most cases, Indigenous groups were offending those who had experienced not wholly destroyed”(BE 5). At the ‘true genocide’” (CG 279). And when the outset he is scornful of authors who refer trc that Sinclair chaired issued its report to the schools’ experience as “attempted in 2015, it avoided the term “genocide” cultural genocide” (BE 9), though by in favour of “cultural genocide.” The his conclusion he has begun referring commissioners had probably come to to genocide “not as a legal concept realize the importance of being careful but as a tool for tracing destructive when using such an explosive term. It is relations” (BE 298). In between, Woolford too bad that more of the contributors to sifts an impressive body of evidence, these two thought-provoking volumes documentary and oral, to describe and did not do likewise. analyze the experiences of students at government-run schools in Albuquerque and Santa Fe in the United States and at the Presbyterian Portage la Prairie and Street Sex Work and Roman Catholic residential schools in Canadian Cities: Manitoba. His examination of the impact of discipline, student-staff interactions, Resisting a Dangerous Order and the roles played by local actors in Shawna Ferris the institutions provides the reader with Edmonton: University of Alberta insight into the complexity of experience the schools provided, albeit within a Press, 2015. 272 pp. $34.95 paper. generally damaging environment for Cecilia Benoit students. University of Victoria Woolford contends that talking about genocide will assist in bringing North Americans to what is most needed – an treet Sex Work and Canadian Cities: appreciation of their complicity in the SResisting a Dangerous Order aims to dismal history of residential schools. give voice to street-based sex workers in That awareness will generate support for urban Canada, in particular Indigenous redress. He seems to agree with Joseph women who face intersecting stigma Gone’s suggestion that people use the associated with sex work, racism, and term “genocide” “to harness the evaluative poverty. It begins with a supportive functions rather than the descriptive foreword by Amy Lebovitch, executive functions of the concept.” Aboriginal director of Sex Professionals of Canadian observers in particular believe Canada, and one of the applicants that a stronger term than “colonization” or who successfully argued that Canada’s “racism” is needed to capture “the ethical prostitution laws were unconstitutional enormity of systematic and coercive (Bedford v. Canada, 2013). The rest of cultural assimilation” (CG 285). Perhaps the book is organized into four chapters Murray Sinclair’s experience with using and a conclusion. 178 bc studies

In Chapter 1, Ferris examines the In Chapter 4, focused on agency and “city/whore synecdoche” and the case aboriginality in street sex work, Ferris of missing and murdered women in examines Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and Beatrice Culleton Mosionier’s In Canada’s poorest urban neighbourhood. Search of April Raintree, books that She notes that, in one of Canada’s most bring to life the formidable forces of “sophisticated” and “liveable” cities, setter colonialism and misogyny that Vancouver’s power elite is increasingly survival Indigenous sex workers have concerned that sex work causes “bad long struggled against in order to retain business” and needs to be separated their dignity and humanity. from the postmodern image of a city Ferris concludes her book with a call aiming to attract global capitalism: for the decriminalization of prostitution “The dissociation of the dead sex worker and for progressive legislation to help body from either the image or fate of the promote the human rights of street-based city proper would appear to reflect this sex workers. She maintains that for this to naturalization of urban living” (42). happen, anti-poverty, anti-racism, anti- In Chapter 2, Ferris scrutinizes anti- violence, and anti-stigma activists need prostitution reporting, policing, and to join their disparate voices together and activism in Vancouver and Edmonton. press for positive change. Fundamentally, She highlights two current prototypes in they must also “listen to and account for the popular media – the racialized figure the concerns of the persons most directly of the “Missing Woman” and the pale- under attack” (182). This book will be of skinned faceless “Lone Streetwalker,” interest to academics, students, activists, neither of which represent the lived and sex workers themselves who are experiences of sex workers in the urban concerned about the criminalization of landscape. Despite community-building sex work and the limited rights and social efforts in recent years, Ferris argues that exclusion of sex workers in Canadian police in Vancouver and Edmonton society. continue to see sex workers as “the problem.” Project kare out of Edmonton Works Cited and the Vancouver Police Department’s strategic plan “constitute institutionalized Campbell, Maria. 1973. Halfbreed. Toronto: forms of anti-prostitution work that both McClelland and Stewart. support and respond to anti-whore Mosionier, Beatrice Culleton. 1999. In Search 77 of April Raintree. Winnipeg: Portage and neighbourhood activism” ( ). Main Press. Chapter 3 concerns the technologies of resistance, including the internet, employed by sex worker activists and organizations struggling to decriminalize prostitution and to increase sex workers’ social inclusion. This is an uphill battle because of the formidable anti-sex work “rescue industry” lobbying for the opposite, the meagre financial support sex worker activists receive from city councils and provincial ministries, and the need to embrace specific issues and concerns of Indigenous advocacy groups. Book Reviews 179

Remembering Vancouver’s A scholar of gender studies at McMaster Disappeared Women: Settler University, Dean engages readers with Colonialism and the Difficulty of a pertinent historical overview of the framework of settler colonialism and Inheritance contextualizes the struggles of the Amber Dean disappeared and murdered women. Her significant historical overview Toronto: University of Toronto of settlement in British Columbia Press, 2015.216 pp. $24.95 paper. includes larger discussions of relocation of Indigenous communities to reserves and the pressures of gentrification on That Lonely Section of Hell: The Indigenous urban settings. Against Botched Investigation of a Serial the backdrop of a history that has dehumanized Indigeneity, women, and Killer Who Almost Got Away sex work in the des, she unearths the Lori Shenher brutal realities of how the missing women became missing in the first place. Women Vancouver: Greystone Books, from the des are both racialized and 2015.368 pp. $32.95 cloth. sexualized and the violence against them Jules Arita Koostachin is traumatizing and deep-rooted in settler colonialism. Dean urges the reader to University of British Columbia action and into self-reflection concerning what she names “implicatedness.” She employs research drawn from Indigenous tatistics confirm that, in Canada, studies, art, and activism to challenge Indigenous women are far more S our role in the ongoing violence of likely to disappear or to be murdered settler colonialism. She holds the than are non-Indigenous women. This reader accountable and the community horrific truth is exposed in Amber responsible for addressing the injustices Dean’s Remembering Vancouver’s and racist discourse of disposability. She and Lori Shenher’s Disappeared Women asks her readers to think about their . Dean That Lonely Section of Hell place in a frontier mythology. She urges introduces the reader to the complex us to address the dominant systems lived experiences of Indigenous women of oppression, including colonialism, in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side racism, heteropatriarchy, and the (des). She delivers a systematic susceptibility of Indigenous women overview of activism, memorials, to the personalized violence of settler and representations, and assesses the colonialism. multi-layered realities and community Dean creatively applies an strategies required to comprehend the intersectional lens to analyze the impact of violence against women. She impact of colonialism and violence carefully weaves together a critique against Indigenous women in Canada. of personal, community, and public She considers what lives on from the responses, specifically the importance irreconcilable loss of so many women’s of understanding how to counter lives, women who considered the des the unrelenting effects of settler their home. ThroughoutRemembering colonialism. Vancouver’s Disappeared Women, Dean strategically dissects what it means for all 180 bc studies of us, Indigenous and settler, who now systemic obstacles facing Indigenous exist within a settler colonial context. women, which far surpass those of non- She audaciously urges readers to identify Indigenous women. The high number themselves as complacent in these acts of murdered and disappeared women of violence against women. Her spirited from the des provide background to her words motivate readers to partake in personal insights. She describes how the the larger colonial discourse with the delayed investigation took a personal hope that they will be of one mind and toll on her overall health. Somehow she recognize their place within a destructive found it within herself to plough ahead web of colonialism, violence against while delving deep into the causes behind women, and ongoing violence against the mounting number of murdered and the Indigenous women of Canada. disappeared women, and while living In That Lonely Section of Hell, Shenher with a lack of institutional support from traces the substantial events leading to the vpd. In the process she experienced Robert Pickton’s arrest in 2002. Indeed, her successful and hitherto fulfilling she builds upon the systemic barriers career in law enforcement come crashing summarized by Dean to share a personal down around her as she realized how narrative of the time she was in charge disorganized and apathetic the police of an under-resourced investigation were during the investigation. She into the missing women case for the discovered, clearly and without doubt, Vancouver Police Department (vpd) in that Indigenous women were targets 1998, when she struggled with limited of violence entrenched in systemic and support and resources. She conveys her institutional oppression. Her narrative struggles and reveals that she suspected reflects the anguish, anxiety, and from the beginning that Pickton had dejection she experienced and her concern murdered the women. Her endless for the victims and their families as they requests for backing and funding were made their way on an unaccountably denied. A lack of encouragement from her difficult journey for justice. She exposes department resulted in a needlessly slow inexcusable deficiencies in the response and gruelling investigation. Nevertheless, to violence against the women of the des she captures the tenacious efforts that and demonstrates how the system, and finally led to Pickton’s arrest. Regrettably, how we as a community, have betrayed the investigation took a toll on Shenher and failed so many women. mentally, spiritually, and physically, Shenher takes the reader on a personal but she endured and confronted many excursion into Vancouver’s questionable obstacles with remarkable courage and system of law enforcement and into her perseverance. own subsequent personal experience with Shenher engages her readers on a post-traumatic stress disorder. She puts subjective level. That Lonely Section the victims first while addressing the of Hell is a first-person narrative, an tricky and harrowing larger questions individual reflection of her involvement of law enforcement. Her account of the as a detective with the vpd. She boldly investigation exposes systemic issues shares the obscurities and complications within the vpd, the rcmp, the Canadian of working on Canada’s most notorious legal system, and Canadian society as a mass murder investigation and conveys whole. They all have much to answer for. a provocative but necessary criticism These two extraordinary books, of how the police (mis)managed it. although differing in approach, offer a She explores the specific historical and critical understanding of these specific Book Reviews 181 atrocities and the social realities and colonial discourse that permitted them. As an Indigenous woman, I see and respect the empathy of Shenher and Dean for the women about whom they write. They provide a platform and create a space for the shattered narratives of women whose voices were ignored and whose communities, sisters, mothers, and daughters continue to be shunned. Shenher and Dean engage with and encourage dialogue about colonialism and institutional oppression. They assert that transformation is still possible, and they convey a painful colonial history that continues to plague many women. They are sincere, empathetic, and fierce in their passion to investigate and reveal such an incomprehensible institutional betrayal and such an excruciating part of Canadian history.