94 BC STUDIES

He asserts that "the Xwelitem arrived Overall, I commend Carlson for his in Stô:lô territory and started taking presentation, especially his chronicle possession of Stô:lô and and resources" of smallpox and his presentation of (54). Such an assertion could have im­ Cheam's history. He has compiled his plications for land claims. The work meticulously and thoroughly, Xwelitem in fact started excluding each although he still measures Sto:lô his­ other, but there is no documentation tory as a response to colonialism, thus in Sto:lô(or any other) records of Stô:lô echoing European values. He cites Stô:lô land and resources being ceded. The history as though it were relevant only Stô:lôpeople, from historical times to to the past and speaks of Stô:lôpeople the present, resist the appropriation of as though they were objects of the past. their land and resources, to which they Perhaps, with the continued parti­ still assert title, as is evident in Carlsons cipation of the Stô:lô Nation, he will own documentation (as well as in the be able to assist in defining the Stô:lô recent news). The centrepiece photo­ people as a living part of - as parti­ graph (75-6) provides a graphic example cipating subjects in - Canada's future of recognition of title and rights from history and to view Canada as part of the Indigenous perspective. Stôilô history.

Boston Men'on the Northwest Coast: The American Maritime Fur Trade, 1788-1844 Mary Malloy Kingston, Ontario, and Fairbanks, Alaska: Limestone, 1998. 232 pp. US$28 cloth.

By Jim Delgado Vancouver Maritime Museum

HE MARITIME FUR TRADE of histories of the trade, written by mariner the Northwest Coast has been William Dane Phelps just a few Tthe subject of a number of decades after the events he recorded. works in both the United States and Mary Malloy's "Boston Men' is a Canada over the last century. Recent focused, detailed study that examines studies include James R. Gibson's the nature of American involvement Otter Skins, Boston Ships, and China in the trade. It builds on a number of Goods (1992), Richard Somerset earlier works, integrating new Mackie's Trading Beyond the Mountains: scholarship, a detailed examination of The British Fur Trade on the Pacific, a number of original ship's logs and 1793-1843 (1997), and Fur Traders from journals, and an anthropological per­ New England: The Boston Men in the spective on the nature of American North Pacific, iySy-1800 (1997), edited shipboard society, Native societies, and by Briton C. Busch and Barry M. their interactions. The maritime fur Gough, which presents one of the first trade was characterized as dangerous Book Reviews 95 and violent in American popular cul­ The second part of the book offers ture of the nineteenth century; Malloy an encyclopaedic listing of American assesses this perception and finds that vessels engaged in the trade and a it unfairly colours the real nature of the gazetteer of Native villages, landmarks, trade as a mercantile venture plagued and trade centres. There are a few more by an uncertain market for trade minor errors, such as the assertion that goods among the Native peoples than the Hudson's Bay Company esta­ by vessel seizure and attack. blished Fort Taku in 1811, fourteen The book is divided into two parts. years before it established any presence The first part offers a historiographical on the Coast. But these are quibbles review of the literature in the intro­ and do not interfere with the value of duction, "In the Wake of the Boston the work. The second part, due to its Men," which is followed by Chapters sheer page count (63-204), dominates 1 and 2, "Boston Trade on the North­ the book. It represents significant re­ west Coast" and "Shipboard Society search and a considerable contribution and Northwest Coast Indian Society," to the historiography of the maritime respectively. In Chapter 2, Malloy's fur trade, building on F.W. Howay's long association with the maritime landmarks List of Fur Trading Vessels world (as a scholar, educator, and in the Maritime Fur Trade, 1785-1825, museum professional) enables her to edited by Richard A. Pierce and provide the reader with an under­ republished by Limestone Press in standing of the nuances and realities 1973- of shipboard life, routine, discipline, Malloy's insights, and the ency­ and technology. She shows how these clopaedic nature of the book, make things influenced the sailors, their "Boston Men" a worthy addition to the officers, and the people with whom literature and a must for the scholar's they traded. library.

ifer Go/

By Daniel P. Marshall University of British Columbia

T LONG LAST a book has been (in excess of 30,000) into the traditional written about the most cata­ lands of First Nations peoples. As a A clysmic event ever to have descendant of Cornish miners who occurred in British Columbia's history joined in the 1858 rush, I have always - the Fraser River gold rush and the found it puzzling that the Fraser rush massive invasion of non-Native miners has received so little attention, con­