BOOK AND FILM REVIEWS

Writing the Body in Motion: flawed, and tragic sports hero Terry A Critical Anthology on Sawchuk, an NHL goalie depicted Night Work: The Canadian Sport Literature in Russell Maggs’s Sawchuck Poems. Angie Abdou and Jamie Dopp, Sports literature offers narratives editors that endure beyond the rink, mat, or pool; most selections discussed in the Edmonton: Athabasca University 2018 248 $34 99 book examine the condition of being Press, . pp. . paper. human. They are relevant literature, exploring themes that enable readers to Tyree McCrackin University of Alberta “read themselves” into the story, whether or not they are athletes. For example, Cory Willard takes a close look at how riting the Body in Motion, edited by Thomas Wharton’s Icefields “explores W BC writers and literary scholars the commodification of the natural Angie Abdou and Jamie Dopp, is an world as he charts Byrne’s journey into introduction and literary companion for the embodied experience of place” (71), readers wishing to delve into Canadian something that will resonate with readers sports literature. The book is an asset observing a similar commodification to those who “want strong academic of wilderness in regions of British essays to assign to their students, as Columbia. Willard’s analysis serves as examples of the critical analysis of sport an accompaniment to Icefields, aiding literature” (3). The editors have curated readers in unravelling the complexity of eleven critical chapters that deal with Wharton’s award-winning novel. original stories about diverse sports Sport can be a powerful metaphorical such as mountaineering, wrestling, tool, and the genre of sport literature and swimming, thereby attending has the potential to explore the human to the scope and breadth of sport condition. It can serve as both a literature in Canada. These chapters are microcosm and a pressure cooker, rich and varied, from Cory Willard’s allowing for a complex and honest ecocritical approach to alpinism in exposition of greater literary themes – Thomas Wharton’s Icefields to Paul as the chapters in Writing the Body in Martin’s examination of the enigmatic, Motion explore. For example, Gyllian bc studies no. 203, Autumn 2019 147 148 bc studies

Phillips’s chapter on Angie Abdou’s Geoff Powter’s thirty-year career. The novel The Bone Cage explores the author’s book guides the reader through his treatment of the hero myth, a common life’s journey as he explores mountains trope in sports fiction. Phillips looks at and mountain life, enriched by his own the novel’s alteration of the triumphant reflections and personal development hero-athlete figure seen in the story of (12). As a former editor for Polar two Olympians pushed by training to the Circus magazine and the Canadian brink of bodily deterioration as Abdou Alpine Journal, Powter’s incorporation subverts the hero theme. of twenty-six pieces of mountain The authors anthologize secondary adventures, tragedies, conflicts, and sources for use in postsecondary fulfillment portrays mountains as classrooms and share works that stand cultural and environmental landscapes as exemplary critical analyses of sport moulded by the people and animals literature. They have also produced a within them. collection that is relevant to the lives With an emphasis on physical of readers as it enables them to see pursuits in Canada’s mountains and the themselves anew through the challenges Himalayas, Powter carefully incorporates of sport and movement. The book stories of exploration with stories of contributes to the genre of sports conflict and tragedy to draw the reader literature as it is sure to engage readers into the inner world of those seeking both inside and outside an academic refuge within mountains through a setting. It guides students and interested physical connection. Returning from the readers towards a deeper understanding eight-thousand-metre peak of Manaslu, of essential works in Canadian sport Powter realizes that his mountain world literature by helping to unlock the feels different from the busy popular complexities of these texts. Many readers hiking trails below that are full of “people will find themselves making a beeline from the other world” (68). Those outside to their nearest bookseller to purchase this mountain life see the beauty of the gems of Canadian sport literature that large mountains and miss the conflicts they have discovered by reading this and tragedies caused by mistakes and fascinating anthology. arrogance. Powter draws attention to issues specific to this mountain world Inner Ranges: An Anthology – where climbers are injured or killed of Mountain Thoughts and because of carelessness, an unending desire to reach high places, the pursuit of Mountain People fame, and a lack of human compassion. Geoff Powter While reflecting on this, he states: “The big mountains aren’t always the most Victoria, BC: Rocky Mountain noble of places” (67). Books, 2018. 360 pp. $22.00 paper. Historically, treacherous and inaccessible peaks were valued as Michelle Murphy University of Alberta masculine spaces that only some could conquer. Glaciers and valleys became demasculinized areas that were easier nner Ranges: An Anthology of achievements than the high-altitude IMountain Thoughts and Mountain climbs that were completed mostly People is a collection of mountain- by men (Reidy 2015, 163–64). Other inspired pieces written throughout narratives seek to contest this idea of Book and Film Reviews 149

“heroic masculinity” (Bayers 2003, 1–2). Searching for Tao Canyon Powter challenges the value of physical achievements through his examination Pat Morrow, Jeremy Schmidt, of the mountain world. He acknowledges and Art Twomey his own desire to reach high places but Victoria, BC: Rocky Mountain argues that such desire should not come Books, 2018. 184 pp. $30.00 cloth. at the price of safety. Powter’s pursuit of mountain climbing Andreas Rutkauskas has led to his exploration of other aspects University of British Columbia of mountain cultural and environmental Okanagan landscapes; he eventually “became just as interested in the walk to a climb as [he] was in the climb itself” (94). His earching for Tao Canyon, the investigation into the deaths of wild Soutcome of decades of exploring horses in central Alberta showcases a previously uncharted slot canyons in “hidden” aspect of mountain life that the American Southwest, is dedicated is filled with contestation and outrage. to the accomplished photographer, While some believe that these horses glacier geologist, and conservationist damage the ecosystem, others argue Art Twomey, who was instrumental in that their populations are maintained by the formation of the Purcell Wilderness large predators and that there is limited Conservancy. It is therefore fitting evidence to indicate that they displace that advocacy for the preservation of game animals (102). Earth’s remaining wild spaces is at the Powter’s collection of pieces is an forefront of this compact volume, which intriguing examination of the thoughts integrates wistful text with photographs and lives of those connected to the by Twomey and his friends Pat Morrow mountains. Drawing on his experiences, and Jeremy Schmidt. he weaves together a collection of Engaging with a historic kinship stories – the result shows Powter’s between photography and wilderness personal evolution within the mountain conservation, Tao Canyon’s narrative landscape. The strength of his story is points to the fine balance between the sharp contrast of the physicality of raising environmental awareness and mountains with his own self-reflection attracting greater numbers of tourists and transformation as a result of time to remote destinations. Twomey spent within these landscapes. The recognized this prospect after one of stories portray the evolution of those his images of a slot canyon appeared in who seek out these places for physical the 1974 Sierra Club Wilderness Calendar, achievement and pleasure and who leave subsequently changing the nature of that with a deep appreciation of, and respect site inexorably. In the book’s main text, and admiration for, mountains. titled In the Jaw of the Dragon, Schmidt References laments the loss of landscape in the wake of infrastructural projects such as Bayers, Peter L. Imperial Ascent: Mountain- eering, Masculinity, and Empire. the Glen Canyon Dam, and its epilogue Boulder: makes direct reference to the rescinded University Press of Colorado, 2003. Reidy, Michael S. “Mountaineering, Mascu- protection of a sizable portion of Bears linity, and the Male Body in Mid-Victorian Ears National Monument in Utah. Britain.” Osiris 30 (2015): 158–81. On a humbler scale, Schmidt recounts transporting a gopher snake in order to 150 bc studies provide the reptile with a more suitable and Twomey’s text and remarkable home, only to return a week later to find it photographs question the ethics of dead. No matter how well intentioned our visualizing fragile landscapes, and give actions may be, any human intervention us pause to consider terrain threatened in these delicate ecosystems may have by climate change, increased population dire consequences. Deliberate then is the density, the extractive industry, and our author’s choice to erase all geographic, desire to get off the beaten track. traditional, or established place names in an effort to preserve the sense of mystery and adventure involved in discovering Chasing Smoke: A Wildfire these canyons. Tao Canyon is first and foremost a book Memoir of photography, and its visuals present an Aaron Williams alternative to the cliché image of a slot canyon as decidedly abstract, devoid of Madeira Park, BC: Harbour people, and fundamentally lacking any Publishing, 2017. 192 pp. $22.95 paper. sense of scale. Morrow, Schmidt, and Robert Scott Twomey’s photographs concentrate on University of Colorado Boulder the experience of being present in these majestic places, including the difficulties of hauling four-by-five-inch large-format hasing Smoke is a memoir centred camera equipment through water-choked Con Aaron Williams’s account of passageways and rappelling with heavy being a wildland firefighter in British kit into ink-black canyon mouths. While Columbia during the 2014 fire season. the reader will find calendar-perfect Williams managed fire as a Telkwa images of subtly coloured sandstone walls Ranger, a wildland firefighter at the within this book, these are tempered Telkwa Fire Attack Base, for nine by a more documentary approach that consecutive fire seasons. The book is reveals the photographer at work. The organized to chronicle the ninth. It incorporation of performative imagery contributes to the literature on the lived of hands touching stone, the dancing of experience of wildland firefighting, explorers above the canyon floor, and long which includes few publications about or multiple exposures lend a haunting the job in British Columbia. In the front quality to certain photographs. It also half, Williams primarily introduces the bears mentioning that they did all of this Telkwa Ranger unit crew, describes in Converse sneakers and bell-bottom annual fitness tests, details training jeans. One particularly stunning diptych at “rookie week” and in courses, and reveals two versions of an identical depicts the crew’s first fire. In the back vantage; only the light changes between half, Williams primarily discusses one frame and the next, demonstrating additional fires the crew helped manage. how the time of day can dramatically alter The book is composed of dialogue, inner our impression of a place and suggesting monologue, and descriptive writing. the power of geological time that formed There are no references to other works. these landscapes. Yet Chasing Smoke reveals much about Ultimately, Searching for Tao Canyon the life of wildland firefighters, who imparts a poignant message that may often work many hours in remote areas be applied well beyond the scope and interact with the same people for of slot canyons. Morrow, Schmidt, weeks at a time. They generally know Book and Film Reviews 151 much about local landscapes and how to of this information throughout the book, manage any fires that occur there. They but it would have been helpful had he sometimes have family connections devoted a chapter to it. In addition, I in the wildland fire community, and think readers who are unfamiliar with they judge each other’s abilities and wildland fire management terminology behaviours. They influence, and are would benefit from a glossary of terms influenced by, crew cohesion, morale, (the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire and hierarchies. These are only a few Centre offers a glossary online). Most examples of the information contained terms in the book are defined but not all. in this book. Last, I think the quality of the writing Although Chasing Smoke is not a is inconsistent. Sometimes sentence and scholarly work that rigorously analyzes paragraph transitions need to be stronger, data for the sake of scientific discovery, and occasionally some of the details he Williams’s account includes components provides are frivolous. Moreover, the that relate to themes in recent research writing seems forced at times. This is about wildland firefighters. For example, most apparent in the frequent use of many researchers discuss how gender and analogies and similes. I make these sexuality affect being and becoming a points about quality of writing because wildland firefighter. Williams’s account Chasing Smoke can be classified as creative includes ideas about being a man (113, non-fiction, a genre that demands great 184) and toughness (161), competitions writing. Even though such writing is and contests (19, 42, 49, 104, 161), sexual not apparent in this book overall, there fantasies and objectification 86( , 99, 100, are strong sections in which Williams, a 128, 129), and sexual discussions and jokes first-time author, shows promise. (65, 66, 73, 94, 133, 165, 185). Researchers have used similar data to conceptualize wildland firefighter masculinity. Many Sailing with Vancouver: of these researchers engage in critical A Modern Sea Dog, commentary, but Williams does not. Antique Charts, and a Nonetheless, he provides a timely contribution to the wildland firefighter Voyage through Time literature. Although Chasing Smoke Sam McKinney offers little to people who study natural disasters or wildland firefighting, it Vancouver: Touchwood Editions, may interest people who want to learn 2018. 190 pp. $20.00 paper. something about what life is like for Sean Fraga wildland firefighters in British Columbia. Princeton University No matter why people read the book, though, they must not forget that it is based on Williams’s perspective. n Sailing with Vancouver, the late In conclusion, I think a short chapter Imaritime writer Sam McKinney on (1) how many fire seasons Williams follows the path of Captain George was employed and in what positions, Vancouver’s 1792 expedition through the (2) the Telkwa Rangers and its crew, and Pacific Northwest’s inland waters. Part (3) British Columbia’s fire management saltwater travelogue, part historical program, including the types of crews in reflection, McKinney uses the region’s the province, would have strengthened coastal geography to weave together the publication. Williams sprinkles some past and present. 152 bc studies

While Vancouver entered the British Columbia. Unlike these works, Northwest with two deep-sea sailing McKinney focuses tightly on Vancouver’s ships and more than two hundred men, route, and his narrative is correspondingly McKinney has only a small sailboat, shorter – fewer than two hundred pages with himself as crew. He purchased – making Sailing with Vancouver well- the sailboat, Kea, a twenty-five-foot adapted to classroom use. (7.62 metre) Vertue, at age seventy, and But for all his careful attention decided to retrace Vancouver’s voyage as to Northwest waters, McKinney both a personal challenge and as a means largely ignores the region’s Indigenous of exploring the region’s past. McKinney peoples. For much of the narrative, the opens the book at the mouth of Juan de only Natives are the ones McKinney Fuca Strait, sails to the head of Puget reads about in Vancouver’s logbooks; Sound, turns north and threads through contemporary Native people first appear the San Juan Islands, then follows the more than a third of the way through the Gulf of Georgia and the Inside Passage book, when McKinney buys seafood from to Cape Caution, at the northern end Squaxin Island near his home marina. of Queen Charlotte Strait. Along the The afterword, a list of Northwest Coast way, McKinney quotes from journals place names, is a missed opportunity to kept by the expedition’s crew, sketches discuss the politics of naming, memory, the Northwest’s shoreline history, and and recognition. Readers would benefit describes contemporary anchorages with from pairing McKinney’s slim book an essayist’s eye, ultimately taking us on a with Joshua Reid’s far more expansive nautical journey through space and time. The Sea Is My Country( 2015), a maritime The book’s strongest points occur when history of the Makahs, or with Coll McKinney directly shadows Vancouver, Thrush’s palimpsest approach to cultural as when he follows Vancouver’s course geography in Native Seattle (2007). past the Fraser River’s mouth to The book’s several maps, by Les understand why Vancouver missed it. Hopkins, would be more helpful if they (The river’s wide delta effectively hides included McKinney’s or Vancouver’s it from an observer a few kilometres out routes – or even additional detail. to sea.) When McKinney follows the Instead, the reader is often left searching expedition through the narrow channels for place names that are mentioned in separating the Gulf of Georgia from the narrative but that do not appear Queen Charlotte Strait, he finds that on the maps. Elsewhere, a few small his modern charts and tide tables make errors of historical fact distract from the tidal currents no less daunting. These McKinney’s narrative, and some nautical moments fill the narrative’s sails like gusts terminology may confuse landlubbers. of wind. At other points, though, as when On the whole, though, McKinney McKinney recites a list of points along has written a compact, accessible his voyage, the book tends to flag. introduction to the historical and McKinney sails in the wake of other present-day maritime Pacific Northwest, literary mariners. Jonathan Raban one that will be equally interesting also follows part of Vancouver’s route to scholars, recreational boaters, and in Passage to Juneau (1999), his Inside armchair explorers. Although McKinney Passage travelogue, and M. Wylie sailed alone, his lively account brings Blanchet references Vancouver in The readers along for the ride. Curve of Time (1961), an account of her family’s summer voyages through coastal Book and Film Reviews 153

References the second by ten years, a period in Blanchet, M. Wylie. 1961. The Curve of Time. which Converse recorded the changes in the coastal region and expanded Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons. 2 Raban, Jonathan. 1999. Passage to Juneau: A her biographical introduction ( ). Sea and Its Meanings. New York: Pantheon She states that her goal is to “offer a Books. balance between the public and private Reid, Joshua. 2015. The Sea Is My Country: The 2 Maritime World of the Makahs, an Indigenous dimensions of Capi’s life” ( ). Thus, Borderlands People. New Haven: Yale Converse provides a well-researched University Press. portrait of Muriel Wylie Blanchet Thrush, Coll.2007 . Native Seattle: Histories (née Liffiton), an adventurous woman from the Crossing-Over Place. Seattle: Uni- who was “born in Montreal on May 2, versity of Washington Press. 1891” (11). She tells readers that she has always had an interest in remarkable women and their accomplishments Following the Curve of Time: (1) and that Capi fills that bill for she never gave “a thought to what she as a The Untold Story of Capi 68 Blanchet woman should or should not do” ( ). Nor did she fall “prey to the dictates of Cathy Converse cultural norms regarding women and boating” (68). Indeed, Converse tells us, Victoria, BC: Touchwood Editions, Blanchet earned the nickname of Capi 2018 224 $20.00 . p. paper. “when she became captain of her own boat, the Caprice” (1). She also shows Shirley McDonald University of British Columbia admiration for Capi as a writer, stating “there is a physical eloquence to her Okanagan writing” as her travelogue “captures the heart, the force, the chi of the coast [… athy Converse’s Following the and] presents tantalizing but transient Curve of Time: The Untold Story images of place, light and colour” (65). Cof Capi Blanchet is a companion piece Converse’s writing is no less eloquent as to Blanchet’s coastal travelogue The she reveals Blanchet’s development as Curve of Time and one that enriches the a child and a youth in eastern Canada, latter’s reading. Both monographs offer growing up “along the banks of the detailed accounts of the experiences of St. Lawrence River” (11); her nurturing travelling Georgia Strait by boat from in “an educated household that the tip of Vancouver Island in the south encouraged intellectual pursuits” (22); to the Broughton Archipelago in the her marriage “between 1910 and 1912” north. Converse’s interest in elucidating (35); her family’s move to Vancouver The Curve of Time is based partly Island in 1922 when her husband on the fact that it “has been on the suffered from ill health caused by market for forty-six years” and is listed stress (38, 40); the death of her husband by the Vancouver Maritime Museum (presumed drowned); and her transition “as one of the top 35 maritime books to widowhood in 1926 when her fifth written about British Columbia” (5). child was young and quite dependent Converse’s Following the Curve of Time on her (57–58). Blanchet’s own story will no doubt share that popularity for begins at that time, when she asserts it is a good read in its own right. There her independence, takes command of are two editions: the first precedes the family’s “7.6-metre cabin cruiser” 154 bc studies

(49), and, stowing her children, the Inlet)” to “fish the eulachon for their family dog, and a minimal amount of oil or r’lina (pronounced ‘gleetna’), an camping gear and foodstuffs onto the important food staple rich in vitamins small craft, embarks on a summer-long and minerals,” and a resource valued voyage up, down, and around the Inside not only “as a food and for its medicinal Passage. Until the mid-1930s, Converse properties” but also as a “sign of wealth” writes, the voyages are summer sojourns (158). Converse augments her illumination from the family’s regular life in a log of Blanchet’s travelogue with significant house “at Curteis Point on the Saanich discussions of the region – “the Great Peninsula at the south end of Vancouver Bear Rainforest” – informing readers of Island” (40). the great strides in conservation practices There are parallels between Blanchet’s that were made in January 2007 through seafaring travelogue and Converse’s the establishment of the “Great Bear experiences for, she explains, she and her Rainforest Agreement,” which “will husband “set out in Ikkutut in the summer protect over 2 million hectares from of 2006 to revisit all of the places Capi logging, and [place] 7 million hectares … had written about” (1). Similarly, Blanchet under an ecological management system” remarks that she retraced the route that (157). Thus, she offers an enlightened Captain Vancouver took as he explored history of the BC coastal region and of the region (19). Thus, she views the land the peoples whose home it has been since and people through colonial eyes. In this time immemorial. Yet, both Converse’s respect, a contrast emerges in the authors’ Following the Curve of Time and The Curve perspectives of the coastal inlets and of Time – as complementary texts – offer islands. Converse explicitly acknowledges pleasurable reading. that the region through which she is Reference travelling comprises the traditional and unceded territories of “the ‘Nak’waxda’xw Blanchet, M. Wylie. The Curve of Time. Grey’s of Ba’a’s (Blunden Harbour), the Publishing Ltd., 1968. First published Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis of 1961 by William Blackwood and Sons Gwa’yas’dums (Gilford Village) [and] (Edinburgh). the Tlowitsis from Kalagwees (Tournour 7 Island)” ( ). At times, Converse seems Water Rites: to apologize for Blanchet’s attitude towards Indigenous peoples, such as Reimagining Water in the West her disrespect of their burial boxes Jim Ellis, editor (143). At others, she criticizes Blanchet’s plundering of Indigenous belongings, Calgary: University of Calgary such as a copper bracelet that she took Press, 2018. 168 pp. $29.99 paper. and “wore for years” (143). Regardless of her view of Blanchet’s attitudes, Zander Albertson Converse claims that her “reminiscences Western Washington University are important because she captured a people in transition” (122). To supplement n Water Rites: Reimagining Water that record, Converse provides detailed in the West, editor Jim Ellis has descriptions of the cultural practices of assembledI scholarly writing, insightful Indigenous peoples like the Da’naxda’xw commentary, and engaging visual and Kwakwaka’wakw, noting their imagery to better understand the annual return to “Dzawadi (Knight myriad human connections to water in Book and Film Reviews 155

Alberta. Though geographically focused chapters as topics are brought to life in its content, the conceptual terrain through varied and positional experiences covered in this visually appealing of water – emotions, senses, identity, and volume should be of interest to both memory complement the more traditional scholarly and lay readers interested in academic writing found in the volume. water issues in western Canada and As an example of the breadth of North America. Interspersed with approaches, Helen Knott grapples with full-colour photographs, maps, and what it means to be an Indigenous activist artwork, the chapters from fourteen and community member in the face of contributors address a wonderfully having been dispossessed of the land and wide range of water-related topics. The nature itself, while Adrian Parr reminds volume’s subtitle aptly reveals one of readers that water is just as much a site the key contributions of the work: in of political struggle as it is an ecological approaching the topic of water from resource. I particularly enjoyed the the perspective of both “rights” and thought-provoking set of photographs “rites,” the contributors reveal the ways and writings exploring the city of in which water is not merely a resource Calgary’s Public Art Program, which to be rationally managed and governed sparks an interest in where the common but is simultaneously entangled with municipal water comes from, how it the cultural imaginary, the political, travels, and how experiences are shaped and the spiritual. by that shared water. As Ellis observes: Ellis’s well-curated collection was “Science can offer proof of climate inspired by the proceedings of the Calgary change, the humanities can explore and Institute for the Humanities’ Annual expose its human dimensions, and art Community Seminar of 2017, whose persuades us on a different – and arguably theme was “Water in the West: Rights more fundamental – level, intervening in of Water / Rights to Water.” At first the imagination. All of these approaches glance, Water Rites seems to address the are necessary and complementary ” (xvi). standard litany of water issues: water law, Film stills, two appendices detailing UN collaborative governance, climate change, declarations on human and Indigenous justice and inequality, and deteriorating rights to water, and detailed bibliographic water quality and quantity. Though these notes complete this well-rounded work. may be the “usual suspects” for a book Significantly, First Nations on water, it is the interdisciplinary and perspectives are given a strong voice in humanistic approach, clearly rooted this volume, which greatly contributes to in a strong sense of place, that makes existing literature on water issues in the for enjoyable and engaging reading. In West. Additionally, there is engagement his introduction, Ellis asserts: “All of with the pressing topics of a political these water issues are connected, and landscape increasingly dominated by point to our own connectedness: the neoliberalism. Approaching Water Rites flow of water connects human activity from the perspective of an American, I all along its course, affecting all life found the text accessible, informative, forms downstream – whether they be and inspirational in spite of my limited human, animal, or plant. Water visibly knowledge of the specific region. reminds us of our connections, as well Scholars with a background in water in as our responsibility, to those that share the American West will find material the same watershed” (xv). This sense here that enlarges the scope of water in of connection and holism pervades the “the West,” while also receiving a critical 156 bc studies introduction to water issues bound up identify everyone who resided in the with Canadian laws and policies. By region, even if briefly, during the era incorporating narratives documenting under consideration. The book opens both pressing problems and collaborative with a broad view of the landscape and solutions, the volume presents the reader settlement of the Cariboo Plateau, and with both a sense of urgency and the with a discussion on the history and possibility of justice and change, bringing culture of the region’s First Peoples, the us one step closer to reimagining water Secwépemc.The chapters that follow in the West. provide a detailed look at the process of land settlement, the establishment of the roadhouses, and the chief economic The Land on Which We Live: activities in the area. MacPherson Life on the Cariboo Plateau – effectively captures the difficulties involved in settling and working the land 70 Mile House to Bridge Lake in a place with such severe winters and a Barbara MacPherson relatively short growing season. Indeed, many settlers struggled to fulfill their Halfmoon Bay, BC: Caitlin Press, agricultural and ranching aspirations 2017. 240 pp. $24.95 paper. and stayed only for a short time in the Cariboo before moving on. While much Tina Block of the book centres on the relationship Thompson Rivers University between settlers and the land, several chapters are also dedicated to aspects of n recent years, the historiography social and community life in the region, Iof British Columbia has burgeoned. including leisure activities, women’s roles, Much of this rich and growing health care, schooling, and voluntary scholarship focuses on the province as organizations. Woven throughout the a whole or on its urban centres. We still book, and at its heart, are the rich, have much to learn about the distinct compelling stories of the families who experiences and histories of those who settled, or attempted to settle, in the lived in British Columbia’s small towns various communities and subregions of and rural areas. In its exploration of the Cariboo Plateau. life on the Cariboo Plateau, Barbara The Land on Which We Live is a finely MacPherson’s The Land on Which We grained work of local and family history. Live offers an important and welcome MacPherson complements the text with addition to the existing historiography. photographs from the time and integrates The Land on Which We Live foregrounds extensive primary source material, the experiences of those people who lived including excerpts from memoirs of, between 70 Mile House and Bridge and interviews with, people who lived in Lake from the early settlement era to the region. The book’s appendix, which 1959, when technological innovations outlines the history and trajectory of all began to make inroads into, and to of the families identified by MacPherson, fundamentally change, life in Cariboo will prove a valuable resource for others communities. Drawing on an impressive interested in conducting research on the range of sources, including land records, area. While rich in detail about the lives town directories, vital statistics, cemetery of particular people in a specific region, records, memoirs, newspapers, and this book also offers broader insights, interviews, MacPherson sets out to not least of which is that place matters. Book and Film Reviews 157

According to MacPherson, the “Cariboo and primary source bibliography. It Plateau was a place that shaped and is recommended reading for anyone formed those who lived there” (17). In interested in the history of settlement, this book, the Cariboo Plateau is not the labour, the family, and rural society in backdrop to, or container for, historical British Columbia. events and processes that could have happened anywhere. Instead, it is an actor in this story, a place with a distinctive Gold Rush Manliness: Race and landscape and history that shaped and Gender on the Pacific Slope reflected the people who lived in and were drawn to it. MacPherson shows Christopher Herbert the significance of the “land on which Seattle: University of Washington we live” to who we are, at not only the 2018 288 $30.00 national and provincial but also the local Press, . pp. paper. level. Although she reveals the deep Alice Gorton attachment to the land felt by many Columbia University residents of the region, MacPherson does not romanticize the place or its peoples. In The Land on Which We Live, en years and many kilometres the Cariboo Plateau appears as a place of separated two distinct, yet in both life and death, success and struggle, someT ways similar, gold rushes. In joy and frustration – and, often, as a place 1848, rumours of gold at Sutter’s Mill where expectations and realities did not sparked a process that would lure meet. While the book nicely captures roughly 265,000 people to California, the complexity of life on the Cariboo a land that held out the promise of Plateau, it would be enriched by further vast wealth at the same time as it attention to the culture and history of the represented uncertainty, an unfamiliar Secwépemc people and to Indigenous- “frontier” to be crossed and conquered. settler relations in the region beyond A decade later, in 1858, stories about the settlement era. In addition, religion the presence of gold in the Fraser and the churches get scant mention in Valley incited a smaller but analogous the book, which perhaps speaks to the migration to the region now known as comparatively secular character of the British Columbia. Despite differences region and of British Columbia as a between the two cases, the gold rushes whole. Further discussion on the role (or led to the violent dispossession and lack thereof) of religion and the churches displacement of Indigenous peoples, in the communities of the Cariboo the development of new political Plateau would deepen our understanding cultures, and the consolidation of settler of how and why this place was, and is, regimes. As historian Christopher distinctive. Herbert persuasively argues in Gold The Land on Which We Live makes an Rush Manliness, gender and race were important contribution to local history at the heart of these transformations. in British Columbia. Filled with family According to Herbert, white men who stories, this book will be of special interest headed west in pursuit of gold refashioned to those who reside, or have resided, in the masculine ideals in response to their new region. Historians of British Columbia environments and in contradistinction will find the book useful for the detailed to a range of “Others,” including black history it offers and for its rich appendix people, Chinese people, and Indigenous 158 bc studies peoples. Absent secure political and a composite ideal of white manhood social institutions, “gold rushers” saw emerged in both California and British the reconstitution of white masculinity Columbia, even as it took on different as a means to create order in a gold features in each. Clearly written and rush world they perceived as chaotic coherently organized, the book suggests and unrecognizable, entirely unlike that shared gender ideologies influenced the societies they left behind in Britain the development of a “gold rush system,” and the eastern United States. In their which existed above and below the 49th efforts to recreate hierarchies, white parallel. Herbert positions the gold rushes prospectors cultivated a set of norms not as episodic anomalies but, rather, as that linked “martial” tendencies with the nodes in a web of interconnected events more “restrained” Victorian customs that that took place around the Pacific Rim. characterized social life in the east. With deft clarity, he shifts scales between In five thematic chapters, Herbert the general and the particular to reveal shows that this colonial order existed up how the meanings of manliness changed and down the Pacific Slope, though his between 1848 and 1871. comparative method also foregrounds For historians of British Columbia, regional particularities. White men Herbert’s comparison adds an American who travelled via the continent, the counterpoint to the study of masculinity “Overlanders,” experimented with in mining communities, contributing to martial manliness on their journeys earlier work by historians such as Adele across the Plains, while the seaborne Perry and Robert Hogg, who have “Argonauts” viewed the passage through emphasized the British colonial case. Latin America as a test case to prepare A compelling survey of gender, race, for the goldfields (chap. 1). Likewise, labour, and politics, Gold Rush Manliness local conditions generated divergent should be read by scholars interested in political structures. In California, gold the cultural logic of settler colonialism rushers limited civic participation by in Western history. invoking republicanism and the rhetoric of citizenship; in British Columbia, a combination of purportedly “colourblind” Engaging the Line: How policies and English nationalism, defined the Great War Shaped the in contrast to American culture, trumped the republican ethos (chaps. 2 and 3). Canada-US Border American and British colonists shared Brandon R. Dimmel racialized beliefs about the meanings of manhood but often viewed each other Vancouver: UBC Press, 2016. 242 pp. with disdain. These divisions informed $32.95 paper. gold rushers’ cultural practices, though in general white men in the West agreed Chris Leach that leisure activities, risk-taking, and University of the Fraser Valley outward appearances served as useful markers of in-group membership (chaps. hat the Great War changed 4 and 5). boundaries and upset communities Herbert’s contextualization of these isT not news to anyone who looks at norms within an overarching Anglo- a historical atlas of Europe. That American frame constitutes the volume’s the war affected communities living chief achievement. He illustrates how along what is often referred to as “the Book and Film Reviews 159 longest undefended border” between and eastern Canadian communities. Canada and the United States is more In British Columbia, the short history surprising. In Engaging the Line: How of migration and immigration to the the Great War Shaped the Canada-US region meant that trans border relations Border, Brandon R. Dimmel explores were less well developed; attachment to the effects of the war on three border- regional and national identities trumped crossing communities (Windsor and the border-crossing culture around Detroit, St. Stephen and Calais, and Semiahmoo Bay. White Rock and Blaine) and how Dimmel’s book achieves what it sets out they responded to the policies of their to do. The case studies are well researched respective governments’ seeking to through the use of local archives and regulate the boundary. The larger especially local and regional newspapers. narrative, however, is about the varied The storytelling is engaging and reveals definition of community and the the character of these places over time. Of growing role of the nation in people’s course, three case studies cannot represent lives – a fact that we still live with and the stories of transnational communities that has become exacerbated with more along the entire frontier: it is a big leap recent concerns over security. between Windsor and White Rock. If that Dimmel’s well-written and clearly means that the conclusions are somewhat structured book sets the historical context qualified, Dimmel’s work is not the lesser of each of the case studies in turn, first for it. The case studies might not represent considering the early establishment of every border-crossing community, the modern-day communities, then their but, given the varied experiences of response to the war (and the effects of those selected, it seems likely that most the US delay in committing to it), and responded to their neighbours, their finally the changes to administering nation, and the experience of the Great the border. Whether it was the Detroit War somewhere on the spectrum revealed automotive industry establishing branch in Engaging the Line. firms in Windsor; the lumber, ship, Dimmel highlights that communities sweets, and shoemaking employers were not originally defined by abstract that linked the communities across the notions like nationality but by lived St. Croix River; or American objections experience shaped by geography and to liquor sales in White Rock, local needs by social and economic interactions. and opportunities led to a permeable Sometimes these encouraged closer ties border and, usually, a shared culture. with those across the border than with The Great War changed this. With an their regional and national governments. emphasis on the Canadian communities, When those experiences had time to Dimmel observes that economic and develop, as they did for Windsor and security concerns drove regional and St. Stephens with their US counterparts, national governments to impose policies close transnational communities were to regulate the border and encourage forged. In British Columbia, however, vigorous support of the war effort. the small communities straddling the It seems that the identity of these border had not previously established communities shifted north, including strong connections before the weight of a greater awareness of their place in the the nation and the Great War further province, nation, and the world. But imposed barriers to the border-crossing well-established local border-crossing culture. It was an effect felt across the culture endured, especially in central 160 bc studies country and “changed life along the while the overall goal of the book Canada-US border forever” (161). is to reassess Confederation, the innovative analyses used by each author are refreshingly distinct and do not Reconsidering Confederation: eclipse the commonalities that bind Canada’s Founding Debates, these works together. Each chapter effectively highlights the importance 1864–1999 of local autonomy and emphasizes that Daniel Heidt, editor every founding debate turned upon retaining economic, political, or cultural University of Calgary Press, 2018. sovereignty. Each selection offers a 320 pp. $34.99 paper. thoughtful inclusion of Indigenous treaty- making and emphasizes Indigenous Alex Gagne people’s impact on the formulation of York University Canadian Confederation. For example, J.R. Miller’s opening chapter deconstructs dynamic collection, Reconsidering the various treaties enacted in Canada Confederation sets out to “provide between Indigenous peoples and the aA primer for Canadians who want Crown and refashions the process of to better understand similarities and treaty-making as a covenant between differences between provinces, regions, Indigenous peoples, the Crown, and and peoples” (13). Much more than a basic a deity – a covenant that continues to outline of regional differences during the evolve and function today. As a result, process of Confederation, this collection the general notion of Confederation is reconceptualizes Confederation as reshaped to form an ongoing treaty in an ongoing political treaty between perpetual process of uniting Canada’s three founding peoples – English, three founding peoples. French, and Indigenous – which Some authors take a purely political continues to unfold today. Working to approach to certain provinces entering successfully deconstruct the motivations Confederation, such as Robert behind the actions of political leaders, Wardhaugh and Barry Ferguson, who these chapters bring a more balanced evaluate the North-West Rebellion and understanding of Confederation through the creation of Manitoba. A number of inclusion of the multiple “visions of the entries take a more historiographic Confederation’s purpose” (7) embodied stance. For example, Daniel Heidt’s in the voices of political leaders who chapter on Ontario’s reaction to opposed Confederation and advocated Confederation highlights that, while for provincial sovereignty or annexation Ontario may have been perceived by many as the “center of Canadian politics” by the United States. As a result, 53 Reconsidering Confederation fills a genuine ( ) and Confederation, there were still need for self-reflection concerning long many political opponents to a Canadian standing preconceptions that permeate union in Canada. Indeed, Heidt shows both the scholarly and the popular that many politicians believed that mythology of the Canadian union. Ontario would fall into debt by providing It is evident that these impressive services to other Canadian provinces. contributors framed their chapters Similar to Heidt’s historiographic according to individual style; therefore, slant, Phillip Buckner’s chapter on Maritime provinces demonstrates that Book and Film Reviews 161 the Maritime region was not forced to griffon dogs in exchange for a Javanese “enter a union that they neither needed monkey. While visiting the pet shop a nor wanted” (102). Instead, Buckner day or two earlier, Carr had witnessed discusses a growing anti-American the monkey being bullied by her current in Nova Scotia and New fellow primates and, as the Victoria Brunswick in particular – coupled with artist later wrote in The Heart of a a sense of imperialism – which culturally Peacock (176), “Suddenly I wanted bound the Maritime region to central her – I wanted her tremendously.” Thus Canada and made Confederation very began a fourteen-year-long relationship appealing to some. Other contributing between fifty-one-year-old Emily Carr authors provide studies focused on and two-year-old Woo, as Carr called the cultural protectionism that guided her new pet. the Confederation debates, such as Grant Hayter-Menzies’s Woo, the Marcel Martel’s, Colin M. Coates’s, Monkey Who Inspired Emily Carr begins Martin Paquet’s, and Maxime Gohier’s with Carr’s long interest in primates – as evaluation of Quebec and its hardline a student she observed monkeys at the negotiation tactics, which won it control London Zoo in Regent’s Park. He then over education, language, and minority goes on to tell us how “Woo the jungle rights as it moved towards Confederation. creature offered what Carr termed a A number of special features enhance ‘foreign, undomestic note’ in a setting the text, including chapters containing she considered drab and workaday” graphics depicting renowned political (54). And, more significantly, how Woo activists, the insertion of carefully selected “became Carr’s guide into a part of her quotes, and supplementary reading lists self which, like the forests of British at the close of each chapter, making this Columbia, she had to visit in order to work invaluable to undergraduate students become the artist she was meant to be” and non-specialists alike. As a whole, (71). Moving into the realm of creative Reconsidering Confederation provides an fiction, the author makes even greater extensive selection of excellently written claims for Woo’s contribution to Emily chapters that effectively interrogate the Carr’s artistic development by describing foundational debates of Confederation. the artist entering her Simcoe Street studio and encountering Woo, paintbrush in hand, in front of her easel: “Carr gazes Woo, the Monkey Who Inspired at Woo’s splash of sky, and wonders, with Emily Carr: A Biography her, what new thing unfurls itself there, a reality she has sought and never found 78 Grant Hayter-Menzies – till now” ( ). Coming back down to earth, Grant Madeira Park, BC: Douglas and 2019 192 $22 95 Hayter-Menzies then attempts to McIntyre, . pp. . paper. understand why Carr gave Woo to the Stanley Park Zoo in 1937 and what the Maria Tippett Cambridge University animal might have encountered during her year there: “It is hard to deny that of all the places where Woo could have n 1923 Emily Carr sent her maid, been, the Monkey House at Stanley Pearl, to Lucy Cowie’s pet shop Park Zoo was the worst possible choice” inI downtown Victoria. She gave the (121). This leads Grant Hayter-Menzies owner thirty dollars and one of Carr’s 162 bc studies to wonder whether Carr was “an ideal Woo she was in poor health. Judging her pet guardian” (129). life and her art through today’s values is These and other suppositions rest on nothing less than monkey business. fact and fiction; on scientific research (Jane Goodall’s name is invoked more than once); on the author’s knowledge A Queer Love Story: The Letters of animal shelters like Story Book of Jane Rule and Rick Bébout Farm Primate Sanctuary in Sunderland, Ontario; and, finally, on the belief that Edited by Marilyn R. Schuster, primates like a capuchin monkey called with a foreword by Margaret Pockets Warhol (who has produced Atwood hundreds of paintings and is “one of the top-selling animal artists in the world”) Vancouver: UBC Press, 2017. 648 pp. are creative (142). $45.00 cloth; $32.95 paper. The extent to which Woo helped Carr to “see” during fewer than fifteen years Steven Maynard together might have been examined Queen’s University alongside other factors. For example, Carr’s encounter with Seattle artists f this is a queer love story between Ambrose and Viola Patterson in the 1920 Jane Rule, the legendary lesbian middle of the s and, towards the novelistI of Galiano Island, and Rick end of that decade, with Mark Tobey, Bébout, a long-time collective member Lawren Harris, and F.B. Housser played of the Body Politic in Toronto, it should a part in shaping her vision of Indigenous really be considered a ménage à trois. peoples and the West Coast landscape, The third person in this triangle is as did her exploration of theosophy and editor Marilyn Schuster, who has other non-traditional religions. gifted us (Bébout was a firm believer Equally, the author’s view that Carr in “gift culture”) with what can only was not the animal-loving person that be described as a labour of love. she claimed to be in her fictional and Schuster has carefully curated the autobiographical writings must be letters exchanged between Rule and considered within the context of the Bébout over a fifteen-year period, each era in which she lived. Today’s pet- year of the chronologically organized loving owners subject their animals to correspondence prefaced with brief medical procedures, medications, and but essential historical context and frequent trips to the vet. During the scrupulously footnoted to fill in period in which Carr lived, she and her references to people, events, and work contemporaries were more pragmatic – mentioned or alluded to in the letters. and less emotional – when it came to the They begin in1981 with the Toronto care of their animals. bathhouse raids, the unfolding AIDS Emily Carr was a complex woman. crisis, and the resistance sparked by both. And, it must be remembered, during The letters end in1995 as the short-lived the years that she shared her life with promise of a radical queer politics gave way to a not-so-queer new millennium. These smart, deeply felt missives constitute a more than six-hundred- page archival record and reference Book and Film Reviews 163 tool. Enhanced by an excellent index, be helping our heterosexual brothers and A Queer Love Story will be invaluable sisters out of their state-defined prisons, to those interested in the history of the not volunteering to join them there.” queer movement in Canada as viewed Modelling not marriage but friendship by two of its most thoughtful, lifelong as a way of life is an example of what participants. And props to UBC Press for Bébout meant by the queer “ways we’ve continuing to produce big books based lived” being “valuable beyond us.” on their intellectual value and not just One of the things that links Rule’s the bottom line. and Bébout’s letters, whether discussing One way to understand the letters is desire, pornography, or, more bravely, as a sustained, joint effort to produce “the sexuality of the young” (28), is what Bébout ably named “gay thought” their consistent attention to power – “intelligent reflections on life shaped differentials. Ditto for the realities of by the ways we’ve lived, possible only class and money in queer life. Indeed, because of the ways we’ve lived, and Rule’s financial generosity – the “Bank yet valuable beyond us” (319). A case of Galiano” (533) – helped many in her in point: Rule and Bébout on the beloved island community through “exclusion that pairing brings to those tough times. at its edges” (250). Their reflections As I write this review, the on relationships and monogamy are federal government is rolling out its some of the most searching and subtle commemorative loonie to celebrate I know. Rule wrote about how, with the fiftieth anniversary of the 1969 aging, “the defused eroticism I feel decriminalization of homosexuality, in all relationships nourishes me now which really represented a narrow legal much more than those which require exception for couples – two adults in direct sexual acknowledgement” (64). the privacy of their bedroom. The coin Bébout, at home in the hustler bars is stamped “Equality.” This is not the and strip clubs of Toronto, extolled the currency of the queer world Rule and virtues of “promiscuous affections” but Bébout wrote about to each other so not without attending to the pain of passionately, but without them and their periodic loneliness. As an example of vision of sexual liberation for all, it is the how each sharpened the thinking of the much-impoverished world of “equality” other, Rule’s relationship of more than we’re left with – at least for now. forty-five years with Helen Sonthoff encouraged Bébout to reformulate “my critique not of coupledom, per se, but of Apples, etc.: An Artist’s Memoir the privatization of life” (538). With their deep appreciation for the Gathie Falk, edited by Robin complexity of human sexual-domestic Laurence arrangements, both Bébout and Rule opposed enshrining coupledom in law. In Vancouver: Figure 1 Publishing. “The Heterosexual Cage of Coupledom” 232 pp. $22.95 paper. (BC BookWorld, Spring 2001), Rule argued that giving same-sex common-law Caitlin Chaisson couples equal rights to straight couples Vancouver was “not a step forward but a step back into state-imposed definitions of pples, etc.: An Artist’s Memoir by relationship,” and she urged, “we should AGathie Falk, edited by Robin 164 bc studies

Laurence, is an account of the acclaimed artworks produced during that period, Vancouver-based artist’s life that but the memoir makes possible certain offers new insight into her tenacious connections that the critics failed to experimentation with the ordinary. Like consider at the time. In the chapter a grocery list started but not finished, on Home Environment (1968), a solo the arrangement of the book ditches exhibition at Douglas Gallery that a chronological order and instead launched the artist’s career, the bizarre alternates accounts of Falk’s artworks sculptural components, including a and certain possessive relationships, plucked chicken in a birdcage, packaged such as my mother, my father, my TV dinners, and oversized suit ties, form homes, my secrets, my marriage. The a puzzling assemblage that is nevertheless approach enables artworks to be seen cleverly simple in relation to class labour in parallel with events from the artist’s and domestic life, as explored in other life, for whom daily experiences and chapters. The enigmatic quality of Falk’s studio work were always tightly laced work is furthered, not curtailed, by the together. Occasionally, important simple and direct connections to Falk’s moments appear in multiple chapters, lived experiences. and while this sometimes slows the Falk’s personal perspective is also overall narrative, it abides by Falk’s acute in her reflections on the leading skilful use of repetition, whereby art movements of the time, including situations might be viewed anew those of which she was often mistakenly through slight shifts in context. considered to be a part. She describes how As narrator, Falk’s recollections are she had done too much factory work to warm but also sensible and graphic in be interested in the machinic qualities of detail – a kind of precision in accounting Op Art, that she felt distanced from Pop perhaps tied to experiences of hardship Art because of its slick consumerisms, and poverty in the artist’s early life. and that she felt unable to claim the Born in 1928 to Russian immigrant theoretical statements of Arte Povera as it parents in a rural Mennonite town in was simply a lived reality of the working- Manitoba, the early death of her father, class artist making work frugally out of the chronic illness of her mother, and the necessity – not choice. While these frank deployment of her brothers during the reflections are limited, Falk’s perspective war efforts meant that, from her mid- brings a much-needed understanding teens onwards, Falk was tasked with of class-consciousness into the realm of managing the fragile finances of her global artistic movements, demonstrating family. The early part of the book traces the importance of memoirs of women, a dizzying migration of relations and of immigrants or refugees, and of possessions from town to town and job to other marginalized groups in shaping job as the artist managed debts and paid how these narratives are historicized. bills while trying to finish her education The memoir also offers details on the and nourish her creative energies. Picking burgeoning artist-run and collective- strawberries, plucking chickens, filling based culture in Vancouver during the cellophane bags with raisins and dates, 1960s, seen through the light of various and sewing pockets into the inner lining close friendships. of suitcases at a luggage factory were just The book stays true to the kinds some of Falk’s menial jobs. of homely powers to which Falk has The stark survivalism of Falk’s dedicated, and continues to dedicate, her young life is not readily evident in the life – apples and the rest of it all. Already Book and Film Reviews 165 the subject of much critical adulation, twenty years. The book seamlessly many of Falk’s stories exist in abbreviated weaves together several sophisticated forms in other catalogues, as told to other theoretical frameworks – network authors. Apples, etc.: An Artist’s Memoir governance theory, metagovernance avoids being wearisome by offering a theory, and deliberative democracy – to more full and dynamic telling from the reveal how interpersonal relationships artist herself. Falk’s artistic process has between community stakeholders long been seen as intimately intertwined and various metagovernors (federal, with her life, but this memoir offers a provincial, and/or local governments) deeper understanding of the work that is vital to developing and sustaining this has inspired. creative, coherent, and effective policies and programs. The most significant claim made in the book is that governance networks Building a Collaborative that are well established and inclusive of Advantage: Network diverse perspectives have more brokerage Governance and Homelessness and persuasion power to drive policy Policy-Making in Canada change, influence decision- makers, and take on riskier initiatives that lead to innovation. Drawing on Huxham’s Carey Doberstein 1993 2016 ( ) “collaborative advantage” Vancouver: UBC Press, . concept, Doberstein compellingly 236 $95 00 pp. . cloth. argues that the connections within and between governance networks Erin Dej Wilfrid Laurier University provide the greatest opportunities to address complex social problems such as homelessness. Doberstein warns ith 235,000 people experiencing though that a metagovernor whose Whomelessness each year in leadership style constrains a governance Canada, the nature and quality of network’s mandate or has a contentious, the state’s response are crucial to rather than cooperative, style can stifle preventing and ultimately ending innovation and coordination, despite homelessness. Doberstein’s analysis of strong relationships between networks. the role governance networks – groups The heart of the book lies in the case of community stakeholders who have a study chapters. The gritty details of formalized role in policy planning and struggling for legitimacy, navigating decision-making – play in that response intense bureaucratic control, and finding is key to understanding why some success allow the conceptual arguments locales have achieved greater success to come alive. Greater Vancouver than others in addressing the crisis. stands out for fostering dynamic and Building on a robust methodology co-collaborative governance networks. consisting of key informant interviews, Doberstein equates much of their archival documents, and meeting success to taking a regional approach, observations, Doberstein traces eight coordinating across twenty-one governance networks across Vancouver, municipalities to create a comprehensive Toronto, and Calgary, and the ways they response to homelessness. Through contributed (or not) to policy innovation their three governance networks, and system coordination over the last Greater Vancouver was among the first 166 bc studies to gather essential data on how many References people are experiencing homelessness Huxham, C. 1993. “Collaborative Capability: in the region, coordinate funding An Intra-Organizational Perspective on opportunities to minimize competition, Collaborative Advantage.” Public Money implement inclusionary zoning, and and Management 13, no. 3: 21–28. draw in influential decision-makers and Malenfant, J., N. Nicholas, and K. Schwan. politicians to prioritize homelessness Forthcoming. “Chasing Funding ‘to Eat Our Own Tail’: The Invisible Emotional reduction. Work of Making Social Change.” Canadian Missing from Doberstein’s analysis is Journal of Nonprofit and Social Economy an understanding of the broader social Research. and political context that shapes the Schwan, K. 2016. “Why Don’t We Do governance networks and metagovernors. Something? The Societal Problematization Doberstein astutely notes the enormous of ‘Homelessness’ and the Relationship fluctuations in political will, investment, between Discursive Framing and Social Change.” PhD diss., University of Toronto. and public discourse surrounding homelessness over time but does not capture the unique position homelessness holds as a political pawn, easily mobilized or discarded depending on the political climate. Similarly, the book’s argument would be strengthened by including the contribution people with lived experience of homelessness and activists have made in cultivating our collective knowledge of homelessness as a social problem (Schwan 2016). Finally, the Calgary case study is lacking compared to its counterparts, particularly its comparison with the other cities and in the omission of Calgary’s Aboriginal Standing Committee on Housing and Homelessness as a governance network. Building a Collaborative Advantage is an essential read for those interested in modern forms of governance and policy development. It is also an important contribution to the literature on homelessness, complementing recent research on the history of housing policy (Suttor 2016) and the impact of advocacy networks on homelessness policy (Malenfant et al. forthcoming). As once again the policy landscape shifts with the introduction of the federal government’s Reaching Home strategy, these lessons on how to effectively leverage community knowledge to address homelessness are timely indeed.