Review of Mavericks: an Incorrigible History of Alberta by Aritha Van Herk

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Fall 2002 Review of Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta By Aritha van Herk Donald B. Smith University of Calgary, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Smith, Donald B., "Review of Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta By Aritha van Herk" (2002). Great Plains Quarterly. 2304. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2304 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 292 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, FALL 2002 Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta. By Aritha van Herk. Toronto: Penguin Books Canada, Ltd., 2001. Map, photographs, illus trations, selected bibliography, and index. xii + 434 pp. $36.00. Aritha van Herk's well-written and fast paced Mavericks provides an excellent intro duction to Alberta. Served up without BOOK REVIEWS 293 footnotes, Mavericks is not history, at least in ters she confesses her confusion as to why the the academic sense. What Aritha van Herk, a tough, hard to intimidate Albertans often be professor of English at the University of have "like a herd of lemmings," electing one Calgary, provides instead is a fascinating per party governments. sonal view of Alberta's past. It contains valu Van Herk, one of Alberta's best novelists, able insights into how many Albertans view regales the reader with well-crafted word pic themselves and describes particularly well tures. Tightly she describes the political phi many Albertans' views about their relation losophy of the transplanted American, Henry ship with the rest of Canada. Wise Wood, an important Alberta farm leader: The first chapter, "Aggravating, Awful, "He maintained that the world was divided Awkward, Awesome Alberta," is all about the into nasties and heroes; the nasties were com Albertan attitude. What propels the book, petitive aristocrats who persistently tried to what glues it together, is an intense animosity tread on the heroic co-operative democrats." toward what the author terms the "Centre," Excellent job on Wise Wood, but her limited undoubtedly Ontario, and most definitely Ot historical background occasionally trips her tawa, the federal capital, and Toronto, up. Her description of Dr. Walter Cheadle, an Canada's financial capitaL At the outset she early English traveler, as one of an influx of declares: "It's the Centre we hate." Through "romantic ninnies" slights an acutely percep out the book she decries "the West's position tive and reliable mid-nineteenth century ob as colonial property, to be traded and ex server. In England he later became one of the ploited." Chronology determines the form of first supporters of the right of women to a the next nine chapters which clearly review medical career. the geological background of the province; Putting down this wonderfully-written First Peoples; early European visitors; the ar book, so full of bluster against the "Centre," rival of the Mounties, ranchers, settlers, then one profound question remains: Why did the politicians. Four final chapters review other author choose a firm in the bad place to pub topics: Alberta's two largest cities, Calgary lish it? Yes, Mavericks was brought out by Vi and Edmonton; the history of women; and king Penguin in Toronto! Alberta's twentieth-century culture and soci ety. The author compares Albertans to maver DONALD B. SMITH icks, range calves without owners, individuals Department of History resistant "to being caught, owned, herded, University of Calgary taxed, or identified." Yet in her political chap-.

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