BOOK REVIEWS

Sojourning Sisters: ministers) from Nova Scotia shaped The Lives and Letters British Columbia and, as a result, Canada. In placing teachers (and of Jessie and Annie McQueen clergy) at the heart of nation building, Jean Barman Barman emphasizes the important role of church and school in incorporating Toronto: University of Toronto British Columbia into the Canadian Press, 2003. 336 pp. Illus., maps. nation. She argues that "British $50.00 cloth. Columbia's absorption into Canada in the years following the completion of BY SUZANNE MORTON the transcontinental railway derived McGill University far more from inconspicuous women like Jessie and Annie McQueen than EAN BARMAN'S Soujourning Sisters it did from the public pronouncements Jis an important book that merits of fellow Nova Scotians like George a wide audience, consisting of both Munro Grant" (129). Women such as those interested specifically in British Annie and Jessie McQueen gave a new Columbia and those interested in nation its meaning. Canadian history writ large. It recasts As Scottish Presbyterians from Pictou the notion of nation-building and draws County, the McQueen sisters came the spotlight away from politicians and from a culture that emphasized literacy, business elite to focus it on ordinary religion, responsibility, and domesticity. people. Using rich and textured sources, Compared to the world they would Barman follows the lives and letters of enter in British Columbia, their world two sisters who leave Nova Scotia in in Pictou County was "homogeneous 1887-88 for the improved economic and self-referential" (16), and some of prospects offered by teaching posts in the most striking aspects of Soujourning British Columbia. The completion of Sisters are Barman's discussions of their the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885 encounter with "the other" - whether linked the interior of British Columbia Aboriginal peoples or the frontier. As and rural Pictou County in Nova Scotia, Barman regularly reminds us, Annie and created the opportunity for two and Jessie took their cultural baggage young female sojourners to leave their with them. Jessie eventually returned family homestead yet still maintain a to Pictou County to care for an aging connection to it. While their actions parent and a sister; Annie, however, were prompted by particular economic stayed in British Columbia, married, had difficulties, their departure, and the three children, was widowed, gradually exodus of other young women in similar entered public fife as a reformer, and, strained circumstances, played a role in in 1919, became the provincial director Canadian nation-building as local of the Homes Branch of the Soldiers' schools brought British Columbia into Settlement Board. the Canadian nation in an immediate The McQueen sisters give us a sense and direct way. of the ties that reached across the new Barman argues that the dispropor­ nation. People and goods travelled back tionate number of schoolteachers (and

BC STUDIES, no. 141, Spring 2004 IOS soâ BC STUDIES

and forth; lilac blooms for a wedding Barman has original insights into British came from Saint John, cloth that was Columbia and the process of nation- cheaper in the East than in the West building, and she skilfully translates was available locally, and used news­ the lives of Annie and Jessie McQueen papers and magazines kept sojourners into stories of nation builders. connected to Eastern events and people. People also moved back and forth with surprising frequency, and the McQueens' Constance Lindsay Skinner: British Columbia included cousins, old neighbours, clergy, and a niece. In the Writing on the Frontier McQueen family, money flowed east as Jean Barman the BC teachers' salaries helped support those in Pictou County. Barman con- Toronto: University of Toronto standy emphasizes the enduring strength Press, 2002. 359 pp. Illus. $50 cloth. of a daughter's obligations, which did not easily weaken, great distance and time BY MARGARET PRANG notwithstanding. These filial bonds were University of British Columbia> cemented with guilt, duty, and respect­ Emerita ability, and they were balanced by effusive expressions of affection. HE SUBTITLE of this biography It is not surprising that, as a Nova Thas several meanings. Constance Scotian historian (who is also using Lindsay Skinner (1877-1939) lived on a many of the same letters for her own variety of frontiers - geographical, so­ research), I would urge Barman to cial, literary, and imaginative. Skinner broaden the perspective of her conclu­ occupies a minor place in the canon sions. If schoolteachers such as Annie of American literature but, until now, and Jessie McQueen helped absorb has been almost unknown in her native (or incorporate) British Columbia into Canada. I confess to wondering, initially, Canada, then it is also important to note whether the talents of an accomplished that the experience of going west also scholar were well spent on raising contributed to making these Nova Sco­ Skinner's profile. My question was soon tian women Canadian. In the end, I am answered. Jean Barman's credentials as intrigued, but perhaps not completely a historian of British Columbia, her convinced, by the central argument. knowledge of women's history, and her I remain sceptical about the ultimate literary skills are happily joined in this influence of these Nova Scotian female valuable and fascinating volume. teachers, as British Columbia's domi- Constance Lindsay Skinner was nantiy male, secular, and heterogenous born to pioneering parents in the culture appears to be the antithesis of the Cariboo and, at age ten, moved with society from which these women came. her family to Victoria and subsequently It is not clear that British Columbia to Vancouver, a young city still closely ever came close to conforming to the bound to the frontier. There the Skinner vision of Canada that these women family was joined by Maggie Alexander, carried, and both of them appear to be the "half-breed" daughter of a Hudson's transformed by British Columbia at least Bay Company trader in northern British as much as they may have transformed Columbia. Constance and Maggie grew it. This reservation notwithstanding, So­ up like sisters, an experience reflected in journing Sisters is a magnificent piece of Skinner's lifelong interest in race and historical interpretation and storytelling. hybridity. Book Reviews so/

From her earliest years Skinner read memories were suffused with a good deal avidly in her father's library and always of imagination. knew she wanted to be a writer. Before So, too, were her novels, notably Red she was twenty, Skinner was writing for Willows (1929), a tale about the trans­ Vancouver newspapers and then moved formative possibilities of the frontier, to Los Angeles, to Chicago, and eventu­ where races were blended to create a new ally to New York in 1912. Through these culture. As with all her work, this one years Skinner struggled to advance be­ was distinguished by its full depiction yond journalism into what she saw as of women in frontier life. Sales of the her true vocation as a writer of poetry, book were small. Equally disappointing plays, short stories, and novels. was the popular response to Songs of the A major barrier for a single woman Coastal Dwellers (1930), a selection of trying to make a life in writing was the her "Aboriginal" poems, which Skinner hostility of the male literary establish­ considered "brilliant." To her distress ment towards women aggressive enough neither volume was awarded the Pulitzer to invade the literary marketplace. Prize she so much coveted. Nevertheless, the rise of popular maga­ Possibly Skinner's most enduring zines brought Skinner some success as claim to fame was the Rivers of America a short-story writer; her poetry won series, which she conceived and edited. recognition in both London and New The series was an immediate and lasting York; and some of her plays reached success. Sixty years later, the Library of the stage. The Vancouver audiences Congress paid tribute to Skinner as who, in the spring of 2003, saw the "one of the first women to hold a top first Canadian performance of her play job in the U.S. trade-book publishing "The Birthright" (1906) witnessed a pro­ industry."< Author: Source of quote? > vocative drama about Aboriginal-White Barman describes Skinner as standing relations in northern British Columbia, "at the edge of fame" and shows the courageous for its time. Over the years, heavy price she paid to get that far. Her her eight novels for juveniles became a private life was limited. Along with an stable financial support. intense pace of writing and editing, her Later she achieved prominence as financial survival also demanded the a historian through the Chronicles of constant promotion of herself and her America series published by Yale Univer­ work, and the defence of her reputation sity Press, for which she wrote Pioneers of and status, mainly against male scepti­ the Old Southwest (1919) and Adventures cism. Much of her social life was related of Oregon: A Chronicle of the Fur Trade to this objective. The great love of her (1920). Skinner prided herself on writing life was the famed explorer Vilhjalmur "experiential history" in contrast to what Stefansson, who embodied her ideal of she considered to be the "dryasdust" "frontier masculinity." But she had to work of the academic historians (nearly settle for a spasmodically supportive all male) who increasingly dominated friendship. historical writing. More than a decade Barman suggests that, had financial later, she claimed that her Beaver, Kings, considerations not compelled her to and Cabins (Macmillan, 1933) was the first publish in so many genres, Skinner full account of the North American fur might have been more successful. Be trade. More than any other of her works, that as it may, she did succeed, against it drew on her memories of growing up the odds, in living "a writing life." Now, on the BC frontier. By this time, those she is fortunate in her biographer. io# BC STUDIES

Ethel Wilson: A Critical Biography after the early deaths of both her parents. The family home on Barclay and Jervis David Stouck Streets was built when the West End was Toronto: University of Toronto composed mainly of woods and building Press, 2003. 353 pp. Illus. $50.00 lots. The future novelist trudged to cloth. school through the rain and rode her bike on wooden sidewalks, learning to BY MISAO DEAN swim at English Bay from Joe Fortes, University of Victoria the "heroic" black man who later became a subject of her fiction. Stouck carefully HE TWO THINGS about Ethel builds a portrait of Vancouver in the TWilson's writing that David Stouck early decades of the twentieth century, emphasizes in his critical biography are drawing details from local histories her ability to evoke a sense of place and and Wilson's own fiction to create an her great reverence for "the English engaging and detailed picture of an sentence." Anyone would think that earnest young girl caught in the already Stouck had taken Wilson's fiction as complex web of social relationships in his model, for the great strengths of the growing city. Haunted by the loss this book are its ability to evoke Wilson's of her parents and her personal history British Columbia in its historical and of abrupt dislocation, Wilson was pain­ material detail and the graceful, clear, fully shy. Yet she occupied a privileged and sympathetic prose that suggests that position in the newly founded city, his reverence for the English sentence and she counted among her relatives is as great as is hers. This book is a prominent businessmen, a mayor of wonderful achievement - a work of Vancouver, and founding members of painstaking scholarship that is enjoyable Vancouver's Methodist Church. Stouck to read - and it will be of special interest deals with this material sympathetically, to British Columbians for the ways it emphasizing how Wilson's education situates Wilson within the history of in formal courtesy and her Methodist early Vancouver and her writing at the sense of duty determined elements of centre of BC literature. her character. Ethel Wilson published six books of While her family expected her to fiction set in British Columbia in the marry, and to marry well, Ethel re­ years between 1947 and 1961. Her best mained single until the death of her known work is Swamp Angel (1954), a beloved maternal grandmother in 1919, novel that engages the hearts of readers when the Barclay Street household was with its perceptive descriptions of the broken up, and, at the age of thirty-one, BC landscape and its almost philo­ she married Wallace Wilson. Wallace sophical approach to the possibilities was a returned soldier and a doctor who of human community. Ethel Wilson: A eventually became president of the BC Critical Biography is the first and only Medical Association, a founder of the scholarly biography of this important BC Cancer Society, and chief of Medi­ BC writer. A collection of her unpub­ cine at Shaughnessy Hospital; their lished stories, essays, and letters edited friends and professional acquaintances by David Stouck appeared in 1987, and would include H.R. MacMillan, Leon its positive reception provided the im­ and Thea Koerner, and professors and petus for this work. presidents at the University of British Ethel Wilson was raised in Vancouver Columbia. While Wallace's public posi­ by her mother's family, the Malkins, tion required Ethel's support as hostess, Book Reviews sop

he also introduced her to fly fishing and of Wilson's fictional characters to the European travel, and provided her with author in her proper person: he carefully the emotional and financial support picks his way among the published and that facilitated her writing career. Their unpublished versions of Wilson's life, happy marriage extended over many conscientiously identifying his sources years, Wallace s outgoing personality and as well as his speculations. The book casual manners in some ways balancing strives to correct the more egregious er­ Ethel's relative shyness and formality. rors of Mary McAlpine's memoir of her While Wilson often depicted her­ friend (The Other Side of Silence: A Life self publicly as simply a doctor's wife of Ethel Wilson, Harbour, 1988), without who scribbled away in her spare time, denying its debt to that work. Stouck Stouck has established that she began displays respect both for his subject and her writing career much earlier than his sources in his elegant and engaging she admitted and that her work was prose, and he demonstrates mature in­ more important to her than she ac­ sight and useful evaluation in his survey knowledged. Drawing on the extensive of previous scholarship. The result is a collection of Wilson papers in the UBC treat for literary readers and scholars. archives, Stouck offers chapters on each of her major publications, carefully detailing correspondence, negotiations Sit Down and Drink Your Beer: with editors, and manuscript versions and revisions as well as surveying Regulating Vancouver's Beer reviews and critical responses. Stouck Parlours, 1925-1954 emphasizes her achievements as a stylist, Robert A. Campbell pointing out that "the life or death of a character was often of less importance to Toronto: University of Toronto Wilson than the placement of a comma Press, 2001.185 pp. $50.00 cloth, or the choosing of a word" (190). He $19.95 paper. quotes from a letter to her close friend and editor at Macmillan, John Gray At Odds: Gambling and - "her subject was 'Nature' and 'things' with relation to People" (204) - and Canadians 1919-1969 shows how novels like Swamp Angel Suzanne Morton and Love and Salt Water illustrate what Wilson called "the formidable power Toronto: University of Toronto of geography that determines the Press, 2003. 272 pp. Illus. $60.00 character and performance of a people" cloth, $24.95 paper. (xiv). Stouck also includes accounts of Wilson's friendships with poets Earle BY JOHN MCLAREN Birney and Roy Daniells, and discusses University of Victoria the inspiration and support she offered younger women writers like Margaret o A YOUNG LAW TEACHER recently Laurence and Alice Munro. Tarrived from England in Saskatoon Many of the biographical details in in the mid-sixties, the Canadian law this book are derived from Wilson's own relating to both the consumption of fiction, itself inspired by her life and her alcohol and gambling was odd. Why family history. However, Stouck avoids were bars shielded from the public the questionable practice of blindly at­ gaze? Why did beer parlours serve only tributing all the thoughts and feelings beer? Why could one not stand and JJO BC STUDIES

drink? Who on earth were "Ladies and of state regulation of liquor, its sale, and Escorts" and why did it matter? Why in locations of consumption for other than a liquor board store was it necessary to individual and familial private purposes. fill out a form to secure one's purchases? With gambling, the starting date is less a How was it that these stores employed watershed than what Morton describes people who distinguished sherries as as a date which represents the beginning either "sweet or sour"? Why was off- of a transformation in social attitudes course betting illegal, while on-course on gambling from "a stigmatized minor betting was perfectly within the law? form of vice" (often laid at the feet of Why were buying a ticket for the Irish Chinese immigrants) to "an acceptable hospital sweepstakes and bingo beyond activity regarded as appropriate and the legal pale? These and other questions perhaps necessary to help fund the Ca­ have continued to puzzle me. nadian welfare state."This was a gradual Robert Campbell and Suzanne process covering a period of forty years. Morton provide answers to the ques­ Suzanne Morton describes Canadian tions posed as well as skilfully drawing policy and law towards gambling as the general contours and some of the reflecting a profound ambivalence about detail of the history of these two prob­ gambling within Canadian society. lematic areas of social activity. The scope Campbell's study indicates that the same of the two books differs. Campbell's is a ambivalence afflicted British Columbians micro-history of the regulation of public in how to deal with the consumption of consumption of alcohol, as it played out alcohol. In each case the authors quite in beer parlours in British Columbia correcdy emphasize moral regulation or between 1925 and 1954. Morton for her proscription as the central impulses of part seeks to treat gambling as a national the legal regimes developed to control or issue, exposing the regional and cultural suppress these activities - stimuli which nuances of its incidence and the law's were progressively challenged by repre­ treatment of it in several parts of the sentatives of other community interests, country using the period from 1919 to and in the case of public consumption 1969 as her time frame. Both perspec­ of alcohol, from within the regulatory tives are important and valid, although system itself. by virtue of its comparative approach, Both books articulate carefully the the book on gambling allows for a richer conflicting attitudes and discourses that analysis and critique of how geography fed into social and legal policy on public and culture affected both political and drinking and gambling. In both instances popular attitudes towards it. If there is a class difference explains much about how dimension lacking in Campbell's work, social policy and law were constructed. it is that we have few references to how Campbell's book is testimony to the ex­ the system in British Columbia com­ tent to which politicians supported by pared and contrasted with other parts many of their middle-class constituents of Canada. In my opinion, good local sought to reconstruct public drinking history can benefit from that broader for the working class by substituting the pattern of contextualization. craved "decency" of the new, sterile beer The common starting date for the parlour where peace and moderation analysis of the two social practices would reign supreme for the disorder is well chosen. Nineteen twenty-five and misrule of the pre-Prohibition represents the end of the hiatus after unlicensed saloon. My only complaint the repeal of Prohibition in British with Campbell's analysis is that it fails to Columbia in 1919, and the substitution comment on the extent to which licensed Book Reviews sss clubs, especially those servicing veterans, The authors also make clear that the also catered to a working class clientele. ways in which social policy and law im­ In other words, are we seeing the full pacted on both forms of activity reflect story about working-class drinking by beliefs and stereotypes about gender focusing exclusively on its public face in and race. The convoluted attempts by beer parlours? Was there in fact overlap the British Columbia Liquor Control between the license provided for private Board to ensure that access by unat­ drinking for middle-class and working- tached women (invariably suspected of class imbibers? As the clubs allowed being "loose" or, worse still, prostitutes) people to bring their own liquor and store was limited, and that those who did it, and liquor sold at enhanced rates in get in did not consort with unattached liquor board stores that compared unfa­ men by requiring ever higher partitions, vourably in cost with beer in the glass, it provides a mildly comic, although real, may well be that class discrimination was example of patriarchal discrimination preserved in terms of space by differential based on gender sexuality at work. Ra­ pricing. The actual situation is not made cial anxieties were evident in policies and clear in Campbells analysis. What I am legal constraints designed to exclude suggesting here is comparative reference, from beer parlours Asian and First not a different book. Nations drinkers respectively, and the The class dimension was also central expulsion of mixed race couples, where, to the way in which social and legal policy but typically only where, the female shook down with gambling. Among the partner was white. With gambling, many inconsistencies in the application many genres of which were typically of Canadian policy and law on gambling associated with masculinity and male after 1919 is the fact that while a whole players, gender became a significant range of its forms were illegal, including moral and social issue over bingo, which off-track betting, lotteries, gaming clubs, was largely played by women, persons and even bingo, on-track betting through whom it was felt should have been at what became pari-mutuels, from which home ministering to their families and the state took its cut, was quite legal. not wasting the family's money on idle This situation reflected a concession to and unproductive pursuits. Race and a traditional form of gambling related ethnicity concerns were voiced both at a to the "sport of kings" that served the general level in the rhetoric of gambling, rich and others who had the time and reflecting its supposedly non-Anglo - resources to attend race courses during Saxon roots, and more particularly at daytime hours. Although by no means certain communities, such as the Chi­ immune from criticism from the moral nese and Jews, who were believed to be and social reformers, race track betting addicted to or at the centre of the busi­ survived because of its historic, elitist and ness. A further dimension of difference institutional connections. Other forms is religious and cultural. This difference of gambling were prohibited by law, is ostensibly more obvious in the case primarily because they were open to the of gambling where the Roman Catholic working class, and therefore subversive rank and file, although not necessarily of the values of moral integrity, thrift, the ecclesiastical hierarchy, were much and commitment to family, community, more likely to condone and participate and country that lay at the root of what in forms of gambling such as lotteries reformers and their political soul mates and bingo, especially those which had saw as the mark of the virtuous Canadian charitable objectives, than their Prot­ citizen. estant counterparts. Parochial support m BC STUDIES

for gambling was, not surprisingly, light and challenges developed from seg­ strongest in Quebec. The same cultural ments of the middle class chafing at the differences almost certainly existed bit about the lack of access to alcohol in with public consumption of alcohol. other public places that the reconstruc­ In Quebec, unlike British Columbia, tion of the system and the discourse un­ licensed bars and restaurants operated derlying it began. As Campbell suggests, after the province's short dalliance with it was middle-class "wet" discourse that Prohibition. In Francophone Roman was to introduce new knowledge into Catholic communities in particular, the debate about drinking in public and alcohol consumption did not generate steer it way from the moral pathologies the profound anxieties that it did in of the past. Reform was, however, to take Anglophone Protestant Canada. time as the Social Credit government's A further common theme investi­ reforms of 1954 were grudging. While gated by Campbell and Morton is the loosening up the law relating to drinking less than impressive operation of the law, in cocktail bars and restaurants to salve the regulatory regime governing the op­ middle-class concerns, they sought eration of beer parlours and the criminal somewhat ineffectively to turn beer law proscription of gambling. In the case parlours into working-class bars, places of British Columbian beer parlours, the still hedged round with rules of "decency" regime had limited financial support, that betrayed class prejudice. which meant that the Liquor Control With gambling, significant segments Board had to rely in many instances on of the population ignored the moral self-regulation by operators and their strictures of the Protestant churches and employees. As the priorities of these in some cases those of Roman Catholic two groups did not necessarily jibe with bishops and broke the law - the law those of the regulator, enforcement was that embraced everything from the variable, contested, and sometimes non­ operation of illicit gambling enterprises existent. When customers are added to to the ordinary citizen playing bingo and the equation, various forms of resistance, purchasing a lottery or sweepstake ticket subtle and otherwise, occurred, which it or parishes and charities seeking to raise was sometimes beyond the capacity of funds in these ways. Enforcement varied the system to control or which in-house significantly depending on the form of regulators felt they had to accommodate. gambling in question and on the city The attempts by unattached male and or region in which the action occurred. female customers to circumvent the Compared with Toronto, for instance, partitions and threats designed to keep which Hked to give the impression that them apart is a case in point. The LCB the police had things under control and itself could itself become frustrated by were ready to enforce the law vigorously, other institutional players intent on Montreal and Vancouver appeared open interfering with its work or ordering for business and, except when political it about. This was particularly the case sensitivities required it, relatively free during the Second World War when the from police attention. Morton adroitly medical officer of health for Vancouver describes the story as one of overlapping sought to throw his weight around in moral and economic concern that led to the cause of more vigorous enforcement the maintenance of unenforceable laws during a venereal disease panic. and the absence of a political consensus It was only in the 1950s, when to bring the troublesome law in line with criticisms of the regulatory system's behaviour. It was only with the growth of inefficiencies came more readily to consumerism, a revised view of specula- Book Reviews s/J tion and risk-taking, and the recognition manufacture and distribution. If that is that economic security was not assured what was meant, then a clearer articula­ that reformist politicians were able to tion of it would have been helpful. break loose in the late 1960s from the Morton suggests that moral ambiva­ moral discourse of the past and amend lence surrounding gambling provided a the criminal law to remove many of the means for Canadian society to accom­ former proscriptions and shift gambling modate the tensions and contradictions to provincial regulation. associated with this form of conduct. And what lessons do we learn from all Gambling in the twentieth century was, of this? Campbells interpretation I find she suggests, "a cognitive contradic­ less satisfactory than that of Morton. I tion": the act of buying a lottery ticket take his point that it is the theory of was testimony to the persistence of a moral regulation that is most helpful in belief in luck in what was supposed to explaining the story of beer parlour regu­ be a rational, technocratic society. This lation. He is also astute in demonstrating contradiction she explains by pointing the importance of the construction of to the gulf between moral supposition space in the application of moral regula­ and people's actual behaviour and the tion. Moreover, I like his use of the meta­ difficulty in constructing watertight phor of the net to describe the system of polarities between work and play, la­ regulation - at one and the same time bour and speculation. Until the power encompassing and allowing much to get of moral argument was squeezed or through the holes. However, I find one drowned out, it was possible for the element of his attempt to implicate the system to accommodate strongly op­ state as "the manager of the marginal" posed interests. As the record shows, forced. He is correct to suggest that the once cultural and economic arguments state was in many ways the prime mover for accepting or tolerating gambling in conceptualizing and carrying through grew in strength and permeated the this regulatory experiment. What puzzles consciousness of the political system, me is his assertion that the state's role in the moral discourse was finally ditched. all of this was conducive to capitalism. Morton concludes by raising the inter­ That seems to be counterintuitive given esting and provocative suggestion that the constraints placed on the sale of while we cannot nor should we turn hard liquor in public places, and the the clock back to the moral precepts limited number of outlets licensed for and discourse of the past, there are still the supply of beer by the glass. Having moral arguments to be made in relation asserted that "[s]tate regulation seeks to gambling which she thinks warrant to attenuate class conflict, facilitate airing in public debate. I agree. accumulation, and enhance legitimacy Both these works go far in filling a - of the state and capitalism," the author number of the gaps that exist in the concedes that "capitalism in Canada did social and legal histories of "vice" and not rest on the success, failure or even how it was dealt with in this country, existence of Vancouver's beer parlours." in particular after 1919. They expose But he contents himself with the oblique the social tensions to which both conclusion that if the regulatory state did regulation and proscriptive law gave not exist, capital would have to invent it. rise, the relative roles of control and The hidden argument maybe that as the resistance in mediating social and legal regulatory constraints enhanced the price relations, and the inconsistencies built of what could be sold, it helped a small into the regulatory and legal structures number of breweries monopolize beer and their enforcement. zif BC STUDIES

They are essential reading for anyone and Governor Douglas s land and treaty seeking to understand the translation of policies from the 1830s to the 1860s. Part Canada from a society in which moral 2 documents the federal and provincial interdict was a force to be reckoned with, conflict over Aboriginal title and land to the largely secular, liberal, and con­ policy from 1871 to 1880. Part 3 covers sumptive (some would add hedonistic) the period from 1880 to 1938, during society that we are today. which Aboriginal people increasingly resisted the imposition of reserves. And in Part 4, Harris considers the current circumstances of Aboriginal peoples Making Native Space: and proposes options for addressing Colonialism, Resistance, and the continuing land and self-govern­ Reserves in British Columbia ment issues. Cole Harris Harris combines empirical research with an analysis of the discourses and Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002. political strategies that enabled coloni­ 448 pp. Maps. $29.95 paper. zation. In order to explain the complex historical geographies of Aboriginal- BY VAL NAPOLÉON settler relations, he interprets the University of Victoria deliberate reshaping of the Aboriginal landscape into a settler reality. This OVERVIEW colonial achievement required reimag- ining and reconstructing the landscape N MAKING NATIVE SPACE, Cole Harris from one completely inhabited by Ab­ Idescribes how settlers displaced original peoples into one that contained Aboriginal people from their land Aboriginal peoples on reserves. If one 1 in British Columbia, painstakingly imagines British Columbia as a bounded documenting the creation of Indian geographic space, one can picture how reserves in the province from the 1830s the Aboriginal presence was forced to to 1938. Informed by Frantz Fanon, shrink as settlers expanded into it. Edward Said, Michel Foucault, and E.P. Thompson, Harris develops from WHAT OTHER this dense historical foundation a spa­ REVIEWERS HAVE SAID tial perspective on colonialism, skillfully and meticulously transforming the Recently, five geographers participated historical documents from the standard in a review symposium on Making unidimensional colonial narrative into a Native Space? Overall, they offered multidimensional story that vividly fills a very positive assessment, praising both time and space.2 Harris's gifted storytelling, painstaking Making Native Space is organized into research, ambitious scope, and beautiful four parts that outline the major suc­ writing. The reviewers critiqued Harris's cessive waves of colonial activity across work from their own perspectives. British Columbia. Part 1 details British They suggested that Harris has (1) policies regarding Aboriginal peoples appropriated the voices of patriarchy and of the colonizer, (2) excluded the 1 Cole Harris, Making Native Space: Colo­ nialism, Resistance, and Reserves in British 3 Evelyn Peters, éd., "Focus: Making Native Columbia (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2002). Space: A Review Symposium," The Ca­ 2 Ibid., 274, 47, 50, 268, 270, and 267 respec­ nadian Geographer 47, 1 (2003), . Book Reviews ssf

circumstances of urban Aboriginal returning land and promoting self- peoples, (3) failed to realize that self- government as a solution to Aboriginal government and returning land are not problems, Harris argues that the land adequate solutions to the problems of base in British Columbia is rich and that Aboriginal people, (4) emphasized the there are many opportunities to open up politics of difference to the point where land for Aboriginal economic develop­ Aboriginal peoples would require state ment. On this point one might suggest, protection of culture, thereby creating however, that Harris does not address a sharper division between Aboriginal the structural economic problems that and non-Aboriginal people than is war­ small communities are encountering ranted, and (5) insufficiently considered across the province (such as depleted Aboriginal resistance to the reserve resources, global market forces, and is­ allocation system and the concept of sues of scale). Finally, regarding future reserves as sites for resistance. They state protection of Aboriginal culture, also suggested that Harris should have Harris argues that the real need is to included sections on pre-colonial British create self-government opportunities Columbia history and on Treaty No. 8, in and space that will enable Aboriginal the province's northeast corner. peoples to protect their own cultures A book, Harris responded, can only do rather than to pursue the state's protec­ so much.4 Harris remains unconvinced tion. He concluded by stating that, if that the basic settler attitudes were Aboriginal peoples had more access to gendered, since both male and female land and resources, and more control settlers adopted colonial thought. over their own governments, then "two He argues that since he had worked large steps in the direction of more primarily from the archival records, to confident and secure Native societies 6 include more Aboriginal voices would would be taken." have required an entirely different study. He maintains, moreover, that REVIEW he included the Aboriginal voices of protest as much as possible. In response Reading Making Native Space raised sev­ to the criticism about excluding urban eral critical issues for me. First, Harris Aboriginal people, Harris argues that he recreates, from a settler perspective, has provided suggestions only for easing, BC history as it unfolded for roughly not for solving, Aboriginal problems. a century. I had previously read about Furthermore, since in British Columbia the establishment of reserves in British Aboriginal people moved to cities later Columbia, as well as about the various than they did elsewhere in Canada, they commissions of enquiry and the juris­ may have retained ties with their reserves dictional disputes between the federal and so are not necessarily excluded from and provincial governments. Harris his proposals.5 On the inadequacies of filled in the "how" of this history for me: the reserves did not appear all at 4 Ibid., 12. once or overnight but, rather, grew over 5 I think this point in particular requires ad­ several decades around the edges of a ditional thought because of the divisive and dominating colonial agenda of making exclusive colonial membership codes that British Columbia a settler colony.7 many Aboriginal communities have imple­ mented in lieu of broader citizenship policies. See also John Borrows, "Measuring a Work of Section j$ ed. Ardith Walkem and Halie in Progress: Canada, Constitutionalism, Bruce (Penticton, BCrTheytus Books, 2003), Citizenship and Aboriginal Peoples," in 223-62. 6 Box of Treasures or Empty Box? Twenty Years Peters, "Focus," 14. sié BC STUDIES

Harris's treatment enabled me to de­ plex demands of self-government, it is velop a much more textured, dynamic, extremely difficult for such small groups and human sense of BC history, which to effectively negotiate treaty agreements includes a better appreciation of some of or to implement substantive self-govern­ its convolutions, tensions, and multiple ment. Unfortunately, in his discussion of relationships. possible ways to resolve the land ques­ Second, Harris describes how the tion in contemporary British Columbia, colonial government purposely avoided Harris does not explore this thread. setting out large reserves in order Third, Harris's detailed cartography to prevent the emergence of large demonstrates the Aboriginal disposses­ congregations of Aboriginal people. sion from land at a visual and physical He cites the observation of 1876 Joint level. The reserves are actually tiny Indian Reserve Commissioner Gilbert fragments of land scattered over a vast Malcolm Sproat that large reserves province, "displayed rather like insects would have enabled Indians "to com­ on pins."11 Harris says that this fragmen­ bine against whites." Thus, Sproat tation resulted in reserves that acquired concluded, "the safety of the Settlers in "a fixed place in the Cartesian space of BC lies in disunion among the tribes." the survey system and in the minds of The other commissioners concurred: officials and settlers."12 The size of the Natives should not be concentrated on reserves is in stark contrast to the orig­ a few large reserves.8 Another rationale inal ownership patterns of Aboriginal for the fragmentary reserve allocation peoples. For example, the reserve land was to ensure that Aboriginal labour base for the Gitksan people amounts to was widely distributed and available to about 114 square kilometres, while their colonial undertakings.9 land claim area is 30,417 square kilome­ 13 What is fascinating about this tres. In pre-contact times, the Gitksan colonial tactic is how it still informs people were owners of their territories: and shapes the Aboriginal political that is who they were. But, from a colonial landscape in British Columbia today. perspective, the Gitksan people's iden­ Arguably, the current conflicted treaty tity was distorted when they became process continues to reverberate from mere residents of the minimal reserve the early colonial policy of intentional lands under colonial administration. The fragmentation of Aboriginal groups reserves became the "Native space" of and lands. For example, the treaties are British Columbia. The gift of Harris's being negotiated with bands that vary book is that he is able to interrogate and in membership from 136 to 7,517, with articulate how this happened not only to an average size of 1,782 and a median of the Gitksan but also to other Aboriginal 800.10 Given issues of scale and the com- groups across the province.

11 7 Harris, Making Native Space, 271. Harris, Making Native Space, 68. 12 Ibid. According to Harris, "Implementation 8 Ibid., 102,121. 9 of the reserve system in British Columbia Ibid., 101, 265. .. .left Native peoples with more than 1,500 10 Paul Chartrand, "Toward Justice and reserves comprising slighdy more than one- Reconciliation: Treaty Recommendations of third of 1 percent of provincial land". See Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Cole Harris, "Forum: Revisiting the Native Peoples 1996," in Negotiating Settlements: Land Question," BC Studies 138 and 139 Indigenous Peoples, Settler States, and the (2003), 137. Significance of Treaties and Agreements 13 Kathy Holland (former librarian of the (Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, Gitksan resource library, Hazelton, BC), in forthcoming). discussion with the author, 14 October 2003. Book Reviews ^/

Fourth, I found Part 4, "Land and project within the judicially or po­ Livelihood," to be somewhat incon­ litically constructed difference.17 The gruous with the rest of the book because relationship of Aboriginal peoples with here Harris moves from the archival the Crown is constitutional and is born record to argue that many of the prob­ of history. Speaking as a First Nations lems that Aboriginal peoples currently person, I do not believe that it matters experience result directly from the early whether Aboriginal people are the same colonial history set out in the first three as everyone else; we still have a special parts of Making Native Space. That is place in Canada. to say, since Aboriginal peoples were In my view, where historical enquiry dispossessed of land and self-govern­ gives way to thought about the future, ment, this dispossession is what must Harris should have incorporated con­ be redressed in building a new relation­ temporary Aboriginal voices into his ship between Aboriginal people and discussion. Such inclusion is desirable settler society today. The land problem, because the consequences of colonial Harris argues, emerges at every turn. history are extremely complex, and often The conclusion, I think, is inescapable: the reality within Aboriginal communi­ a seriously pursued politics of difference ties is fraught with conflict, contradic­ entails a considerably more generous al­ tions, and infernal messiness. It is from location of resources to Native people, within the experience of this conflicted and a fair measure of collective Native and contradictory milieu that strategies control over them.14 for future change must be developed and He also argues that the other essential tested, not from without. ingredient of a politics of difference is What I appreciate most about Making "local Native self-government."15 While Native Space is Harris's argument that the Harris grounds his proposed politics of colonial approach to land was less about difference in the recognition of the legal or moral principles than about the unique legal and constitutional rela­ varying self-interests of the colonizers.18 tionship between Aboriginal peoples 17 and the Crown, use of the concept of This is a complex issue that is far beyond the scope of this review. Basically, I think that difference in this way is nonetheless both the rights framework and the politics problematic. Gordon Gibson illustrates of difference raise serious questions that this in a recent BC Studies "Forum" on require further analysis. For one thoughtful Harris's final chapter when he asks what treatment of this issue, see Patrick Macklem, constitutes a legitimate "difference" be­ Indigenous Difference and the Constitution of tween Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto, peoples. Over time, Gibson argues, 2001). Macklem argues that the concept of difference should be expanded to denote an cultural differences between the groups "indigenous difference" that is reflective of the have lessened: "Native peoples are just social facts that are exclusive to Aboriginal ordinary human beings like the rest of peoples - namely, cultural difference, prior us."16 This comment suggests that lo­ occupation, prior sovereignty, and partici­ cating Aboriginal rights in "difference" pation in a treaty process. Furthermore, the is both politically and legally problematic concept of indigenous difference is useful in promoting constitutional protection of four because it can limit the possibilities for sets of rights: (1) rights to engage in practices, development of the Aboriginal political customs, and traditions, (2) rights relating to

14 territorial interests, including Aboriginal title, Harris, Making Native Space, 316. (3) rights related to interests of Aboriginal 15 Ibid., 318. 16 sovereignty and self-government; and, (4) Gordon Gibson, "Commentary," BC Studies treaty rights (ibid., 4-6). 138 and 139 (2003), 156-60 (emphasis added). 18 Harris, Making Native Space, 14. JT# BC STUDIES

Citing the differing on-the-ground to identity and self-determination. Pa­ policies of New Zealand, Australia, and tricia Pierce Erikson, an anthropologist, Canada, he describes Aboriginal land wrote this text in collaboration with policies around the world as a "jumble." tribal members Helma Ward and Kirk In other words, colonization was not Wachendorf. She leads the reader a linear, orchestrated, grand plan but, through a critical discussion of anthro­ rather, something that emerged from a pology and museums, including Boas's multiplicity of shifting and opportunistic and colonialisms effects on Aboriginal acts of self-interest. communities. She tells the story of the Overall, Harris skillfully and knowl- phenomenal Ozette village excavation, edgeably describes the colonial theatre which brought world attention to the of power that gave rise to the current Makah in 1971. Tribal youths and elders ongoing disputes over Aboriginal tide, worked with archeologists to retrieve fisheries, forestry, and land use. Making thousands of objects preserved when a Native Space is a valuable resource for village was covered up 500 years ago. This both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal project, in essence, marks the beginning peoples as communities try to work of the Makah Cultural and Research out how to live together. I have already Center. She ends the book with a brief recommended the book to people from description of the explosive political cli­ several different Aboriginal communi­ mate in the midst of the 1997 whale hunt ties. as an epilogue to a broader discourse on "Indigenizing the museum." The book's five chapters are divided into two halves: Part 1 is a survey of Voices of a Thousand People: anthropology's collusion with museums The Makah Cultural and the confinement of Indigenous and Research Center identity; Part 2 begins with the Ozette discovery and reviews the decisions Particia Pierce Erikson, and events leading to the creation of with Helma Ward and Kirk the Makah Cultural and Research Lincoln: University of Nebraska Center. While the book has some im­ Press, 2002. 264 pp. portant things to say about the uneasy Maps, illus. US$45.00 cloth. tensions between Indigenous people and academics regarding the ways that BY MICHAEL MARKER artefacts are displayed, analyzed, and University of British Columbia sometimes repatriated, there are gaps in the conversation. In particular, there HE MAKAH TRIBE at Neah Bay, are methodological questions that are TWashington State, has become one distincdy not answered by simply having of the most visible and controversial In­ two tribal members "collaborate" on the digenous communities in North America writing. With a subheading in Chapter due to the media gaze on their efforts to 1 reading "Why Should I Tell You Any­ revive traditional whaling in a modern/ thing?" Patricia Pierce Erikson explores, postmodern context. This book presents but does not answer, the question of why information about Makah culture and Aboriginal people might be inclined to history while examining the challenges talk to an ethnographer. She does NOT and ironies that occur when an Indig­ entertain questions that Indigenous enous group utilizes a contested colonial people are often too polite to voice to institution (the museum) for goals related outsiders: "Why are you here? What Book Reviews ffp

do you want? Why dont you ask ques­ book touted as representing the future tions about your own village, language, of anthropology. and culture instead of coming here?" Patricia Pierce Erikson's Voices of a Another subheading asks "Who Are Thousand People leaves us wondering Anthropologists Writing For?" Again, about the future of museums. The the response from the author, while topic of personal and private knowledge acknowledging that "there are unequal gets scant attention in her book. Peter power relationships at the heart of the Whitely, in American Anthropologist plagiarism critique" (64), is unclear (105, 4, 2003: 712-22), has discussed with regard to how "we go beyond how human rights and multiculturalist textual solutions" and "address the discourses corrode the protection of institutional contexts in which anthro­ Indigenous knowledge. His point is pology is produced and reproduced" (65). that Native ways of engaging with the Interestingly enough, the answers to her world are often so different from what questions can be found in the voices of is represented in colonial cognitive maps the elders whom she quotes: "People and discourses that almost all contact have asked me why I want to pass on with outside forces and pressures are my culture to my children. And I say inherently dislocating and destructive to to them, 'you have a culture, don't you Aboriginal community knowledge. The want to pass yours on to them?," (113). fact that the Makah nation controls the The point is that, while anthropologists Makah Cultural and Research Center are usually only interested in the details can certainly lead to an interesting and of Indigenous traditions and artefacts, new way of dealing with artefacts and Aboriginal people are willing to have space, but this book fails to show us a broader conversation that frequently how this museum will be substantively asks anthropologists to account for their different from mainstream museums own cultural values and choices. during this era of political correctness Anthropologists and Indigenous regarding things Aboriginal. What will scholars tend to see a book like this in a Vancouver or Seattle suburban family completely different ways. The com­ come away with after driving five or six plaints from Indigenous people often hours to reach the Makah Cultural and center on the motives and conduct Research Center? Will they discover of ethnographers. Compare, for ex­ that their own families' historical ample, Brian Thorn's review of Crisca trajectory of privilege and power is im­ Bierwert's Brushed by Cedar, Living by plicated in the marginalization of Native the River {American Anthropologist 101, peoples? I admit that I am uncomfort­ 2 [2000], 376-7) to Jo-ann Archibald's able in museums. And this has little to review of the same book in a previous do with the actual displays. I am usually volume (124 [1999/2000], 110-1) of this uneasy because of the people absent- same journal. While anthropologists like mindedly wandering around me. I see Thom have praised Brushed by Cedar, them enter into an uncritical imaginary assessing it as groundbreaking and about the Indigenous Other as a mode respectful, Archibald, a Sto:lo scholar, of entertainment. I see too much of what sees it as careless and disrespectful. She Renato Rosaldo has called "imperialist notes the book's emphasis on aboriginal nostalgia," a naive affection for a way family disfunction and poverty along of life that the colonizer's way of life with irresponsible displays of personal destroyed. The problem with museums knowledge and private community mat­ is profoundly parallel to anthropology's ters. She is disappointed to see such a failure to move beyond a fixation on J20 BC STUDIES the cultural Other without provoking contributions to the preservation of a critical examination of the cultural knowledge of Nuxalk culture is acknowl­ self. If museums, tribally controlled edged by Hereditary Chief Nuximlayc or not, cannot induce this moment (Lawrence Pootlass) in the foreword of of cultural critique in an audience, the book. At Home with the Bella Coola then they simply continue the legacy Indians could rightly be considered the of colonialism's commodification of third volume, or perhaps, introduction, Indigenous knowledge. Museums must to the Bella Coola Indians. cease to be telescopes into a remote past Opening with an excellent introduc­ and become wide-angle mirrors into the tion, the reader is presented with the present. And, like the wide-angle mir­ historical and social conditions of the rors with which we are familiar, they era. A brief biography of Mcllwraith's ought to include the words, "objects life and academic training and the may be closer than they appear." physical setting in which he became im­ mersed are discussed, as well as the local contemporary conditions of the Nuxalk and largely Norwegian population in the At Home with the Bella Coola Bella Coola Valley. Complementing the Indians: T.F. Mcllwraith's collection of field letters are extensive Field Letters, 1922-4 editorial annotations that are often a fascinating read in themselves. A good Edited by John Barker cross-section of correspondence is pre­ and Douglas Cole sented in chronological order from the Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. first season in the spring and summer 195 pp. Mus. $29.95 paper. of 1922, followed by the second season during the fall and winter of 1923-4. Fi­ BY NUSQUMATA nally, previously unprinted manuscripts (JACINDA MACK) regarding the Nuxalk are included as the Nuxalk Nation final texts in the book. At face value, this book is interesting, humorous, and full of rich descriptions of N THE EARLY 1920s on the Northwest ICoast of British Columbia, twenty- life in the Bella Coola Valley during the three-year-old anthropologist Thomas early 1920s. Mcllwraith's ethnographic Forsyth Mcllwraith arrived in the skill at recounting detail and wonder Bella Coola Valley to study the small shine through in his personal letters to community of the Nuxalk people. He family. One cannot help but laugh out would later make the Nuxalk known to loud at some of the predicaments that the world as "The Bella Coola Indians" the young man found himself in, partly in his comprehensive two-volume eth­ due to his status as a bit of an oddity nography of their traditional culture and with both the Nuxalk and his non-Na­ beliefs. Following the academic genre of tive neighbours. Thus we are able to see the time, Mcllwraith proceeded to en­ Mcllwraith, the man, caught up in the gage in "salvage ethnography" to record drama of life in the Bella Coola Valley as much of the pre-contact culture as of the early 1920s. Although Mcllwraith possible. Ironically, the very text that often refers to the Nuxalk in less than sought to record the culture of a "dying" flattering terms, the reader gets a sense people has become an important instru­ of respect through his familiarity. ment of reclamation for the Nuxalk Mcllwraith's growing understanding people and their culture. Mcllwraith's of the Nuxalk is chronicled throughout Book Reviews JZf

the book, especially in the latter part of his ancestral past through Mcllwraith's let­ fieldwork, as we can see when he wrote ters; that my great-grandfather Willie about the outlawing of the potlatch: "I Mack was killed by "black magic" and came away with a profound disgust for that I also have ties to the Christenson our so-called civilization which is so in­ family. Similarly, it is interesting to see tolerant that it tries to stop such rights... what families and individuals were in­ what right have we to abolish, with them, volved in Mcllwraith's fieldwork and if the rich life of a people whose only crime this indicates whose family "Smayustas" was that they lived in a country which (origin stories and cultural property) we want? By the performance of these were represented as common Nuxalk rites the people braced up and cheered culture in The Bella Coola Indians. up wonderfully, and I do not believe At Home with the Bella Coola Indians we have any justification to stop things is much more than a collection of which bring comfort to those who have anecdotal correspondence or relic of lost friends and relatives. Christianity history; it breathes life into, and con- should not be forced down any person's textualizes anthropological and social throat via the law" (56). history with real people and places. To At an academic level, At Home use Mcllwraith's words, this book ironi­ with the Bella Coo/a Indians also cally serves as a "jumping off point" for provides practical lessons about and contemporary studies about or by the insight into conducting ethnographic Nuxalk, as well as for s elf ^reflexive fieldwork. Indirectly, the book speaks studies of ethnography and history in to the complex interplay of research British Columbia. preparation, flexibility, focus and com­ mitment to writing up the notes for publication. In addition, the inevitable Lelooska: The Life ripple effect of the researcher that is in­ herent in fieldwork is identifiable with of a Northwest Coast Artist Mcllwraith's acquired status in both Chris Friday communities. Historically, the reader is introduced to some of the key events University of Washington Press, and people who played a pivotal role 2003,304 pp. Illus. US$24.95 paper. in the early development of Canadian anthropology. BY MELINDA MARIE JETTE However, the lack of dates and names University of British Columbia associated with events limit both the reconstruction of his fieldwork and N SEPTEMBER 1996 Don "Lelooska" the contextualizing of Nuxalk stories. ISmith, a highly regarded Northwest By omitting names in both The Bella Coast artist, was laid to rest near his Coola Indians and in his field letters, home in Ariel, Washington. The present Mcllwraith has effectively "sterilized" volume is the result of a collaboration the content in a way that may take away between Lelooska and historian Chris from its historical and cultural values. Friday during the final years of the In retrospect, Mcllwraith himself would artist's life. As Friday admits, the task have probably found great irony in this of capturing any one individual life is omission, given his preoccupation with at best a partial success. However, he germs while conducting his fieldwork. tackles this challenge with aplomb and Still, as a member of the Nuxalk Nation, gives readers a glimpse into the life of a I was very interested to learn about my remarkable man. 722 BC STUDIES

Mindful of the ethical and meth­ advocating for Native people, he articu­ odological issues related to oral his­ lates an unclouded view of himself as an tory and Native American biography, American Indian. Lelooskas pan-Indian Friday outlines the collaborative nature identity flowed from a variety of sources: of the volume. In his hours of recorded the cultural and spiritual education he conversations with Lelooska, Friday received from his Cherokee grandfa­ questioned the artist about specific is­ ther, the family's ties with many Native sues and episodes in his life, yet, since communities throughout the Pacific he was a natural orator, raconteur, and Northwest, participation in regional performer, Lelooska would often take a cultural events such as the Pendleton leading role in shaping the discussions. Round-Up, the role of his mother as the Friday retains this dynamic in the edited family breadwinner through the Indian version by making Lelooska's narratives curio trade, and his personal knowledge the central focus, framing them with of the shared history of oppression and short essays and informative notes that discrimination experienced by Native place the artist's words within a his­ peoples across North America. Don torical context. Friday has structured Smith's identification as an Indian was the volume according to a series of always closely tied to his development as chronological themes: childhood and an artist. From an early age he exhibited family traditions, education and early a natural aptitude for the plastic arts, artistic experiences, Lelooska's growth working alongside his mother at her and maturity as an artist, his connec­ shop near Salem, Oregon. Indeed, tions to the James Sewid family and Smith received the name "Lelooskin" the Kwakiutl (Kwakwaka'wakw), and (later Lelooska), meaning "whittling," the cultural and spiritual implications as a teenager at the Pendleton Round- of his work.* Up in the late 1940s.** As a self-identified non-reservation After working in the Indian curio Indian of Cherokee and European market - which relied on received no­ ancestry who became a well-known tions about Plateau and Plains cultures Northwest Coast artist, Don "Le­ - in the 1960s Don Smith progressively looska" Smith's life took many dramatic turned his attention to the Northwest twists and turns. From this perspective, Coast artistic tradition. Lelooska Friday argues that it was both unique responds to Friday's queries about and emblematic of larger trends in the this transition by explaining that the twentieth-century Native American Indigenous art of the region answered experience. Indeed, throughout Lelooska his need to develop as an artist: "I went the author addresses questions of identity to the Northwest Coast because this that remain contested within Indigenous was the richest, deepest art tradition in communities across North America: North America ... it was the one place What does it mean to be Indian? How in North America where you had artists did Lelooska come to identify with the working as commissioned artists with Northwest Coast peoples? Was it ap­ patrons, great chiefs" (145). At this time, propriate for him to do so? as Northwest Coast art was beginning Through Lelooska's stories about his to gain worldwide recognition, Lelooska life and his family history, his artwork developed a close relationship with the and performances, and his activities ** "Lelooskin," a Nez Perce (Nimipu) word of I have followed Chris Friday and used the Flathead (Salish) origin, was the name of a ethnic and tribal designations employed by Nez Perce warrior who had died in the Nez Don "Lelooska" Smith during his lifetime. Perce War of 1877. Book Reviews s??

Sewids, a prominent Kwakiutl family on HuupuK^anum—Tupaat, Treasure of the Vancouver Island. James Sewid conse- Nuu-chah-nulth Chiefs, an exhibition quendy formally adopted Lelooska into mounted in April 2000 by the Royal his lineage. This formal linkage gave British Columbia Museum in conjunc­ the Sewids access to a gifted carver and tion with the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal afforded Lelooska access to a Northwest Council. Alan Hoover has gathered Coast tribal tradition that allowed him essays written at various times over a to flourish as an artist. number of decades and grouped them Although Lelooska makes a strong into the four parts of the tide. contribution to Pacific Northwest his­ "Voices" ("Balancing History") begins tory and to Native American biography, with a preface to the two agenda papers it does contain a few minor weaknesses. that make up the remainder of this sec­ These flow from the nature of the project. tion, and "balance" is a word that ap­ While Friday does an admirable job of pears frequendy throughout the essay, in presenting the larger historical context, which the authors discuss First Nations' Lelooskas stream of consciousness nar­ determination to assert "their authority ratives are occasionally hard to follow, to counter presentations of history especially when he rattles off names and by 'outsiders'"^). The agenda papers places unfamiliar to readers. As a result, - Yuquot Agenda Paper by the Mowa- the volume would have benefited from chaht-Muchalaht First Nation and the additional reference information, such KiixPin Agenda Paper by the Huu-ay- as a chronology of Lelooska's life, a map aht First Nation - are written entirely of the Pacific Northwest identifying the from the perspective of the respective sites mentioned in the text, and perhaps Nations and were both written in col­ a chart outlining family members and laboration with Traditions Consulting significant individuals. These weak­ Service. The papers were submissions nesses aside, Lelooska offers readers an to the Historic Sites and Monuments engaging look into the life of a Native Board of Canada requesting National American artist, a life at once unique Historic Site status for Yuquot, the and representative of the tribulations ancestral home of the Mowachaht, and and triumphs of Indigenous peoples in KiixPin village, respectively; both present the twentieth century. compelling reasons for their requests and balance the received histories created by "outsiders." Part 2 ("Histories") again seeks to Nuu-chah-nulth Voices, balance histories, but this time by Histories, Objects & Journeys offering an eclectic mix ranging from Edited by Alan L. Hoover an examination of unpublished material relating to James Colnett s expeditions Victoria: Royal British Columbia among the Nuu-chah-nulth in 1787-88, Museum, 2000. vii, 389 pp. which concludes that the contact process Illus., $39.95 cloth. was "a complex series of interactions shaped by differences in class, status, BY DAN MARSHALL gender, ethnicity and language" (82) "to Cobble Hill, Vancouver Island a contextualization of the face paintings taken from Edward Sapir's Notes on Se­ UU-CHAH-NULTH VOICES, Histories, cret Rituals. Also in this section are: a N Objects & Journeys is an anthology reassessment of the early historic period produced to complement Out of the Mist: using the logs of Cook's 1778 expedition, S2J BC STUDIES

along with the archaeological record to might have been better placed at the posit that "traditional subsistence and beginning of the work. settlement patterns changed early and Hoover's objective, to "focus on a dramatically" in Nootka Sound (93); an number of facets of Nuu-chah-nulth essay in which the continual renewal history and culture in greater depth and of houses - new roofs, new posts, and scope" than the exhibition catalogue, has so forth - is read as a metaphor for been met in this collection. The task of "understanding change and continuity organizing such a work is unenviable, in Nuu-chah-nulth society" (107); and but, in general, Hoover has succeeded Native voices heard in a short piece in creating focus, particularly in the last explaining a memorial potlatch and in two sections. The essays under the rubric a working translation of the legendary "Histories" work less well as a group; history of Tsisha?ath. one is drawn to the conclusion that, The third part of this collection has armed with a selection of works which greater cohesion than the last. The thread met the overall criteria for the book, a "art" binds all seven essays; the editor, in catch-all category had to be found for entitling the section "Objects," has neatly them - a minor cavil, particularly as an sidestepped the problem of the use of the alternative arrangement is not immedi­ term "art" to describe the works discussed. ately apparent. Nevertheless, this book The opening interview between anthro­ represents an important contribution to pologist Charlotte Townsend-Gault and Northwest coast indigenous studies. cultural historian Ki-ke-in (Ron Ham­ ilton) lays out the issues surrounding "art" and closes with Ki-ke-ins sugges­ Colonization and Community: tion that a new vocabulary is needed to "understand what my ancestors created The Vancouver Island Coalfield from their point of view" (229). This essay and the Making of the provides the reader with the foundations British Columbian Working Class for understanding succeeding essays on art in the archaeological record and at the John Douglas Belshaw British Museum, visual symbolism, the Montreal: McGill-Queen's Mowachaht Whalers' Shrine, the Nuu- University Press, 2002. 384 pp. chah-nulth canoe, and Ellen Curley's Illus. $24.97 PaPer- Hat. The closing section ("Journeys") BY LYNNE BOWEN contains three very personal statements Nanaimo by Nuu-chah-nulth artists: Tsa-qwa- supp (Art Thompson), Joe David, and OHN DOUGLAS BELSHAW has pro­ Tim Paul. Each talks candidly about vided the historical community with his personal and artistic journey; Art Ja well-researched, artfully written, and Thompson's account of the damage well-indexed account of an important done by the residential school system is aspect of Vancouver Island coalmining particularly gruelling. The intimacy and history: the experience of nineteenth- humanity of these essays take the reader century British immigrant miners. He inside Nuu-chah-nulth experience and gives the reader new insights and ways culture to an extent not so fully accom­ of thinking about a fundamental aspect plished by the earlier pieces; if this book of British Columbian, Canadian, and is intended for a general, as opposed to indeed British labour history, and he an academic, audience, these statements does not pull his punches. Book Reviews J2J

In his introduction he takes various forgive Belshaw for giving the first historians to task: those who have cari­ name of "Thomas" to English novelist catured British miners as unionists (6-7); John Galsworthy (25) and for using the those who espouse BC exceptionalism hardrock mining term "slag" instead of (6-9); those who claim that the origin the coalmining term "slack" (175). cultures of British, Chinese, Italian, and Quibbles aside, Belshaw's analysis of American immigrants were simplified the two methods of coal removal - pillar rather than transformed by their new and stall on the one hand and longwall surroundings (18); and those British his­ on the other - and their relationship to torians who have ignored that country's the employment of Chinese workers emigrant working class and assumed it and to management's consequent to be unchanged by the countries in ability to combat labour militancy, is which the workers settled (11). an important issue in the book and As a coalmining historian who writes one that is discussed at various times for a general audience, I have been (81-3,122,126,130). The pillar and stall looking forward to Belshaw's scholarly method, according to Belshaw, lessens treatment of the subject. His analysis management's ability to use unskilled of census data in general and marriage labour (the majority of whom were and fertility in particular shine new light Chinese), while the longwall method on the behaviour of British miners on allows for the supervised employment Vancouver Island (66-73). of more unskilled workers. This is a Belshaw did his early work in Great valid supposition, but it has two flaws Britain and his knowledge of British when applied to the Vancouver Island sources serves the reader well. But coalfield. every mining region has its' own words to First, it ignores the fact that many describe itself and the work it does and Chinese worked in pillar and stall mines while Belshaw understands the appeal as backhands for skilled white diggers. that words unique to a sub-culture have Chinese backhands learned by observa­ for a reader, his use of the British phrase tion how to blast the coal and eventually "winning the coal," for example, and the worked as diggers themselves. They word "hewer" instead of "digger," seems were then able to comprise the entire strange given the richness of the Van­ workforce of a mine (Number Two couver Island coalmining vernacular. Mine in Cumberland) and, inciden­ There is a difference too between tally, to have the best safety record on using the words unique to a subcul­ Vancouver Island in the 1890s. ture and using jargon, a sin of which Second, Belshaw's analysis requires Belshaw is mostly guilt-free. It is a pity that the mines owned by the Dunsmuirs, then that his editors failed to suggest a family notoriously opposed to orga­ that he refrain from using such words nized labour, be worked predominantly as "racialization"(i8) and such phrases by the longwall method, and the mines as "problematized contemporaneously" owned by the Vancouver Coal Mining (192). This from a man who, when and Land Company, a company with a describing the supplanting of cricket more benevolent, if pragmatic, labour with baseball in the hearts of Nanaimo policy, be worked by pillar and stall. coal miners, is capable of writing "and But since the choice of one method the cricket oval rang less frequently to over the other was determined largely the sound of leather on willow, more by the thickness of the seam and not by often to horsehide on ash" (187). Such the labour policies of management, the fine writing also allows the reader to methods were not used as exclusively J2à BC STUDIES by either of these major employers, as cally into separate nations, prompting Belshaw would have the reader believe. intriguing questions about the societies This argument only points out the that developed. While there have liveliness of a debate which will be­ been a few studies that consider the come even more interesting as more American Northwest and BC together, scholarly books are written about this the borderland theme has not been complex and important aspect of British as prominent in this region as in, for Columbia history. Belshaw s wish to "re­ example, the area surrounding the store the British miners of Vancouver Mexico-Texas border. The notion of a Island to British history" and to "restore borderland, at one level, suggests a place the making of the British Columbian where a distinct cultural and economic working class to British Columbian his­ identity transcends the border, shaped tory" will be well served by this debate by an ongoing interchange of people and and by this handsome and well-written ideas. But borderland studies can also book. expose and probe difference, drawing out cultural and political distinctions in contiguous areas which are ecologically and geographically similar. Parallel Destinies: In an introductory article, Ken Coates Canadian-American Relations effectively sketches out the broad pat­ West of the Rockies terns. He characterizes the region's his­ Edited by John M. Findlay tory in terms of four periods. During the time of aboriginal occupation, there and Ken S. Coates was no border and much interaction Seattle: University of Washington between First Nations up and down Press, 2002. 328 pp. US$22.95 paper. the coast. The second period, the time of colonial encroachment when Rus­ BY GORDON HAK sian, British, Spanish, and American Malaspina University-College traders and politicians jockeyed for supremacy, did not suddenly disrupt HIS COLLECTION of essays came First Nation patterns, but did lead to Tout of a 1996 conference in Seattle the establishment of the border and set that celebrated the 150th anniversary of the stage for subsequent developments. the Oregon Treaty, the agreement that Coates' third stage, the imposition of the largely fixed the boundary west of the modern state, spans the late nineteenth Rocky Mountains between the United and much of the twentieth century, States and what would become Canada. and during this time the Canadian A number of prominent scholars from and American governments exerted Canada and the United States were asked authority in their respective regions. "to consider the historical significance While there were some exceptions, and impact of the Canadian-American economic, social, and political develop­ border on the lands and peoples west of ments made "the American Northwest the Rocky Mountains"(vii). The editors increasingly American and British added one previously published essay to Columbia increasingly Canadian" (17). the conference presentations to create In the contemporary age, what Coates this volume. calls the Postboundary or Modern Era, global and technological factors are BC and the American Pacific challenging national boundaries and Northwest are similar geographically spurring the increased movement of and climatically, but divided politi­ Book Reviews ^Z people, ideas and trade, but, suggests and Canadian railway capitalists in Coates, this will not necessarily lead southeastern British Columbia at the to the establishment of an integrated turn of the twentieth century, while region. Overall, the border has been Patricia Wood draws out the ethnic fundamental in defining the two regions: dimension in understanding the border, "it would not be an exaggeration to argue noting that for working-class Italian im­ that the region's history and character migrants the border was less significant have been determined by the boundary's than for Anglo-Canadians. "In general," existence and functioning" (3). she argues, "in the late nineteenth and Having established the context, six early twentieth centuries the forty-ninth case studies follow. In these essays we parallel was not a meaningful line for learn much more about the history of immigrants" (113). British Columbia than that of Wash­ Joseph E. Taylor III traces the di­ ington and Oregon. The authors are sastrous salmon policy perpetrated by not primarily borderland historians American and Canadian governments and for the most part have tweaked over the past hundred years by looking their research interests to meet the at the Fraser River fishery. Fish, it seems, requirements of the conference and the do not respect the border imposed by editors. Indeed, the national border is nation-states. Galen Roger Pérras often an opportunity to explore themes discusses Canadas push to retain con­ such as colonizers and aboriginals, im­ trol of defending its West Coast from migrant ethnic groups, First Nation and 1934 to 1942, despite pressure from the industrial capitalist economies, military United States, and Carl Abbott looks at policy, and environmental concerns. The regional economic prospects, especially articles are of high quality and each de­ the idea of a unified Cascadia, defined serves a quick note, as they are relevant by economics and ecology, that would to many not necessarily interested in the include BC and the American Pacific borderland theme. Northwest. He concludes that despite Daniel Marshall provocatively dis­ the trends of the contemporary world, cusses the American presence during they are "not likely to turn northwestern the Fraser River gold rush of the late North America into a region where bor­ 1850s. The war against First Nations ders do not matter" (213). on the Fraser reflected the American No work of this kind would be com­ frontier, and this influence was more plete without getting into the swamp important than that of either Britain of national identities, exploring the or Canada in 1858. The policies of Gov­ differences and similarities between ernor James Douglas, argues Marshall, Canadian and American cultures. were a response to the might of the Chad Reimer takes a historiographical American miners. John Lutz discusses perspective on the Oregon Treaty, the yearly southward migration of ab­ talking about the construction of history original people from northerly coastal in the 1840s. Both American and British reaches to Victoria, Vancouver Island, writers offered versions of the past to and Puget Sound in the years from justify claims in the region; these first 1854 to 1869, stressing the co-existence histories set the tone for the different of a traditional First Nations economy future narratives offered by British and an industrial capitalist economy in Columbia historians, on the one hand, the Native world. Making a case for a and American historians on the other. critical materialist analysis of BC his­ Two final essays on national distinc- tory, Jeremy Mouat examines American 72$ BC STUDIES

tions provide much fun with broad Company Towns of the discussions that spill over regional Pacific Northwest boundaries. Donald Worster, concerned about the preservation of wilderness Linda Carlson throughout the world, looks to the Seattle: University of Canadian and American experiences to Washington Press, 2003. 288 pp. try and understand why some nations Illus., US$22.50 paper. value wilderness. He concludes that the dream of freedom, the cornerstone of BY WILLIAM G. ROBBINS American culture, underpins the active, Oregon State University longstanding commitment in the United States to protect wilderness areas, a OMPANY TOWNS - once ubiquitous tradition that is not echoed in Canada, across the greater North American where the freedom ideology is less C West - usually originated in the cor­ deeply rooted. Worster, an American, porate need for labour in isolated areas comments: "Canadians still do not seem of resource extraction. Even those who inclined to follow our wilderness pres­ remember favourably their experiences ervation lead quickly, enthusiastically, or in company towns acknowledge varying faithfully" (252). Michael Fellman be­ degrees of paternalism in their respective moans the lack of recognition accorded communities. "A job in a company town to American immigrants in Canada and was more than employment, it was away attacks Canadian anti-Americanism. An of life," Linda Carlson argues, "the boss's American who migrated to Canada in way" (198). This sometimes redundant 1969, Fellman surveys Canadian history sixteen-chapter compilation of disparate from the early nineteenth century to the company towns focuses on settlements present, arguing that an overblown anti- that survived into the twentieth century. Americanism blinds English Canadians Covering human communities from to the American influences at the core temporary, mobile, and transitory camps of their identity. to sizable federal towns such as Rich­ Parallel Destinies brings together a land, Washington, Carlson weaves the number of strong articles that are of social histories of company town dining, special interest to British Columbia educational, recreational, informational, historians. Readers should not be put economic, and religious practices. offby the political/diplomatic-sounding Carlson confronts directly the ugly title, for the volume has a wide-ranging stereotypes of company towns depicted appeal. in Tennessee Ernie Ford's classic song, / Owe My Soul to the Company Store. Al­ though "the stereotypes sometimes (my emphasis) did apply," her study attempts to capture the "spirit of community" that prevailed in many company settlements. Carlson emphasizes the close ties be­ tween entrepreneurs and small company executives who lived in these communi­ ties and who had legitimate reason to care for the welfare of their workers. The issue of control was always important to owners and managers: the sale and dis- Book Reviews ^9 tribution of liquor, the bogey-man of remembrances of married residents union organizing, and controlling the skews the profile of the people who workers' purchasing power. In McLeary, lived, sometimes temporarily, in com­ Washington, Henry McCleary was fond pany towns. In logging and mining of saying, "A good kingdom is better camps, numerous studies indicate that than a poor democracy" (12). the majority of residents were single and Readers oî BC Studies should be fore­ often transitory male workers, a sturdy warned that the company towns featured cadre of labourers who protested against in this book suffer from the conventional poor food and living conditions and low scholarly intellectual blinders that stop wages by "going down the road." at the forty-ninth parallel. With the ex­ As might be expected, company ception of Canadian-based companies towns were bastions of anti-unionism, with investments in towns south of especially in those communities the border, the trans-boundary, British where workers were required to live Columbia Northwest is not part of this in company-owned housing. In some story. The map of Northwest company corporate-owned towns, notably in towns offered in the first chapter shows Washington's coalmining settlements, the location of company settlements in companies played the race card by Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, with bringing in African-American workers more than half of them in the state to break the efforts of white miners to of Washington. Carlson argues that organize unions. Carlson rightly cites the enduring feature of the towns in the example of local executives who were her study were those that persisted for rewarded for their efforts in keeping several decades. Company Towns in the union organizers out of the commu­ Pacific Northwest attempts to capture the nity. North Idaho's paranoid Potlatch community spirit of those settlements, Corporation - part of the Weyerhaeuser the "sense of how the townspeople lived syndicate - dismissed suspect union their daily lives, both in ordinary times sympathizers on the spot. In the face and in periods of war and Depression" of what it deemed a more severe threat from the militant Industrial Workers (13)-• Such findings seem reasonable and of the World (iww) at the onset of the defensible given the sources listed in First World War, Potlatch deployed a Carlson's bibliography, but they also local militia to deter union organizing. reflect a suspect and limited segment Potlatch also informed its employment of company town experience. There is agency intermediaries of its preference a methodological problem with this for Nordic workers. approach that is true of most company More careful attention to copy-ed­ town histories; scholars customarily cite iting would have helped eliminate some the testimony of longtime community of the repetitiveness and the author's residents, individuals favourably dis­ propensity for awkward sentence con­ posed to the settlements where they structions ("Like at logging and mining chose to spend a good part of their camps, servings were unlimited" [51]). lives. This book leans decidedly towards This book will likely have the greatest a positive story line, sometimes without appeal to people whose families lived in supporting evidence. In that sense, the one of the communities featured in it. zjo BC STUDIES

American Workers, Colonial Filipinos' status as US nationals Power: Philippine Seattle and the distinguished them from other Asian immigrants, and this distinctiveness is Transpacific West, 1Ç19-1941 something that Fujita-Rony considers Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony throughout the book. Certainly the Filipino experience was shaped by University of California Press: and within the institutionalized racism Berkeley, 2003.320 pp. experienced by other Asian immigrants, Illus. US$21.95 paper. and there was a loss of legal distinction through the 1920s and 1930s as legisla­ BY GÉRALDINE PRATT tion was passed to restrict Filipino entry University of British Columbia into the US and their possibilities for permanent settlement. But Filipinos' HIS is AN AMBITIOUS bookthat aims experiences are not usefully collapsed Tto "recontextualize, if not challenge" into a generalized Asian-American (9) several standard historical narra­ model. Although Filipino settlement tives: of the American West, of Asian in Seattle was mostly in and around American settlement, and of Filipino Chinatown, Filipinos owned few busi­ experiences in the United States in the nesses there. Fujita-Rony interprets this early decades of the twentieth century. relative absence of entrepreneurialism to These theoretical ambitions are achieved not only a lack of capital but the fact by drawing upon archival documents and that Filipinos, due to their skills in a rich store of interviews: 27 conducted English, were not enclaved within the in the early 1990s by the author, and labour market in quite the same way as good number more through the 1970s Chinese and Japanese immigrants. Be­ and 1980s as part of the Washington yond this, Chinatown was only one site State Oral/Aural History Program and of Filipino experience because Filipinos the Demonstration Project for Asian were exceptionally migratory, moving up Americans. and down the west coast, from Alaska Fujita-Rony recasts the boundaries to California and into the interior of of the American West such that the Washington state as seasonal labourers. development of Seattle is conceived Seattle was the hub of this network of within American colonialism, with the migration, but the Filipino community Philippines the most western part of demands a regional rather than an urban the American empire. Contrary to an frame of analysis. assimilationist model of immigration, A further narrative from which she details a fluid transpacific culture Fujita-Rony wishes to distance herself and economy. As American nationals, is one that characterizes early immigrant a passport to enter the United States was settlement as a "bachelor society." The unnecessary until 1934, and Filipinos had Filipinos who moved to the United free access to US public high schools. States in the first decades of the twen­ Education was an important aspect of tieth century were mostly young men. In the American colonial venture in the Washington State in 1930, for instance, Philippines and Fujita-Rony argues that there was only one woman for every 15 education in the United States was seen Filipino men. But to render the Filipino by Filipinos as an extension of educa­ community as a bachelor society is to tion in the Philippines; the University simplify. Fujita-Rony also questions a of Washington was a key site in this tendency within Filipino-American process. history to privilege union politics and Book Reviews sjs singular male heroes, such as Carlos author touches on her frustrations about Bulosan. She attempts to write women certain silences that she was unable to into this history, and to do so in ways penetrate, in particular, ones surrounding that also disrupt standard tropes within leftist politics and non-heterosexual women's history. Countering the ten­ practices. I would have been interested dency to portray women as more stable to learn much more about her difficulties than men, she tells stories about the extracting the types of historical narra­ many Filipinas who moved between tives that she yearned to tell, especially the United States and the Philippines because she actually interviewed a good through the course of their lives. number of historical actors. That said, Fujita-Rony writes as an historian, the book successfully unsettles a number but she also brings a rich and persistent of standard interpretations and tells a geographical imagination to her project. compelling story of the ways that Fili­ She urges us to reframe conventional pino subjects of colonialism themselves scales of analysis: from urban to regional, shaped the American West. and from national to transnational. She is alert to the geographical specificity of labour organizing and contrasts, for Murdering Holiness: The Trials instance, the distinctive political pos­ sibilities for Filipinos in Seattle and of Franz Creffield and George Hawaii. She explores some of the social Mitchell possibilities made available through geo­ Jim Philips graphical mobility as, for example, when mixed race couples crossed state lines to and Rosemary Gartner avoid miscegenation laws (which were Vancouver: UBC Press, 2003. state-specific). She explores a complex 360 pp. Illus. $45.00 cloth. negotiation of nationalist and class sen­ timent: it was in part class-based orga­ BY ANGUS MCLAREN nizing that enabled workers to overcome University of Victoria regional and ethnic loyalties (based in the Philippines) and forge a nationalist EW BOOK JACKETS are as striking "Filipino" identity within the United Fas the one that graces Jim Philips States. This was a "careful nationalism" and Rosemary Gartner's text. Bale- and demands for an independent nation fully staring back at the viewer is a were often framed against the backdrop prison photograph of Franz Creffield, of an earlier Spanish rather than U.S. who bears an uncanny resemblance to imperialism. Hence the popularity and Hannibal Lecter (as played by Anthony neutrality of Rizal Day, which com­ Hopkins). Creffield was a strange man. memorates a Filipino hero who fought Finding the Salvation Army too tame against Spanish rather than American for his prophetic tastes, in 1903 he ar­ imperialism. rived (along with the first automobile) in This is a case study that speaks to Corvallis, Oregon, where he established large questions and broad theoretical a "Holy Roller" sect. It attracted about debates, and thus warrants a wide read­ twenty-five adherents, mainly women. ership. For the most part, the empirical His followers defied husbands and study can do the work that is asked of it, fathers, lived communally, and were although the significance of women for reportedly in constant prayer and community building is as much asserted trances. CreffiekTs call for believers to as demonstrated. In the last chapter, the forsake property and family raised the jj2 BC STUDIES hackles of the respectable. The fact healing. The authors explain why such that his women followers dressed in groups' egalitarianism and their critiques simple shifts led neighbours to suspect of materialism especially appealed to orgies. Civic leaders were embarrassed women and why worried family mem­ by rumours of "free love" and religious bers probably projected their own sexual excesses. The local newspaper warned preoccupations onto Creffield's cult. The off Creffield and then vigilantes drove wearing of simple clothing could be re­ the pine-tarred and feathered messiah garded by the anxious as "nudity" and out of town. unkempt or unbraided hair as a sign of Creffield had a revenge of sorts by licentiousness. In discussing women's committing adultery with a married religious zeal, the citizens of small towns sister of one of his persecutors, George like Corvallis were also commenting on Mitchell. The act was still a crime in gender relations. Oregon and Creffield was imprisoned. Turning to the issue of how the Incarceration exacerbated his belief in community responded to the purported his mystic powers but he was only to prophet, the authors provide a useful live a few months after his release. On reminder of the extent of vigilantism 7 May, Mitchell shot Creffield to death practised in the Pacific Northwest in and then gave himself up to the Seattle the early twentieth century. The well- police, saying he had acted to protect off men who ran Creffield out of town his family. His appeal to the male code acted in the firm belief that they were of honour succeeded and in July he was only re-establishing order. Though found not guilty. But he in turn was such forms of popular justice had a gunned down by his unmarried sister long history, Philips and Gartner point Esther armed with a pistol provided out that families could now also invoke by Creffield's widow. Women were insanity laws to discipline the wayward. not accorded the right to act under the Adult sect members were sent to the unwritten law. Officials declared both state asylum and youths to the Boys culprits insane and ordered them to the and Girls Aid Society Home. Many state asylum. Maud Creffield com­ accounts of the asylum have presented mitted suicide while still in jail; shortly it as imposing order from the top down. after leaving the asylum two years later, Historians now recognized how ordi­ Esther Mitchell did the same. nary people often sought to turn such Philips and Gartner do a fine job institutions to their own purposes. The of unpacking this lurid tale. Inspired book effectively demonstrates how lay­ by Natalie Davis' assertion that the persons could commit a family member investigation of a powerful story can to short-term confinement on the basis "uncover motivations and values that of their being too religious, too defiant of are lost in the welter of the everyday" male authority or too antimaterialistic. (241, 230 ni3), they devote the first half The first six chapters of this book of the book to producing an engaging work very well. In the last half of the microhistory modelled on the works book, focused on the trials of George of Davis, Linda Gordon, and Carlo and Esther Mitchell, the authors' Ginzberg. The authors enlighteningly obvious love of the minutiae of the place Creffield's religious activities in law takes over. Having lamented not the context of the "holiness movement" being able to provide "a detailed and of the early twentieth century, likening day-by-day account" (145) of the jury him to the Pentecostals with their stress selection process, they nevertheless de­ on speaking in tongues, prophecy, and vote fourteen pages to the issue. They Book Reviews fJJ

meticulously chronicle the educations, fisheries across British Columbia. While the careers, and the best-known cases of this study is not constructed around a every judge and attorney involved. The strong, central argument, it stands as accounts of the trials themselves hold a critique of the social and political few surprises. As the book has already climate in which Japanese immigrants provided insightful analyses of how men struggled to build new lives. The book employed vigilantism and how women is well researched and documented and were subjected to the insanity laws, the it is responsive to the three objectives outcomes of the two legal contests could stated by the author at the outset. never be in serious doubt. Yesaki's first objective centres on Curiously enough, the authors conclude compiling statistical records of Japanese- with a laudatory account of CrefHeld's Canadian involvement in the fishing father-in-law, the books least interesting industry. He reports the quantitative character, whom they nevertheless de­ estimates of the catch, earnings and ex­ clare to be "the most admirably human." penses of fishers from the 1880s to the Philips and Gartner almost appear to Second World War. Further, he provides have forgotten that the real strength of community demographics, employment their book resides not in its applauding figures, and fishing licensing statistics. of virtue but in demonstrating how even His background in science and fisheries the most vicious emotions and actions, is demonstrated in his attention to re­ when carefully set in their social and cul­ cording his findings within the text and tural context, can be made intelligible. numerous tables throughout the book. Factors like annual profit margins, ratios of Japanese, white, and Native fishers that changed with the whims of Sutebusuton: A Japanese Village lawmakers, and dramatic fluctuations in on the British Columbia Coast fish stocks from one year to the next are Mitsuo Yesaki incorporated into the text and an effort is made to explain their impact on the Vancouver: Peninsula, 2003. lives of fishers and their families. It is 148 pp. Illus. $25.00 paper. hard to imagine that Yesaki left any page unturned in the fisheries-related ledgers BY ANN DORE of government, business, and labour. Simon Fraser University Second, Yesaki explores Japanese-Ca­ nadian involvement in the commercial ITSUO YESAKI was born in fishing and processing industries beyond MSteveston, known to its early the salmon fisheries of the Fraser River Japanese-Canadian residents as Sute­ and within the support industries that busuton. He spent his early childhood dotted the British Columbia coast. there until the expulsion of Japanese Boat-building was an occupation under­ Canadians from the West Coast in 1942. taken by numerous Japanese Canadians He is a descendant of three generations in the offseason. Many utilized special­ of Fraser River fishers and has fished ized tools and techniques from Japan. the river himself. His chronological Yesaki also offers a detailed look at char­ study not only features the history of coal-making, an industry that provided Japanese Canadians in Steveston and essential fuel to the canneries. Japanese their involvement in the Fraser River Canadians excelled at constructing the salmon industry, but also traces their kilns, supplying the cordwood, and per­ contributions to the development of the fecting the process. Yesaki's descriptions sjj BC STUDIES of secondary fisheries such as salt chum individual voice and agency present in salmon, salt herring, and troll fishing these pages. include villages beyond Sutebusuton. From the early immigration of men For example, the growth of Torino and and their wives, most of whom arrived Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver later as picture brides, to the establish­ Island and the Skeena River fisheries in ment of families and community, Yesaki the north partially reflected the expan­ highlights both individual and group sion and diversification of Japanese- experience and accomplishments. Canadian involvement in the fishing Organizations such as the Fishermen's industry over several decades. Association play a prominent role in this That this movement within the in­ study along with educational, religious, dustry was often the result of political and financial institutions engaged in and economic pressure is an important activities that built and strengthened aspect of Yesaki's third objective: to in­ community in Sutebusuton and many corporate the changing political climate smaller fishing villages. Japanese and its impact on those in the fisheries. culture, as it was expressed within the Yesaki demonstrates that although fishing community, enriches every Japanese-Canadian involvement in chapter of this book. Yesaki portrays the fisheries was sometimes allowed to the complexity and diversity of the flourish, it was more often subjected to fishing industry while keeping a finger legally sanctioned restrictions that pro­ on the pulse of the Japanese-Canadian moted prejudice and discrimination. He fishing community as it struggled within examines both changes and challenges a constantly shifting social, economic, to immigration, the franchise, and li­ and political climate. censing laws as well as shifts in the social climate and public attitude that spawned many injustices and culminated in the Steel Ruth andiron Men: 1942 expulsion. Yesaki links the political and social A Pictorial History of the atmosphere to the physical and geo­ Kettle Valley Railway graphic setting through a fine collection Barrie Sanford of photographs dating as far back as 1882. Photos of Japanese Canadians at work, Vancouver: Whitecap, 2003. at public gatherings, and among family 165 pp. IUus. $29.95 paper. and friends offer rare glimpses into their lives and communities. However, unlike BY DUANE THOMSON Yesaki s previous book, co-authored with Oyama Harold and Kathy Steves, Steveston Cannery Row: An Illustrated History HE DECISION of Whitecap Books to (Richmond: Lulu Island Printing, 1998), Tpublish the first paperback edition Sutebusuton has no maps to help the of Steel Rails &Iron Men is appropriate reader pinpoint buildings, villages, and and timely. Since this book appeared in waterways. Rather, Yesaki supplements cloth in 1990, the Kettle Valley Railway his descriptive narrative and photos (the KV) has grown in both the public with census figures, municipal records, imagination and the numbers of people and commercial data. Although Yesaki using the roadbed. Thousands of hikers maintains a substantially quantitative and mountain bikers annually enjoy the approach to Steveston's history, there scenic roadbed; the Okanagan Moun­ is, nonetheless, a significant amount of tain fire of 2003 publicized even as it Book Reviews sj$ destroyed the Myra Canyon trestles. operating schedules, maintenance and This book will appeal to KV tourists upgrading, snow-clearing and avalanche and aficionados who demand a brief control, and connections to the mining, history of the construction, operation, logging, and fruit-growing industries in and eventual closure of the storied the areas served. The final three chap­ railway ters document the railway's decline: the The first chapter considers the initial disruption of service beginning with political/strategic considerations behind abandonment of the Coquihalla section, the decision to build the Kootenay to the continued operation of remnants of Coast railway, mercifully in less detail the KV, and the eventual closure of the than Sanford provides in his earlier railway. McCullochs Wonder: The Story of the Each chapter includes a two- to five- Kettle Valley Railway (19 81). The second page summary of the main theme of the chapter focuses on the competition be­ chapter dealing with the political and tween the Kettle River Valley Railway, economic environment and the business a predecessor of the KV, and affiliates decisions that affected the operation of of Jim Hill's Great Northern Railway the railway. Good maps, elevation to control ore traffic between Republic, profiles, datelines, and sample timetables WA, and the smelter at Grand Forks, present detailed operational information BC. This chapter is largely extraneous clearly and concisely. Each chapter also because it deals with a railway never includes copies of railway memorabilia incorporated into the KV; rather, it that tend to trivialize the book: copies reflects Sanford s fascination with the of posters, railway passes, telegrams, in­ competitive environment that informed vitations to public functions, newspaper railway construction in southern BC at clippings, and cover pages of agree­ the turn of the century. The next three ments. Finally, each chapter contains chapters detail the construction, early many photographs with accompanying operation, and economic impact of three informational captions that comprise the different portions of the line: the Nicola real value of this book. branch, the Midway to Merritt line, and The photographs are well chosen and the incredibly difficult Coquihalla line. are generally of good quality. Many were These chapters deal with spectacular taken during construction by local pro­ engineering feats such as building fessional photographers, good examples trestles across the many tributaries of of which are the beautifully composed, Myra Canyon and the construction of high-resolution photographs of Lumb the famous Quintette Tunnels down Stocks of Penticton (Figures 4-33 and the Coquihalla Canyon. The numerous 6-12) and the remarkable panoramic photographs of survey parties operating view of the Myra Canyon trestles by in nearly impossible terrain, massive G.H. Hudson of Vernon (Figure 4-16). trestle and tunnel construction proj­ Many other high-quality photographs, ects, and inaugural celebrations make generally of trains operating on scenic this section the most interesting part of stretches of track or of abandoned the booL The following three chapters tresdes and buildings are by recent pho­ consider the operation of the railway, tographers such as Bill Presley, Lance first as an independent line, then as a Camp, André Morin, and the author, CPR affiliate, and finally as a fully fledged Barrie Sanford. Sanford also includes second mainline of the CPR. These chap­ many snapshots of train wrecks, winter ters explore the passenger and freight snow-removal operations, surveyor operations and include topics such as camps, and railway construction sites ijâ BC STUDIES

that, while of medium quality, are of example, for the photograph of the CPR value for their immediacy and drama steamers Rossland and Minto (1-2), (Figures 7-14 to 7-16 and 5-2 to 5-4). which was taken by R.H. Trueman The inclusion of one photograph is 8c Co. of Vancouver. The problem is questionable, that being the famous view frequently the result of archives not of a Kaslo ôc Slocan Railway engine and documenting their collections either at crew perched on a narrow track on a all or correctly. For example, the Pent- bluff above Kaslo. While the photograph icton Museum has not had the resources is dramatic and demonstrates better than to catalogue its photograph collection most the wild terrain through which and the BC Archives on-line documen­ railways were constructed in BC, it tation is inaccurate in its description of is not taken anywhere near KV terri­ the location of some photographs (4-28 tory. Sanford has included numerous and 4-29). I commend Sanford for cor­ photographs that present the working recting those errors. railway, for example, loading logs in the Steel Rails and Iron Men is a well- Nicola Valley (3-11) and loading coal in presented, accessible pictorial history Coalmont (6-24 and 6-25). Medium of the KV. Other books on the railway quality, but excellent, images of pack have more narrow niches. Kettle Valley trains hauling supplies to the railhead Railway Mileboards: A[n] Historical Field (4-6), tramways using horse-drawn carts Guide to the KVR (2003) by Joe Smuin to excavate materials (4-10), and men provides detailed physical, operational, constructing tunnels by the "English" and geographic information about method (4-26) represent railway con­ each site along the track. Kettle Valley struction. Railway (2003), Volume 1 of the Rail­ The most instructive feature of this ways of Western Canada series by Gerry book lies in the captions that indicate Doeksen, provides photographs, draw­ the date, location, and orientation of the ings, and specifications of engines for photograph, the collection from which railway buffs. Sanford's own McCulloch's they derive, and often the photographer. Wonder: The Story of the Kettle Valley Most importantly, they indicate why Railway explores in considerable detail Sanford thinks that the photograph is the political, strategic, and economic significant. A caption accompanying factors in the railway's birth, operation, a photograph of track-laying (4-19) and decline, using secondary sources, describes the method of construction, newspaper accounts, and some govern­ which adds substantial value to the ment publications. photograph. Another caption (6-26 and 6-27) describes the whole industry of cutting and transporting ice from Os- prey Lake, noting that 3,000 carloads of ice were loaded and shipped in fifteen days in 1919. One deficiency of the book is the lack of adequate documentation for both the text and some of the photographs. The photographs of Coquihalla surveyor paths gracing the pages before and after the title-page are from unknown sources. Documentation is, in fact, avail­ able to Sanford in certain instances, for Book Reviews SJ7

The First Russian Voyage pany agent, a hieromonk (i.e., a monk Around the World: who is also a priest), a naturalist, and others. The Journal of Von Lôwenstern's account has been Hermann Ludwig von labouriously translated from the collo­ Lowenstern (180J-1806). quial German (interspersed with French, German, Russian, and English) used in Translated by a typescript of an uncensored diary Victoria Joan Moessner (collated with the original manuscript) Fairbanks: University of Alaska intended only for family members. Press, 2003. 532 pp. As such it is refreshingly candid, particularly with respect to individual Illus. US$35.95 cloth. personalities, mainly the seemingly BY JAMES R. GIBSON conceited, arrogant, and coarse ambas­ York University sador, Imperial Chamberlain Nikolay Resanov. Von Lowenstern constantly villifies Resanov, frequently referring HE RUSSIAN VOYAGE around the to him as the "Grote Herr" and calling world (1803-06) recounted in this T him a "snake" (306) and a "Judas" (322). journal by the fourth officer and car­ In contrast, he speaks well of the steady, tographer of the expedition's flagship, lenient Captain Krusenstern, a fellow the Nadezhda (Hope), is noteworthy officer and a Baltic German compatriot on several counts. It was the country's (both Resanov and Krusenstern claimed maiden circumnavigation (which raises leadership of the expedition). Indeed, the interesting question of why it oc­ Von Lowenstern spends far too much curred so late, almost three centuries ink on personal clashes and, with the after Magellan's). It was thoroughly exception of a stopover at Canton, far multipurpose: economic, diplomatic, too little on the places and the peoples strategic, logistical, and scientific. It he visited. Unfortunately, not a little of anatagonized both Japan and China his querulous narrative degenerates into by trying (unsuccessfully) to establish tiresome name-calling and gossip. And commercial relations with the shogu- once Rezanov leaves the Nadezhda in nate and to open Canton to Russian Kamchatka after the abortive embassy merchants. It succeeded in saving new to Japan (and proceeds to romantic Archangel (Sitka), Russian America's fame in Alta California with Dona capital, from starvation by launching Conception), on the homeward voyage trade with Spanish California. It probed the author soon finds a new bette noir and charted new lands and waters, and in Lisiansky, the captain of the Neva, the collected and preserved exotic artifacts Nadezhdds sister ship. and specimens. It trained Russian sailors in pelagic seafaring, and it strengthened The translation of this work has Russia's position in the European circle obviously been a huge task, and the of maritime powers in general and in translator, a professor of German, merits the North Pacific sphere of international our thanks. I am unable to judge the ren­ rivalry in particular. All of this has been dering from German into English, but I well documented in half a dozen ac­ can point out that the latter is severely counts of the expedition by a variety of marred. There are far too many lapses participants with divergent views - the in grammar, punctuation (overused commander of the two ships, a Russian comma), and vocabulary ("reminisces" ambassador, a Russian-American Com­ instead of "reminiscences" [xxiii], Ij# BC STUDIES

"enthused" instead of "enthusiastic" ("SchellichofF instead of "Shelikhov" [xxii], "healthy" instead of "healthful" [6], "prikaschtschiks" instead of "prika- [183], "attest" instead of "attestation," zchiks" ["supercargoes"]) as well as the "onboard" instead of "aboard," etc.). repeated use of archaic English words There are scrambled sentences, un­ ("pickthank" ["toady"] [138], "subchiru- necessary "sics," and non-standard rius" ["paramedic"?]). I understand transliterations. Mistranslations from that much of this has to do with the the Russian abound: "agents for trans­ translator's desire to retain the flavour of port" should be "company workers" (4); the original manuscript, but I find such "forthwith" is incorrectly translated as renderings more intrusive than any­ "at that time" (7); the word translated as thing else (especially when the Cyrillic "niggard" actually means "bribe-taker" script is printed in small capitals). Her or "mercenary," which in any case would "Introduction" has far too much detail be better rendered as "pennypincher" (7, on the author s family background, and 8); the phrase "for the embassy" should the list of "Selected Contemporary be "for taking away" (124). There are Events during the Nadezbdds Voyage unexplained phrases (to be "put on around the World" is largely irrelevant. the drift" [14], to "toll out" [no]) and I noticed one howler: the invasion of places that are not discussed (Skaggerak "eastern Alaska" by Tsar Alexander I [14], Doggers Bank [14]). More careful in 1803 (xxix). The numerous illustra­ editing would have spotted such things. tions in colour and black and white are Also, foreign (mostly Russian) terms helpful, although some of the latter are are sometimes scrambled, and there too sketchy to be of much use. are a number of bad transliterations