BOOK REVIEWS

Rethinking Colonial Pasts while other contributions address through Archaeology topics pertaining to Canada, Africa (Mozambique, Uganda), the Caribbean Neal Ferris, Rodney Harrison, (Jamaica, Dominica), Australia, and and Michael V. Wilcox, editors Ireland. Its objective is to present a synthesis of current theoretical trends and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014 528 100 00 contemporary research on the archaeology . pp. £ . cloth. of the colonized, and to highlight Douglas E. Ross the value of revisionist approaches in Simon Fraser University decolonizing our understanding of the past. As such, contributors seek to highlight the relevance of their research to descendant communities and the wider ethinking Colonial Pasts through field of archaeology. RArchaeology is an important and The book is divided into four sections: well crafted synthesis by leading (1) contemporary issues in the archaeology scholars, marking a coming of age for of Indigenous-European interactions; the archaeology of Indigenous peoples (2) case studies on colonial landscapes, in colonial settler societies. To some communities, households, and identities; extent, the title misrepresents the (3) examples of marginalized groups volume’s explicit focus on colonized facing challenges similar to those of peoples, but this is a conscious choice Indigenous peoples; and (4) studies by the editors. They find “archaeology seeking to reframe the conceptual basis of the colonized” a problematic concept of the field and situate archaeology and feel the book’s broad themes within contemporary political contexts warrant the more inclusive title. and global discourses. Central themes This edited volume has twenty unifying the chapters include a colonized- substantive chapters, bookended by an centric view of the colonial process, introduction plus two brief commentaries comparative studies of everyday life across and an afterword. It does not claim to time and space, and reflexive challenges be comprehensive, and the majority of to essentialized colonial categories and authors are based in the United States, dichotomies like “Indigenous” and with many chapters having a US focus, “European” that define this field of study. bc studies, no. 190, Summer 2016 133 134 bc studies

In their introduction, Ferris and lived experience, including domestic colleagues argue that archaeologists architecture, mortuary customs, and studying the recent past, where agricultural practices. Martindale colonial narratives are still playing draws on recent BC court decisions to out, face particular conceptual and present an important examination of methodological challenges. These the problematic role of archaeology in include the conceptualization of Aboriginal right and title cases. He “culture” and “identity,” which, when argues that courts use outdated and examined using different scales and essentialized models of culture taken datasets, can appear both fluid and from the archaeological literature fixed. They identify “archaeology of the in order to undermine Indigenous colonized” as a distinct subfield within efforts to demonstrate the antiquity of the discipline of historical archaeology, their cultural practices, and he urges which initially emerged in the Americas archaeologists to develop updated models and Australia to fill a conceptual gap of culture that challenge this normative between archaeologies of the pre- and approach. postcontact periods, but which has since By and large, the remaining chapters united researchers worldwide grappling are equally thoughtful, and anyone with similar challenges in conducting researching the “archaeology of the archaeology in colonial settler societies. colonized,” or, for that matter, the Although issues addressed in this “archaeology of colonialism,” would do book have relevance beyond the field well to have a copy of this book close at of historical archaeology, the text hand. contains disciplinary and theoretical language throughout, and the primary audience is clearly an academic one. Furthermore, while there is some discussion of Indigenous archaeology in Africa in the chapter by Paul Lane, a volume of this scope, with its emphasis on decolonization, could benefit from more explicitly Indigenous voices and perspectives on the contemporary practice of archaeology as it relates to colonized populations. Of particular relevance to readers of BC Studies are chapters by Jeff Oliver and Andrew Martindale. Oliver develops an innovative approach to human agency that moves away from domination-resistance models towards a comparative framework that explores how Indigenous responses to colonialism varied over time, space, and the nature of colonial authority. He presents three case studies from Metlakatla, Kimsquit, and the Fraser Valley to show how agency is evident in aspects of everyday Book Reviews 135

Native Peoples of the Olympic cultural connections still exist across the Peninsula: Who We Are strait, from both the British Columbia (2nd edition) and Washington sides. The Indigenous peoples of the Olympic Jacilee Wray, editor for Olympic Peninsula are introduced in the book Peninsula Intertribal Cultural edited by anthropologist Jacilee Wray Advisory Committee for the Olympic Peninsula Intertribal Cultural Advisory Committee. This Norman: University of Oklahoma slender volume provides brief descriptions Press, 2015. 201 pp. US$19.95 paper. of the nine separate tribal communities on the Olympic Peninsula today. Eight different languages, from three distinct The Sea Is My Country: The linguistic families, were once spoken Maritime World of the Makahs in this region, attesting to its cultural diversity. Most belong to the widespread Joshua L. Reid Salish family, as is also true on the BC side of the border. The exceptions are New Haven and London: Yale the Makah, closely linked to the people University Press, 2015. xvi+400 pp. $40 00 of western Vancouver Island, and the US . cloth. distinct Quileute and Hoh peoples. Each community is the subject of a chapter Alan D. McMillan Simon Fraser University written by community members and reviewed by tribal councils. As a result, the chapters present tribal perspectives aterways such as the Strait on their history and on those issues that of Juan de Fuca were vital are important to them today. Chapters transportationW corridors for the First follow a similar format, starting with Nations of the coast. People regularly an overview of the traditional culture traversed the strait in their large efficient and historic changes and then dealing canoes for trading or raiding expeditions with the reservation communities today, or to visit relatives. However, the including heritage programs and visitor 1846 imposition of the international attractions (such as tribal museums). boundary down the middle of the Shared experiences, such as the impact strait placed these formerly linked of the treaties signed between 1854 and communities into either British or 1856, run through the chapters, yet American jurisdictions, disrupting each also presents issues distinct and long-established networks. The Klallam important to that community. Cultural near Victoria fell on the opposite side of traditions remain strong today, with the border to that of the three Klallam many communities establishing heritage (or S’Klallam) communities on the centres and language programs, although Olympic Peninsula. The Makah, who few speakers of the traditional languages made frequent open-ocean canoe remain. voyages to their Nuu-chah-nulth, Native Peoples of the Olympic Peninsula Ditidaht, and Pacheedaht relatives was first published in2002 . The second along the west coast of Vancouver edition, with a different publisher, adds Island, found themselves separated recent developments. Removal of two from their kin as well as cut off from major dams on the Lower Elwha River, important marine resources. Strong completed in 2014, allowed salmon to 136 bc studies again ascend the river and provided the of European and Euro-American fur Klallam access to culturally important traders in Makah waters to their ongoing locations for the first time in a century. struggles to maintain their maritime Another important event for the Lower culture and identity. The approach is that Elwha Klallam was the discovery and of an academic historian, presenting the excavation of an ancient village at results of extensive archival research in Port Angeles during a construction considerable detail, ending with ninety project, although digging came to a pages of endnotes and references. halt when numerous human remains One theme that runs through this were encountered. After negotiations, volume is the idea of the Makah a portion of the site was allocated for “borderlands,” extending from northern reburials and a museum was constructed Vancouver Island to the Columbia River to display the artefacts and to promote mouth. Front and back maps show cultural heritage. Another new theme the Makah within this wider world. in several chapters is the resurgence of Networks of regular contact, kin ties, “canoe culture” and the large-scale canoe trade, and competing interests linked journeys involving multiple communities the various people of the “borderlands.” from around the Olympic Peninsula to far These networks were in place at the up the BC coast. Despite these additions, time of first contact with outsiders in however, most chapters have been only the late eighteenth century. Tatoosh, lightly revised and some appear almost the powerful chief of the Cape Flattery unchanged. The Makah section provides area, was linked by marriage to Nuu- precise numbers for the on-reservation chah-nulth chiefs Maquinna and and enrolled populations, yet these Wickaninish, and made regular visits to figures remain as they were in the2002 western Vancouver Island. Networks of version. communication allowed chiefs to keep This book’s strength is in providing tabs on the movement of European ships a concise introduction to each of the and to exert some control over the trade. area’s Indigenous communities, showing The more powerful of these chiefs were unique features as well as the common able to dominate their neighbours and threads of history and culture. It is to control the flow of goods over a wide addressed to the non-specialist reader, area. During the maritime fur trade, with the goal of combating romanticized Tatoosh appears to have dominated the and generalized stereotypes. Although Pacheedaht on Vancouver Island, much it succeeds in this goal, those who own as Wickaninish subjugated groups as far the first edition may have little incentive south as Barkley Sound. These chiefs to purchase the second. were the primary historical actors of Joshua Reid’s The Sea Is My Country the period, controlling and contesting is a much larger, more scholarly effort, marine and terrestrial spaces and thereby focused on one group, the Makah, around frustrating the imperial agendas of Cape Flattery at the northwest corner European mariners. of the Olympic Peninsula. Reid, an The second pervasive theme involves assistant professor of history and director the management and control of marine of the Native American Program at the space and resources. The Makah name for University of Massachusetts in Boston, themselves translates as “The People of is an enrolled member of the Snohomish the Cape” (“Makah” is a mid-nineteenth- Tribe of Puget Sound. He examines century term taken from their Klallam Makah history from the first appearance neighbours). Cape Flattery, jutting into Book Reviews 137 the Pacific Ocean at the entrance to the Makah have had some success in forcing Strait of Juan de Fuca, provided access recognition of treaty rights to marine to a vast marine space. Fishing, sealing, resources. Their successful whale hunt and whaling, central activities to Makah in 1999, featured at several points in both economy and identity, took them far books under review, was a significant offshore on a regular basis. Reid takes event. Although it drew strong criticism the title of this book from a Makah and new legal barriers, it demonstrated leader’s statement at the time of their Makah determination to reclaim their treaty signing: “I want the sea. That is my identity and traditional use of marine country” (126). This concern with marine space. The Makah have maintained space runs through Reid’s examination strong social and cultural ties to their of Makah history. Vancouver Island kin, although they now Well into the nineteenth century, require passports to cross what was once Makah leaders were able to maintain their major transportation corridor. As is considerable autonomy and prosperity. evident from both books, studies of the The Makah sold whale oil to ships Makah and their neighbours require a passing Cape Flattery and travelled broad perspective that encompasses their to Fort Victoria to sell furs, fish, and wide network of connections, despite the oil. However, the 1846 imposition of imposition of the international border the international border disrupted the late in their history. long-standing network of connections. In 1855, the Makah signed a treaty that established their reservation and led to The Grand Hall: First Peoples of increased outside control. In addition to Canada’s Northwest Coast fishing rights, the Makah successfully demanded that their whaling and sealing Leslie Tepper rights be recognized in their treaty, Gatineau: Canadian Museum of again showing their concern with the 2014 108 $9 95 sea as the source of their livelihood. History, . pp. . paper. Reid documents in considerable detail Makah participation in the fishing and pelagic sealing industries, noting that Treasures of the Royal British many prominent Makah individuals Columbia Museum and Archives acquired their own vessels in order to compete effectively. Overharvesting by Jack Lohman, compiler commercial interests, however, depleted Victoria: Royal British Columbia whale, seal, and fish populations that the 2015 144 $39 95 Makah had relied upon for millennia, Museum, . pp. . cloth. and government regulations increasingly Hannah Turner restrained Makah use of traditional University of Toronto resources. By the end of the century, the Makah had lost much of their economic independence. hese two volumes present an Through ongoing legal and political impressive view of Canadian struggles, the Makah continue to assert museologyT as it has evolved over the claims to traditional marine space and past thirty years. Leslie Tepper’s The resources. The courts have become the Grand Hall, an updated and revised battleground of recent decades, and the version of Andrea Laforet’s The Book 138 bc studies of the Grand Hall (1992), is a popular specialists and scholars who document and accessible guide to the spectacular and analyze the collections. These Grand Hall at the Canadian Museum chapters remind us that modern museum of History (cmh), featuring the people work involves more than creating a and traditions of the Northwest clean and tidy educational narrative: it Coast culture area and incorporating also, for example, involves conducting Aboriginal art practices and intellectual new research and bringing ideals of contributions in the built form of an collaboration into the core of practice exhibit space. A massive immersive rather than just seeing them as tactics exhibit, the Grand Hall contributes to used in visual display. Treasures argues scholarly and popular perceptions of the that museums, as sites of knowledge art and architecture of the Pacific coast production, must continuously examine – despite being over forty-five hundred the collections that are their foundations. kilometres away. With new additions Black, for example, in her history of the of text, images, and contributing ethnographic collections at the rbcm, voices, The Grand Hall documents argues that we should be attentive to the the historical origins of this space and nineteenth-century classifications that welcomes First Nations voices to the are manifest in museum documentation. descriptions of the cmh collection, for She documents the changing relations example, that of Meghann O’Brien, the between rbcm curators and First Nations Haida-Kwakwaka’wakw-Irish textile and emphasizes early collaborative artist, who describes her experience efforts that resulted in the inclusion of as a weaver. O’Brien foregrounds the First Nations ways of knowing in visual materiality of bark in her weaving, and displays. Moreover, by understanding the Tepper, by pairing her story with an diversity and richness of First Nations image of a basket in the cmh collection, languages, “old museum classifications presents a cultural history of berry- can be overwritten with First Nations picking that is brought alive through histories and intellectual concepts” (66). reading the object (64). These short but By incorporating chapters from across necessary stories make this a useful departments and disciplines, Treasures guide to the cmh collections. masterfully weaves a narrative that While The Grand Hall contributes explores the interconnections between invaluable contextual information natural, cultural, and historical spheres. about exhibit development, which is Although the concept of the “natural any museum’s necessary outer facade, history museum” may seem outdated with the second volume documents aspects the emergence of community-centred of museum work that take place behind institutions, subject-specific museums, the scenes and outside and apart from and even science centres, Lohman the official narratives of display that emphasizes that we are all connected are presented for public engagement. In to the places and times in which we live Treasures of the Royal British Columbia and are bound by the natural world and Museum and Archives, Jack Lohman, the cultural histories that have come the ceo of the Royal British Columbia to define our places within the world. Museum (rbcm), and four rbcm curators Similarly Hebda, in his chapter, implores and archivists (Martha Black, Richard us to appreciate the BC landscape and Hebda, Grant Keddie, and Gary the importance of understanding our Mitchell) provide curatorial chapters relationship to the environment. that reveal the detailed work of the Book Reviews 139

With its combination of ethnography, and portrayed in Treasures and The Grand archaeology, natural sciences, and the Hall. Telling the stories of how museums archives, this volume is much more create these powerful spaces continues to than simply beautifully illustrated: in ignite curiosity and wonder. its very form it mirrors an argument for an increased connection between disciplines whose boundaries are still Three Athapaskan regularly upheld, and, with chapters Ethnographies: Diamond Jenness that span disciplines and decades, and even eons, Lohman et al. demonstrate on the Sekani, Tsuu T’ina and that the natural history museum can Wet’suwet’en, 1921-1924 be the ideal venue for conversations that are both historically important and Diamond Jenness (Barnett contemporarily relevant. Richling, preface) Both volumes advocate for sustaining Oakville, ON: Rock’s Mills Press, the rich and diverse collections in Victoria 2015. 325 pp. $24.95 paper. and Ottawa and suggest ways that new knowledge can be gleaned from a Robin Ridington deep recognition of and respect for the University of British Columbia traditions of the First Peoples of the Pacific coast. For example, in his foreword to Treasures, former lieutenant-governor iamond Jenness was a diligent Steven Point describes visiting the First and talented ethnographer, and Nations big house at the rbcm. He dwells theD years 1921-24 were particularly not on the construction of the exhibits, productive. In the summer of 1921 or on the intellectual history that devised he visited the Sarcee (Suuu T’ina) and is inscribed on exhibit labels and of Alberta and wrote a report based texts, but, rather, on the smell of cedar on “field-notes he gathered on that that permeates the big house. For Point, occasion” (90). In the summer of 1924, the cedar smell invites and imagines an he spent four weeks with the Sekani emotionally charged experience at the of British Columbia and later that museum. He argues, and I agree, that winter, 1924-25, spent three months these affective experiences are ultimately with their western neighbours, the important if museums are to remain “a Wet’suwet’en (whom he referred to as part of an ongoing story” (16). As the the Bulkley River Carrier). All three rbcm and cmh, and other museums, try spoke related Athapaskan languages, to reach new audiences and, through new but their cultures reflect very different technology, strive to become a part of ecological and cultural environments. contemporary public discourse, we must The Sekani were still a hunting-and- remember the important contemplative trapping people in 1924. They spent most and affective spaces created when people of the year on the land and supported are in the presence of sacred and ancient themselves, in part, through subsistence material objects. Readers of these hunting. The Wet’suwet’en continued volumes will readily appreciate Point’s a fishing-based economy. By1921 , only sentiments after viewing the towering the Sarcee had been entirely removed house posts and poles and contemplating from their traditional bison-hunting the images and dioramas of archival economy and had been confined to photographs of age-old cedars described reserves. In all three groups the Native 140 bc studies languages were still widely spoken. record these narratives as audio actualities No better contrasts could illustrate the been available. The texts he recorded are remarkable adaptability of Athapaskan- glosses rendered in the “proper” English speaking peoples. The Sekani are of his day. Jenness focused on narratives Arctic drainage hunting people whose of events rather than on the poetics of culture probably approximates that of First Nations narrative. One should ancestral northern Athapaskans. The praise what he accomplished rather than Sarcee are fully realized Plains Indians, hold him to today’s standard. and the Wet’suwet’en are culturally The Wet’suwet’en ethnography lies allied with Pacific drainage Northwest somewhere in between the Sekani and Coast peoples. Bringing these three Sarcee texts in terms of its being based ethnographies together in a single volume on culture as it was lived rather than as invites a comparison Jenness left to it is remembered. Jenness documented others. hereditary phratry (clan) organization Jenness never had a university and the prescribed seating at potlatch appointment. He did his ethnographic gatherings. He recorded extensive first- work through Canada’s Department of person narratives, again as glosses in the Mines and Resources. Jenness has been tradition of the brothers Grimm, rather criticized for writing ethnography rather than the ethnopoetics that some of his than theory; however, looking back on contemporaries, like Fletcher and La his work almost a century later, one can Flesche, used in their presentation of see that theories flourish and disappear Omaha songs and texts. while ethnography remains. In these All three Athapaskan peoples are three studies Jenness demonstrates his strong and thriving today. The Sarcee ability to record an astonishing amount of negotiated the repatriation of sacred ethnographic information in a relatively objects such as the Starlight Bundle short period of time. His fieldwork in 1989. The Sekani took adhesion to was based on intensive collaborative Treaty 8 in 2000, and the Wet’suwet’en interviews with knowledgeable members were plaintiffs in the monumental of the communities he visited. He was Delgamuukw court action. Recent obviously able to establish a rapport with Supreme Court of Canada decisions have elders. given greater weight to First Nations For the Sarcee, bison hunting and history and oral tradition. In republishing warfare were only real in the memories these three ethnographies together, of elders. Jenness was fortunate in Richling has given First Nations and establishing productive relationships academic scholars an opportunity to with twelve of these people. They told compare traditional Athapaskan cultures him of their exploits in war, their bison and recent histories. hunts, and their elaborate ceremonial life. Jenness diligently wrote it all down from field notes. He also documented ceremonial traditions that were still active, even as important sacred objects like medicine bundles were being sent to museums such as the one affiliated with the Department of Mines and Resources. It is interesting to wonder what more he might have documented had the means to Book Reviews 141

Where the Rivers Meet: communities. The contrast is effective Pipelines, Participatory at demonstrating how local knowledges Resource Management, and and their forms of expression are distorted when seen through legalistic and non- Aboriginal-State Relations in the local assumptions about the nature of the Northwest Territories world. Care taken to tie her observations to her own experiences enables Dokis Carly A. Dokis to reflect upon the bounds of scholarly ubc 2015 240 research more generally. By referring Vancouver: Press, . pp. 1970 $95.00 cloth. often to the Berger Inquiry of the s, Dokis traces historical changes that Mark Stoller have taken place in the Sahtu since then, University of British Columbia enabling readers to better understand how present-day decisions regarding resource development are influenced n Where the Rivers Meet, Carly Dokis by “multiple and complex factors that skilfully examines local responses to are neither wholly novel nor wholly theI Mackenzie Gas Project – a proposed traditional” (12). natural gas pipeline through the Sahtu Early chapters – which will be of Region of the Northwest Territories – particular interest to readers of this and how these are interpreted through journal – focus on the technocratic state-operated environmental impact nature of participatory practices and assessments and other participatory how methods used in evaluating an practices. By showing how Sahtu Dene impact’s “significance” tilts the process participation is ultimately transformed in the proponent’s favour. Emphasis through community hearings, Dokis on how such methods blur differences depicts a review process that is between participation and consent, and incommensurable with the desires and depoliticize local resistance, hit upon preferences of local residents. These questions at the heart of contemporary processes, Dokis argues, are intimately development debates. Later chapters are bound to questions of governmentality devoted to the broader context of land and the political and increasingly claims negotiations and the corporate and corporate tone of state practices that are governmental practices that are mirrored reflected in participatory management in participatory management structures. processes. Blending established social References to the foundational works theory with current scholarship, Dokis of social theorists like Habermas and offers a timely and important study of Durkheim help to confirm the findings how participatory practices are used to of contemporary scholars of participatory marginalize Indigenous ways of being and comanagement regimes. I wondered, and to limit local influence in decision- though, what specific insights Dokis making processes. drew from her experience that might Methodology quickly emerges as complement (or complicate) these a central theme and is among the materials and how these could inform book’s strengths. Through participant researchers doing similar work. observation, Dokis focuses on local Readers of BC Studies will recognize attitudes at both official community important parallels with pipeline hearings and in the homes and social debates in western Canada and the circles in three of the five Sahtu book’s relevance to questions raised by 142 bc studies fracking in northern British Columbia. art practice and critical theory, the Despite a strong focus on questions of other the result of the application of law, policy, and social theory, the book’s European philosophies of poetics and clear organization and reflective prose phenomenology to historical Interior will appeal to a wide readership. This Salish ethnography. A major theme of is an excellent addition to an existing both books is the connection between Northern Studies literature and should Indigenous peoples and the land. Both be read by scholars of anthropology, books are fragmented by a reliance on history, geography, political science, the Western lens, but readers will find and environmental planning who some gems in them. have research interests in participatory The Land We Are is an attractive resource management and Indigenous collaborative compilation of art, poetry, governance. and analysis by nineteen contemporary artists and academics, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, whose main premise The Land We Are: Artists and is that the “reconciliation” aspect of Writers Unsettle the Politics of the federal government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (trc), which Reconciliation ran from 2008 to 2015, was disingenuous Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill and because it implied some sense of closure while erasing the main issues of restoration Sophie McCall, editors and restitution. A concise introduction Winnipeg: arp Books, 2015. 240 pp. by editors Gabrielle L’Hirondelle $24.95 paper. Hill and Sophia McCall charts the contested terrain of reconciliation and the role of the contributors, who offer The Poetics of Land and Identity thought-provoking work as a catalyst among British Columbia for discussion. The “settler” contributors struggle with guilt and ignorance Indigenous Peoples after years of socialization, while for Christine Elsey Indigenous artists, not surprisingly, “the question of land remains central Black Point, NS: Fernwood, 2013. to Indigenous art and cultural politics,” 156 pp. $19.95 paper. and both groups assert “that Indigenous land rights are central to reimagining the Chris Arnett future between Indigenous and settler University of British Columbia people” (12). All royalties from sales of the book go to the Unist'ot'en camp in he Land We Are: Artists and Wet’suwet’en territory in the central T Writers Unsettle the Politics of interior of British Columbia, which will Reconciliation and The Poetics of Land balance the irony (and good fortune) of and Identity among British Columbia receiving funding in the form of federal Indigenous Peoples reflect an iconic grants. theme of recent Canadian writing, The contributors to The Land We academia, and art practice – namely, the Are acknowledge the challenges faced reconciliation of settler and Indigenous by activist artists working within the histories. Both books rely on Western mandate and policy of a well funded epistemologies, one the result of modern federal initiative; indeed, some of the Book Reviews 143 contributors have been involved in Harper’s 2008 residential schools apology. other trc projects. Despite any trc Jordan Abel uses the “cut-up” technique of connections, they argue, as artists do the American writer William Burroughs, everywhere, that their work may transfer himself influenced by Canadian- something tangible to the audience that Anglo-French painter Brion Gysin, to is intensely personal, such as the text and dismember Harper’s text with interesting performance piece “Writing Touch Me” results. Part 3, “Collaboration, Creative by Skeena Reece and Sandra Semchuk, Practice, and Labour,” celebrates craft or something intensely cathartic, such and collective labour in commemorative as Ayumi Goto and Peter Morin’s art, including Jonathan Dewar’s photo performance piece “Hair.” Others essay of the stunning “Walking with encourage participation: David Garneau Our Sisters,” the moccasin memorial to and Clement Yeh’s “Apology Dice” murdered and missing Indigenous women. features multi-sided dice inscribed with Part 4, “Insurgent Pedagogies, Affective words that, when thrown sequentially, Performances, Unbounded Creations,” form short sentences pertinent to the contains a reconciliatory chapter by self- discourse of reconciliation, including styled “non-Indigenous scholars” Alison “Apology,” “Denial,” and “Fatigue,” a Hargreaves and David Jefferess. process that invites the player to agree True to participation in a federal or disagree. That three performance- project, national sentiment prevails based art projects are effective in a book in The Land We Are (particularly in format is a tribute to the designer, Terry the title, which might have taken on Corrigan. quite a different meaning had it been The Land We Are asserts that We Are the Land). Regional variation meaningful questions and answers can is noticeably absent – and incongruous emerge through the catharsis of art given that there is no national Indigenous practice. Whether this always works is identity. For example, the treaty rhetoric a site of debate and contest among the of Adrian Stimson’s “Drawing Treaty” contributors in their quest to heal – to is interesting but only as a cautionary know the past – and to create “productive tale in British Columbia, where sites of discomfort, disconnection and there are few treaties. Reconciliation disruption” (13). The book is divided necessitates decolonization of the local. into four parts that move from a text Decolonization, as Hargreaves and and image-based critical analysis and Jefferess argue, “requires understanding theoretical discussion of public art to history not as a linear series of events but commemorative art, poetry, prose, as a layered presence; what lies beneath and conceptual performance. A few rocks in our gardens may be hidden or examples from each demonstrates the ignored but it is not gone” (204). (Tell mix. In Part 1, “Public Memory and the that to an archaeologist!) Neo-liberal City,” Dylan Robinson and In The Poetics of Land and Identity Keren Zaiontz contribute a photographic among British Columbia Indigenous essay of Vancouver public art in “a civic Peoples, anthropologist Christine Elsey infrastructure of redress” (22), which, gets more local and explores how they argue, in its attempt to Indigenize Indigenous views of the land in British the landscape effectively, in fact dismisses Columbia are different from those of local Indigenous history. Part 2, “Please the market-focused settler state. She Check against Delivery: The Apology uses European concepts of enfoldment, Unlocked,” deconstructs Stephen poesis, and poetics to illustrate the 144 bc studies

“body-world synthesis as argued within atsama (“to quest for spirit power”), the European philosophy” (57). While Elsey ultimate Indigenous research method to dismisses European Cartesian dualism test the validity of the origin stories and she is comfortable “employing such the phenomenology of space? The “vision European philosophical concepts as quest” is mentioned here and there, but phenomenological perspectives of the its essential role in identity formation at body, self, [and] world” in the hope that many scales is missed by Elsey’s reliance her work “will make possible the creation on European philosophy. of a non-ethnocentric niche within These two books are a reminder mainstream philosophical and litigious that European methods can obfuscate argumentation for the discussion of First Indigenous epistemologies when, Nations Land claims” (4). If non-Natives in fact, both methods have equal think this way, she argues, a better philosophical depth. The two ways are understanding and even reconciliation not irreconcilable, but they demand will result. the mutual comprehension of methods Drawing on the work of ethnographer specific to and negotiated within each James Teit, Elsey examines a wonderful situation. As both these books show, array of stories about transformer rocks mutual recognition of a shared history and rock art, which are the physical is a first unsteady step towards true reminders of past events and cultural reconciliation. teachings. However, she all but ignores Indigenous perspectives rooted in language, and when she introduces them, she misunderstands them. For Truth and Indignation: Canada’s example, she uses the term sptaqulh Truth and Reconciliation 99 5 (origin stories) ( n ) to describe the Commission on Indian beings of the mythological age as entities (which they certainly were), but she Residential Schools misses the point that they are also stories Ronald Niezen with teachings of identity and place – the existence of which is the very thing Toronto: University of Toronto her poetics wish to demonstrate. Their Press, 2013. 173 pp. $26.95 paper. presence in the landscape, which is well David Gaertner documented by Elsey’s collection of University of British Columbia published ethnographic data, is indeed phenomenological – the body is there, ours and theirs – but to understand he struggle to a r t ic u late the relationship between teaching and Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation entities requires only knowledge that CommissionT (trc) has seen varying both are shyAktnmhh (people/relations). degrees of success since the commission Elsey perceives this relationship, but was established in the 2006 Indian it would be better said by people in Residential School Settlement the living Indigenous tradition, who Agreement. In 2008, the Aboriginal are strangely absent from the book. Healing Foundation published From Elsey employs a lot of “enfolding,” Truth to Reconciliation: Transforming “embodiment,” and “presencing” of “self,” the Legacy of Residential Schools, which terms that are foreign to Indigenous calls for closer attention to the concepts discourse. And where is a discussion of of “truth” and “reconciliation” as they Book Reviews 145 existed in relation to Canadian and “Truth” of Canada’s residential schools Indigenous contexts. Now, as the and shed light on “a dark chapter in commission draws to a close, one of Canadian history.” Of course, in order to the most nuanced, penetrating, and take his thesis to its conclusion, Niezen sometimes disquieting examples of such must delve into the issues that many are scholarship has appeared in Ronald unready or unwilling to address, which Niezen’s Truth and Indignation. is what makes this text so powerful and Niezen, a professor of law at McGill challenging. As Niezen demonstrates, if University, clearly develops his argument there are any truths without any place in through extensive research conducted the current trc discourse, it is testimony at national trc events and through from priests and nuns who insist (1) that interviews with Oblates, both priests and Indigenous children were in fact happy nuns: this is a work about what is “sayable” at the schools at which they worked and within the discursive structure of the trc (2) that they, too, have been injured by and how that structure has come to exist these events. and persist. For Niezen, Canada’s victim- The testimony that Niezen provides centred trc produces a limited space in from his interviews with priests and nuns which testimony regarding the residential speaking to these points is, without a schools can be heard and received. This doubt, the most contentious element of is not to say that the “T” in trc is a this book, and he does well to illustrate misnomer but, rather, that some kinds of how and why that is so. Well after I had truths work to overshadow others. “The finished reading I found that a number events of the trc,” Niezen writes, “are of resonant questions lurked in my mind not just sites for gathering knowledge; as I wrote this review: How do we in fact they are also active in producing it” (103). reconcile the need to know the capital For instance, the commission focuses “T” Truth of residential schools with on the abuse of children, which has the fact that this Truth invites stories obvious visceral and affective qualities and testimony that many survivors find for the speakers and the audience. While repelling? Is this Truth necessary if it child abuse in residential schools certainly comes at the expense of the well-being of must be addressed, it overshadows other survivors and their families? Or is it yet important political issues, such as land another iteration of the colonial drive to claims. This type of elision functions know, whatever the costs may be? Niezen on a smaller scale as well: as stories of opens up these questions with care and egregious abuse rise to the surface of the precision, most particularly, I think, in trc, via reporting and selected editing of his consideration of “indignation” and survivor testimony, some survivors feel the survivor’s right to be disgusted by that their own stories are not worthy of and to reject the perpetrator’s narrative. public testimony. Understanding the At times I found myself wishing that trc’s structural limitations and how it Niezen’s own indignation had found its produces knowledge, Niezen argues, will way into his analysis of Oblate testimony; provide deeper insight into the residential however, even if the author sometimes school system and contemporary abuses applies them with too light a touch, the of power. tools for expressing this indignation are This study is a welcome corrective to the certainly there for the reader to take up too common insistence (usually coming and apply. from the liberal settler population) that That being said, for those of us who Canada’s trc will finally unveil the find ourselves confronted by the scope 146 bc studies and impact of the Canadian trc, Truth chapters describe women’s participation and Indignation is indispensable in that in a huge range of industries from the it offers a clear blueprint for determining beginning of the nineteenth century to the borders and boundaries of that the late twentieth century. commission. Niezen advocates not only The preface, written by Marlene for a victim-centred analysis of the trc Brant Castellano, Mohawk scholar, but also for an analysis directed at the sets the tone of the collection by noting peripheries of trc testimony – analysis how the inclusion of Indigenous ways that incorporates those who do not of knowing offers a fresh historical make the news or the trc “highlight perspective on Indigenous women’s lives. reel.” “We can start [future work]” he This is followed by an introduction by writes, “with narratives given by those Williams on the importance of looking who are categorically excluded from outside of the settler narrative to discover the highlight reels, the stroke victims, Indigenous women’s labour history. For the schizophrenic, the mute-from- those who follow the theoretical threads grief, those who only make noises in a of feminist theory, the first chapter, by struggle to communicate” (149). Truth Joan Sangster, gives an excellent overall and Indignation stands as a powerful, summary and, importantly, points out evocative example of this kind of trc the benefits as well as the disadvantages ethnography and is vital reading for of the transnational approach. anyone – both Indigenous and non- Only one chapter in this selection deals Indigenous – who wants to better specifically with BC history. Inspired by understand the trc. a 1940s photograph of Shíshálh (Sechelt) women holding hand logging tools, Susan Roy and Ruth Taylor, in “‘We Were Indigenous Women and Work: Real Skookum Women’: The Shíshálh From Labor to Activism Economy and the Logging Industry on the Pacific Northwest Coast,” Carol Williams, editor write about the “unexpected” history of women in this industry. For many Champaign: University of Illinois 2012 320 $30 00 decades this industry was important for Press, . pp. . paper. the Sechelt, and, as part of the family venture, women helped men transport Loraine Littlefield Tsawwassen logs to the booming grounds. This role is not well documented, if at all, in any of the forestry history written in British ndigenous Women and Work, edited Columbia. The authors blame a gender I by Carol Williams, consists of bias that essentially minimized women’s seventeen chapters that examine the contribution in this industry, emphasizing history of Indigenous women and instead what were considered appropriate wage labour in Canada, the United feminized occupations such as basket States, Australia, and New Zealand. weaving and other related crafts. “We The object of these chapters is to Were Real Skookum Women,” however, stimulate a transnational conversation speaks to the Indigenous viewpoint of about the experiences of women under women who acknowledge their important similar British-capitalist policies and contribution to their family’s hand- ideology. Written by both Indigenous logging production. and non-Indigenous scholars, the Book Reviews 147

Two other chapters in this collection education and administration. Women offer close connections with BC history successfully sought these positions and and First Nations women’s experiences were supported by their communities in in its early economy. Shelly Farrell carrying out these roles. No such early Racette, in “Nimble Fingers and Strong hiring policy seems to have occurred Backs: First Nations and Métis Women in Canada, which leads one to wonder in Fur Trade and Rural Economies,” why, especially given that the policies of examines the changing role for women the Department of Indian Affairs often in Saskatchewan and Labrador from matched those of the Office of Indian domestic partners in the fur trade to Affairs. contract rural labourers – a change This transnational approach has that shifts women’s employment into promise, and Williams must be the twentieth century. While Chris commended for this collection. I hope Friday, in “From ‘Superabundance’ to that this book will inspire further Dependency: Women Agriculturalists research into “unexpected” histories of and the Negotiation of Colonialism and women still to be discovered here in Capitalism for Reservation-Era Lummi,” British Columbia, and I predict that examines women’s loss of control over collaboration with First Nations women Lummi potato production (just south of and their communities will ensure that Point Roberts), first to men and then to this occurs. the end of agricultural dominance in the wider economy. Both chapters speak to the changing demand of labour and the Aboriginal Populations: detrimental effects this change brought Social, Demographic, and to women’s lives, just as it did in British Columbia. Epidemiological Perspectives All the chapters are well written and Frank Trovato and Anatole well researched. I particularly liked Lynette Russell’s “Procuring Passage: Romaniuk, editors Southern Australian Aboriginal Women Edmonton: University of Alberta and the Early Maritime Industry of Press, 2014. 600 pp. $60.00 paper. Sealing,” which I found very instructive to compare with our own West Coast Leah Wiener sealing and whaling industry. Occurring Simon Fraser University in southern Australia at a much earlier time, and when women’s traditional his substantial collection brings roles were significantly different from interdisciplinary approaches to what they were on the Northwest aT range of questions on Aboriginal Coast, sealing led to a surprising degree populations. Aiming to bring about a of independence and autonomy for “comprehensive understanding of the Aboriginal women. Also of interest social demographic transformation is Cathleen D. Cahill’s “‘An Indian of the Canadian Aboriginal Teacher among Indians’: Native Women population” (ix), the contributors as Federal Employees,” which looks at review important questions of social the hiring policy of the Office of Indian demography. Trovato and Romaniuk Affairs in the United States, which, argue that the demographic outlook at the turn of the century, accepted of Canada’s Aboriginal population Indigenous women for positions in is hopeful. The collection comprises 148 bc studies four sections, covering demographic, Goldman and Delic liken census data epidemiological, sociological, and to a mirror (59) reflecting social values. international perspectives, respectively. Given the politics of census design and The first two chapters provide essential collection, it is perhaps not surprising historical and methodological context, that a collection that draws significantly making the collection accessible to an from the census offers relatively little interdisciplinary readership; however, in the way of Aboriginal perspectives its questions are more likely to interest on Aboriginal populations, with only researchers in the social sciences than a handful of Aboriginal contributors. researchers in the humanities. The goal in this collection is to present Several of the contributors emphasize information rather than to decolonize a the role of policy in shaping past, present, discipline. and future demography; they consider The chapters in this collection present the ways in which policy affects how a wealth of data covering topics such data are collected and how data collection as educational attainment, changes in can inform social policy. For instance, fertility and mortality, employment, and Guimond, Robitaille, and Senécal language use in Aboriginal populations note the impact of legal changes, such in Canada, New Zealand, Russia, and as the 1985 amendment to the Indian Australia. A list of the dozens of tables Act, on ethnic mobility (113). King and figures would be a useful feature proposes a wider conceptualization of but, unfortunately, is not included in health, so that we understand initiatives this text. BC Studies readers looking for affecting poverty and education as content specific to British Columbia potential health initiatives (208). Some may be disappointed: only one chapter contributors critique the approaches is dedicated to the study of this province. that are common to policy regarding This is Chandler’s examination of First Indigenous peoples: Kukutai and Pool Nations youth suicide, through which note that “closing-the-gap” policies focus he shows the need to consider the on the perceived deficits of Indigenous experiences of specific communities people, ignoring cultural and socio- rather than solely to analyze aggregate economic heterogeneity in Indigenous data (189). However, the national and communities (442). They argue that international content in this collection demographers focus on Indigenous mean that it will be of value to readers populations at the expense of Indigenous seeking a geographically expansive, peoples (443) partly because it is hard interdisciplinary overview of Aboriginal to operationalize experiences like populations. colonialism in social science research (444). This deficit paradigm is arguably entrenched in many chapters in this collection, which portray Aboriginal people as service users, obscuring their potential and actual role as policy- makers. The Canadian decennial census looms large as the key source for most of the chapters, and most of the contributors offer critical perspectives on the utility of historical and contemporary census data. Book Reviews 149

The Writings of David accompanied by his wife Charlotte Thompson. Vol. 1: The Travels, Small and their children. He unlocked 1850 Version many secrets of the rivers of the west. His powers of observation were acute William E. Moreau, editor and the subjects of interest to him unbounded in number and various in Montreal and Kingston: McGill- character. The Nez Percés of the Snake Queen’s University Press; co-pub- River called him “Koo-Koo-Sint” – that lished with the Champlain Society, 2015 432 $44 95 is, “Star Man” or “He Who Shoots the . pp. . cloth. Stars.” From the time he began with the North West Company in 1797 until The Writings of David the summer of 1812, Thompson did Thompson. Vol. 2: The Travels, more than any other, perhaps save 1848 Version, and Associated Sir Alexander Mackenzie, in plotting the rivers and watersheds of western Texts North America. He ranks in the highest category of discoverers, and William E. Moreau, editor he revealed to the wider world many Montreal and Kingston: McGill- little known facts about Native peoples, Queen’s University Press; co-pub- geography, and geomorphology. Of a lished with the Champlain Society, thoughtful disposition, he recorded his 2015. 436 pp. $44.95 cloth. observations in various journals. The geological surveyor Joseph B. Tyrrell Barry Gough discovered Thompson, or, as he says, Victoria “re-discovered” him, and in an article in the 1928 Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada explains how, in his own work t age fourteen, a well-educated as a surveyor, he still consulted detailed Londoner of Welsh parentage surveys compiled by Thompson in the first enteredA the service of the Hudson’s Bay two decades of the nineteenth century. Company (hbc) as an apprentice clerk. It was the meticulousness of these maps of He would have preferred to enter the a tortuous network of mountains, valleys, Royal Navy. He was strangely unsettled passes, and rivers that attracted Tyrrell. in character. Given the mathematical Unusual in the fur trading line of work education he had received at Grey at a time of competition between the Coat School, Westminster, he had hbc and the Nor’Westers, it is said that expected better but found himself at Thompson would not trade spirituous Fort Churchill, then assigned to the life liquor to the Aboriginals. He had a of northern posts. Disenchanted, he left strong puritanical streak. Thoroughness the service of the Bay traders and joined invited or necessitated slowness, and its archrival the North West Company Thompson was methodical in carrying and held the view that the hbc did only out duties entrusted to him. He went in what the British government required search and found one of the sources of of it in the way of discoveries. The the Mississippi River. He charted the Nor’Westers he regarded as far more Saskatchewan and the Columbia rivers. liberal and public in spirit. He became a In later years, he surveyed sections of tireless, inveterate traveller, sometimes the Canadian-American border in that 150 bc studies essential line of work, delineating, as required two volumes, and the journal it were, the extremity of the future of the Nor’Wester Alexander Henry the Dominion and giving special unity to the Younger, published in 1988 and 1992, is whole in terms of longitudes and latitudes. the last of a breed. He was a creature of the empirical age, Enter partners in a renewed enterprise. a deft hand with a sextant, and a sure Now, tracing over the collected draftsman when it came to map-making manuscripts and in a new editorial and views of rocky ramparts. That he format, two volumes of a projected three acted almost alone is part of the charm have been published by McGill-Queen’s of the whole story, and it is this that has University Press (and the University of attracted many a neophyte biographer Washington Press) in cooperation with to try to step in his shoes and paddle the Champlain Society. Subscribers to with him in his canoes. We wait in hope the society have happily been able to for a psychological profile of one of the purchase copies that bear the emblematic outstanding characters of all history. hallmark of the organization and are His journals, which survive in the bound in its handsome, iconic, and Archives of Ontario, Toronto, have legendary red covers and gold imprint. never been published in toto, though As a Life Member of this Society, and at many regional clusters have appeared in one time owner of the full set (Number works such as Catherine White’s David 75), I can testify that members of the Thompson’s Journals Relating to Montana society guard their treasures; indeed, (1950) and Barbara Belyea’s edition I have witnessed many casting their eyes of his Columbia Journals (1994). The with wonderment for the first time on Champlain Society, modelled on various shelves of red and gold, a testament to British records societies, such as the the finest printed legacy of the pre-digital Hakluyt Society and the Navy Records era. When combined, as mine were, with Society, has always been the leader in the Hudson’s Bay Record Society – with printing documentary editions of David which the Champlain Society had a Thompson’s writings. In 1916, the society working arrangement for thirteen years, published Tyrrell’s edition of Thompson’s resulting in the joint publication of twelve Travels, and collectors have found this volumes – it was a sight to behold. Some edition so important and attractive that, full sets may still exist in private hands. on occasion, they have bought whole Happy memories are revived by this sets of the society’s works just to get it. new publication agenda on Thompson, Only 562 copies were published, and it but, for reasons to be explained, I am was never reprinted (which it certainly not sure that the society will conclude could have been, though now it can be that this is the last it will publish of found in digital form on the society’s Thompson. It is claimed that this website). In 1962, under the editorship edition is definitive. But is any edition of the remarkable and inquisitive definitive? And equally important to Richard Glover, the society produced any champion of making our history a new edition with a more critical and accessible to the reading public, is it scholarly apparatus than had appeared user-friendly? The more extended and in Tyrrell. For all their differences, the protracted the editorial apparatus, the beauty of the Tyrrell or the Glover is more bibliographies are required (one that they are each one volume. For years for each volume), the more indexes are the Council of the Champlain Society needed (again, one for each volume), adamantly feared publishing works that and the more difficult it is, and will Book Reviews 151 be upon completion, for the reader to a moot question whether Thompson’s grasp the unity of the enterprise. For the earlier arrival would have tipped the serious researcher, with time to devote balance in the imperial rivalry that to it, the rewards may be forthcoming developed between the United States and but are gained only by assiduous hard Great Britain. In any event, Lieutenant work. For the general reader, I fear, Broughton in the Royal Navy brig confusion and dismay may result. For Chatham had surveyed the river in 1792 myself, as a student of Thompson’s life and had laid claim to it as a possession and revelations for decades, I will still of King George III. Thompson was in be looking for a one-volume edition of no position to oust the American traders Thompson’s Travels. To date, only one such at Astoria; they thought him a spy. But attempt has appeared: David Thompson: the charm of the story of fur trading Travels in Western North America (1971), rivalries will continue in the literature. compiled and edited by Victor Hopwood, There is much romance in Thompson’s a professor of English at the University story. He is one of the few fur trading of British Columbia. Hopwood never explorers to leave a substantial literary lived to fulfill his dream to complete his and documentary trail. He is one for biography of Thompson. the ages and will be with us for many Reverting to the books under review, a future book. It is the vibrancy of his this new edition of Thompson’s Travels observations and experiences that charm presented the editor and the editorial us most, and most of his biographers advisers and overseers with a notable cannot touch his powers of observation or problem. In his latter years, those of ability to transpose us in time and space, impoverishment, encroaching blindness, taking us back to a North American west and growing isolation, Thompson before the sternwheeler and the railway, gathered together his main texts. The the barbed wire and the surveyor’s chain. final result was a compilation of 1850. Of great merit is Thompson’s famed and This is the text for Volume 1. Thompson’s very large map of North America, now earlier (1848) version of his Travels is in the Library and Archives Canada, here published as Volume 2. Literary which, like James Cook’s survey of the sleuths will happily devote themselves St. Lawrence River, ranks as among our to comparing and contrasting the true cultural treasures. Thompson will two versions, noting discrepancies, continue to fascinate, and every now and championing literary progressions, and again another book appears about him the like. The projected Volume3 will – though we are still waiting for a full, consist of various notes and letters that comprehensive, and learned biography. are, presumably, supplemental to these The new Champlain Society volumes first two volumes. will ease the passage of such a work, but Students of BC history will be familiar still it is in the journals in the Archives with what is known as “the dalliance of of Ontario that the real gold nuggets are David Thompson.” The argument runs to be found. that, rather than pressing on to the mouth of the Columbia River, Thompson was References delayed for various reasons. Accordingly, he did not arrive at the destination before Belyea, Barbara, ed. 1994. Columbia Journals John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company’s David Thompson. Montreal and Kingston: expedition had landed from the Tonquin McGill-Queen’s University Press. 1962 David Thompson’s and built the post Astoria in 1811. It is Glover, Richard, ed. . 152 bc studies

Narrative 1784-1812. Toronto: The Champlain Gentile finally settled in Chicago where Society. he carried on with his photography. He Hopwood, Victor, ed. and comp. 1971. David died in 1893 and left behind his adopted Thompson: Travels in Western North America, son and a fourth wife. 1784-1812. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada. Tyrrell, J.B., ed. 1916. David Thompson’s Nar- While little known outside of rative of His Explorations in North America, photographic history circles, Gentile’s 1784-1812. Toronto: The Champlain Society. work during his brief time in Victoria Tyrrell, J.B. 1928. “The Rediscovery of David Transactions of the Royal Society was highly significant. Unlike his Thompson.” competitors, who were chiefly studio of Canada, 22. White, Catherine, ed. 1950. David Thompson’s portraiture photographers, Gentile Journals Relating to Montana and Adjacent travelled widely between 1864 and 1866, Regions, 1808-1812. Missoula: Montana State visiting the Alberni Valley, Leech University. River during its short gold rush, the Cowichan Valley, Nanaimo, Comox, New Westminster, Kamloops, and parts Carlo Gentile, Gold Rush of the Cariboo region via the Harrison Photographer, 1863-1866 Lake and Fraser Canyon routes. The latter journeys in 1865 were made partly Ronald A. Greene in the company of Governor Frederick Seymour. During his last active year as Victoria: Greene Frogge Press, 2015. 158 $75 00 a Victoria photographer, Gentile also pp. . paper. travelled to Washington Territory where he created the “earliest known views of David Mattison 123 Victoria Seattle” ( ). Whether for commercial purposes or out of humanitarian interest, Gentile’s studio and outdoor portrait ike most colonial-era Victoria work included many First Nations Lphotographers, Carlo Gentile individuals and groups. arrived and departed with little notice. Greene’s welcome study of Gentile’s Born in Italy, he eventually found his life and photographs is one of only a way to California around 1860. Having handful devoted to nineteenth-century reached Victoria from San Francisco in BC photographers. Remarkably, it is 1862, he was active as a photographer also the second book on Gentile (see only between 1863 and 1866, when he also Cesare Marino, The Remarkable purportedly returned to San Francisco. Carlo Gentile: Italian Photographer of He briefly carried on a photographic the American Frontier [Nevada City, business there before moving on. His CA: Carl Mautz, 1998]). The genesis career, not unlike that of many others of Greene’s book was a photographic in the late nineteenth century, consisted album he owns whose origin seems as of wandering from one commercial mysterious as do parts of Gentile’s life. opportunity to another, including the Greene’s initial intent was to publish the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show. While contents of his album (which was last living in the US southwest, Gentile – owned by the historian and journalist pronounced Gentilly – even managed Bruce A. McKelvie), but fortunately to purchase a young Apache (Yavapai) he acted on a suggestion to expand his boy whom he raised as a son and who scope so as to provide greater visual and became famous in his own right as the historical context to Gentile’s work. physician Carlos Montezuma. In 1877, Greene, a retired entrepreneur and well Book Reviews 153 known local and numismatic historian, and the endnotes. An index rounds out has very capably and thoroughly pulled the volume. Gentile has for a long time together the diverse traces of Gentile’s deserved a more comprehensive treatment time in Victoria. of his short time in Victoria, and Greene Following a short introduction to has now provided it. Gentile’s life, the photographs are presented. Greene chose to group them by geographic location or subject The De Cosmos Enigma matter, many with detailed captions. The photographs from his album are Gordon Hawkins designated with the prefix “DP” (for Vancouver: Ronsdale Press, 2015. Destrube Photo), and the detailed 170 pp. $17.95 paper. and worthwhile listing of “Known or Attributed Gentile Photographs,” which precedes the index, is organized by the book’s page numbers. This listing, or The Honourable Aleck: concordance, includes the contents of Love, Law and Tragedy the Arthur Nonus Birch album located in Early Canada at Library and Archives Canada; photographs located at the British Ian Bruce Robertson Columbia Archives, although none is Victoria: Friesen Press, 2013. 344 pp. specifically identified as belonging to $19 99 the Engle album; and photographs from . paper. the ethnological collection at the Royal Adam Coombs British Columbia Museum. While some University of British Columbia maps are reproduced in colour, all the photographs are black and white. No glass plate negatives by Gentile are known to n a grey day in November of have survived. Given the difficulties of 1868, lawyer Alexander “Aleck” working with the wet collodion process RockeO Robertson met with journalist that Gentile favoured, and Gentile’s own and politician Amor De Cosmos. Both uneven technique, it is not surprising men had been born in eastern Canada that the quality of the reproductions and, while pursuing different careers – is not always the best. For comparative Robertson (from Canada West) in law, purposes, an interested reader might and De Cosmos (from Nova Scotia) examine the digitized contents of the in photography and journalism – both Arthur Nonus Birch Fonds (R9701- moved to Victoria to pursue their 0-1-E), which consists of an album at substantial ambitions. The subject of Library and Archives Canada, and the this meeting was what they considered high-resolution “Charles Gentile Early the disastrous result in that month’s British Columbia Photos,” which are part colonial elections. A few days earlier, of the Uno Langmann Collection at the the political faction supporting British University of British Columbia Library. Columbia’s entry into Confederation, of The latter are not included in Greene’s which De Cosmos and Robertson were concordance of Gentile photographs. leading figures, had suffered a massive Also useful for further studies are defeat; even De Cosmos lost his Victoria the reproductions of all known versos seat to anti-Confederation stalwart of carte-de-visite-sized photographs Dr. John Helmcken. Despite the 154 bc studies setback, both men were cautiously how the events described in the letters optimistic that the impending transfer occurred, including the dialogue between of Rupert’s Land from the Hudson’s Bay the key actors (xii). The1868 meeting Company to the Canadian government between De Cosmos and Robertson would renew support for British described above is one such example of Columbia’s entry into Confederation this. For Robertson, the letters provide (Robertson, 177-78). Ultimately, their a framework within which to explore the optimism was justified, and, thanks in world of his subject, but his recreative part to the efforts of these two men, enterprise is not limited by their content. fewer than three years later British Indeed, the creative and non-fictional Columbia became the sixth province aspects of his work are present in equal to join Canada. portion. While historians are broadly familiar While neither author has written with the role Robertson and De Cosmos a conventional biography, their works played in pushing British Columbia to are important contributions to the join Confederation, Gordon Hawkins’s political and legal history of British book on De Cosmos and Ian Robertson’s Columbia: Robertson has never been on his ancestor Alexander Robertson the subject of a monograph, and the last document the political careers of these book-length biography of De Cosmos key figures. Hawkins seeks to address (George Woodcock’s Amor de Cosmos: what he perceives as the relative lack of Journalist and Reformer) was published attention De Cosmos has received since in 1975. The strongest moment in each his death – part of what he terms “the book comes when the authors employ enigma of De Cosmos” – arguing that “he the biographical tradition to its fullest failed to secure the degree of fame and potential to open a window onto the respect he both deserved and expected” world inhabited by Amor and Aleck: (141). However, as Hawkins admits, both books pay considerable attention to writing about De Cosmos is exceptionally the broader political and social context challenging given the lack of primary when assessing their subjects’ prominent sources, and he was forced to rely on intra-provincial role in securing support secondary sources to fill in substantial for British Columbia’s entry into gaps in De Cosmos’s life. Sometimes, Confederation. such as when dealing with the cause of Despite their excellent use of secondary De Cosmos’s late-life insanity, Hawkins literature to depict the political situation is forced to rely on pure speculation. in British Columbia, both Hawkins and Similarly, Robertson’s self-described Robertson might have engaged with a work of “creative non-fiction” focuses broader body of writing, particularly with on the life of Alexander Robertson and works from outside political and legal his wife Margaret. Using a collection history. While Hawkins focuses almost of letters exchanged between them, exclusively on the colony’s white settlers, Robertson reconstructs key moments in a number of scholars, including Robin their lives. When the letters provide only Fisher (Contact and Conflict), Cole Harris limited information, such as regarding (Making Native Space), and Douglas Alexander Robertson’s initial trip from Harris (Fish, Law, and Colonialism) Ontario to British Columbia in 1864, demonstrate that Aboriginal inhabitants Robertson relies on secondary literature of the colony played an integral part in to fill in the gaps. As he openly admits in many aspects of its history. Key events, the introduction, he creatively imagines such as the gold rush, which brought Book Reviews 155

De Cosmos to British Columbia, are the nineteenth century. While both could impossible to describe adequately without benefit from engaging with a greater considering the role of Aboriginal range of existing analytical literature, inhabitants in the Pacific colony. they remain worthwhile and useful for Moreover, as owner of the British Colonist scholars and members of the general between 1858 and 1863, De Cosmos, in public interested in exploring the political his editorials and articles, was aware of, and legal history of this province. and commented on, issues relating to the often confrontational relationship between white settlers and Aboriginals, Patrician Liberal: The Public particularly in the Fraser Valley and the and Private Life of Sir Henri- Gulf Islands. De Cosmos’s engagement with Indigenous issues makes Hawkins’s Gustave Joly de Lotbinière, almost exclusive focus on white settlers 1829-1908 seem somewhat incongruous. While Robertson limits his focus J.I. Little largely to white settlers, his narrative is Toronto: University of Toronto driven by the content of his letters, which Press, 2013. 376 pp. $37.95 paper. reflect the biases and priorities expressed by Alexander Robertson and his wife in Patricia E. Roy their epistolary exchanges. However, University of Victoria his work would be strengthened by incorporating insights from cultural history, particularly gender history. t firstglance, a review of the Robertson recreates the couple’s daily biography of a nineteenth-century interactions as well as some of their QuebecA politician seems out of place in social relationships, including parent- BC Studies. Born in France in 1829 to a child and cross-gender friendships, wealthy French Protestant father and but his characters speak and react in a his Roman Catholic wife, the heiress manner similar to what one would expect to the Lotbinière seigneury southwest from people today, despite the massive of Quebec City, Sir Henri-Gustave Joly gulf in social norms and expectations de Lotbinière spent his childhood in between Victorian Canada and the Quebec, graduated from the Université present. By drawing on the pertinent de France, was called to the Quebec bar, work of historians such as Adele Perry and married the Anglican daughter of a (On the Edge of Empire) or Sarah Carter prominent Quebec merchant. (Capturing Women), Robertson could have Playing a patrician role with a constructed a much more textured and “reputation as an honourable and convincing dialogue for his characters principled man” (244), Joly was while deepening his analysis of their paternalistic towards his former censitaires, relationships. used his farm to demonstrate improved Overall, both Robertson and agricultural methods, and employed Hawkins tackle a conventional subject his one-time censitaires in his lumber – political history – in an unorthodox but business. He practised sustained yield informative and entertaining manner. By in the seigneury’s forests and became focusing on these key figures, both books Canada’s “most prominent proponent” of chart broad political and legal changes the infant forest conservation movement in British Columbia in the latter half of (200). As a railway promoter and 156 bc studies provincial politician, Joly carefully he did. Little shows how Joly’s Quebec avoided potential conflicts of interest. In experience influenced his actions in 1878, the lieutenant-governor dismissed British Columbia, including conservation the premier and invited Joly, the leader policies in new timber legislation, of the opposition, to form a government. insisting that the legislature vote on the After losing support in the legislature, report of the Commission of Inquiry into Joly resigned the premiership but the Kaien Island land deal and providing remained a critic of the Conservative hints on arguing for “Better Terms” from government and defender of provincial the federal government. Little surmises rights. that Joly may have modified McBride’s Joly had opposed Confederation; actions towards Asians and encouraged later, he became deeply concerned about him to be less strident towards Ottawa. preserving national unity in the crises This well researched and well written over Louis Riel and Manitoba schools. biography is set within a framework In the 1896 federal election he ran of contemporary historiography. For successfully for the Liberals and became example, Little observes that, while in minister of inland revenue, a minor post some ways Joly fits Ian McKay’s concept of noted for its patronage opportunities. His the liberal order, McKay fails to recognize opposition to the spoils system and to the role of paternalism in the economy raising the Chinese head tax made him and politics. For British Columbia, unpopular in the cabinet. Little questions Robert A.J. McDonald’s What did this have to do with British arguments about the significance of Columbia? Given confusion in provincial the introduction of party lines. In sum, politics (which Little succinctly explains), Little has admirably used biography to Prime Minister Laurier wisely looked examine politics, the economy, culture, outside for a lieutenant-governor to society, and historiography – especially replace the dismissed T.R. McInnes “to in Quebec and British Columbia. stabilize the state” and “restore investor confidence” 214( ). A “patrician sense of pride and duty” (215) led Joly to accept The Voyage of the Komagata the post. For British Columbians, Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Joly’s knowledge of constitutional law, railway construction, and forestry, plus Canada’s Colour Bar his knighthood and membership in Hugh Johnston the Anglican Church, overcame any unpopularity caused by his sympathy for Vancouver: ubc Press, 2015. 268 pp. the Chinese. As lieutenant-governor, Joly $29.95 paper. was discreet but more than a figurehead. In 1903, when E.G. Prior, the fifth Sharanjit Kaur Sandhra premier in five years, saw no wrong in University of the Fraser Valley using inside knowledge to benefit his hardware firm, Joly dismissed him and t is with great anticipation that invited Richard McBride, a Conservative those of us who study South Asian and leader of the opposition, to form a migrationI to Canada have awaited the government and to introduce party lines expanded and revised version of Hugh to the legislature. Johnston’s The Voyage of the Komagata Joly expected to mentor the thirty- Maru. Johnston’s original monograph two-year-old McBride and, informally, on the Komagata Maru incident, Book Reviews 157 published by Oxford University Press all become real-life characters during in 1979, was the first and remains the three-month standoff itself, from the most detailed exploration of the imperial spy William Hopkinson to exclusion from Canada in May 1914 of member of Parliament Henry Herbert most of the ship’s 376 passengers, of Stevens to Husain Rahim of the shore whom 340 were Sikhs, and the ship’s committee. Johnston unveils other new forced return to Calcutta in September pieces of information, including the little- of that year. Johnston’s magisterial known fact that the shore committee analysis of this infamous Canadian sent letters of help to the Maharajas of race-based infraction against human Patiala and Nabha in Punjab in an at- rights has stood the test of time. His tempt to gain support for those aboard revised edition, published strategically the ship. Johnston also adds new detail to coincide with the centennial year to the “fugitive” years of the ship’s char- of the Komagata Maru, exceeds my terer, Gurdit Singh Sarhali, and the na- expectations. tionwide attention the tragic incident The great value of this revised edi- received following Indian Independence tion is Johnston’s placing of South Asian in 1947. migrants within the ever-complicated For any scholar of Canadian or BC and often contradictory subject of em- history, colonialism, or empire, Johnston’s pire. Johnston provides the larger con- revised and extended monograph on the text of the South Asian role not just in Komagata Maru is a must-read. Based on Britain and India but in the Caribbean, an incident of which many Canadians re- Mauritius, Fiji, Singapore, Hong Kong, main unaware, Johnston weaves in many and elsewhere. Returning from the macro larger subjects that speak to a range of to the micro, Johnston explains how twentieth-century historical themes. Canadian politicians sought to exclude South Asians from the Port of Vancouver based on their race. Johnston’s placing of South Asians within the Imperial pro- ject fits with current diaspora scholarship that considers the impact of imperialism on specific cultural communities. Throughout the book, Johnston dis- plays his ability to convey detail and con- text with precision and fluidity – a skill and asset that any historian or scholar might hope to achieve. And Johnston has added valuable detail to many as- pects of his 1979 narrative: for example, in his deeper analysis of the impact of the Ghadar Revolutionary movement in North America (Chapter 3), and with the additional detail on the life of key Ghadarite Bhagwan Singh Jakh, where Johnston adds new information and his- torical context to the restriction of the passengers on the Komagata Maru in 1914. In addition, Johnston’s key players 158 bc studies

Uprooted Again: Japanese of Japanese Canadians. The strength Canadians Move to Japan after of this scholarship has sometimes also World War II been its weakness: the importance of these events in the history of Canadian Tatsuo Kage, translated by racism seems to compel what Kirsten 2001 Kathleen Chisato Merken McAllister ( ) describes as the “paradox of repetition” (99), wherein the Victoria: Ti-Jean Press, 2012. 180 pp. 1940 $19 95 repeated narrative of the s obscures . paper. the heterogeneity and complexity of the Japanese-Canadian past. The three titles considered in the present Ethnic Elites and Canadian review converge with one another Identity: Japanese, Ukrainians, as each of them touches, in its own and Scots, 1919­-1971 way, upon the history of Japanese Canadians. They share an orientation Aya Fujiwara to international contexts, but each situates itself in a distinctive fashion. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Only one (Fujiwara’s) is a conventional 2012 288 $27 95 Press, . pp. . paper. scholarly history, while the other two are intended for popular audiences. Taken together, they point towards Trouble on Main Street: a historiography that escapes the Mackenzie King, Reason, Race “paradox of repetition” and moves towards a more varied and eclectic and the 1907 Vancouver Riots telling of the past. Julie F. Gilmour Of the three books, Kage’s Uprooted Again is the most closely tied to the 2014 Toronto: Allen Lane Canada, . existing historiography on Japanese 256 $34 00 pp. . cloth. Canadians. A translation of his 1998 work in Japanese, the book tells the Jordan Stanger-Ross University of Victoria stories of some of the almost four thousand Japanese Canadians who were exiled to Japan in 1946. While aspects he history of Japanese Canadians of this history – including the failure has been told in rich and powerful of the legal challenge to the policy and 1940 ways.T The events of the s, when the eventual success of the political Canadians of Japanese ancestry were campaign to halt further deportations uprooted, interned, and dispossessed by – are well known, too little work has the federal government, have received been done to tell the stories of the exiles particular attention in a scholarship themselves, who represented almost 20 that has conveyed the era as an outcome percent of the pre-war coastal Japanese- of long-standing structural racism, Canadian population. Supplementing an exemplar of the unjust exercise oral history interviews with selective of state power, a catalyst to postwar archival research, Kage tells this history reconsiderations of Canadian pluralism in the voices of the exiles. For example, and civil rights, and a key chapter in the coercion involved in the supposedly the memories, gendered and family voluntary choice of “repatriation” by histories, and political consciousness many Japanese Canadians is revealed in Book Reviews 159 the specifics of individual lives: a father Canadian pluralism tends sometimes to of three children and his ailing wife flatten an uneven past, as, for example, accepted exile to Japan as a means of Fujiwara underplays the enduring keeping the family together; a mother importance of race in Canadian public of a newborn child still recovering from life and policy in the post-Second World the birth and unable to undertake a War period (119, 122) and acknowledges journey to eastern Canada chose instead but underestimates the controversy government-sponsored exile; a fisherman surrounding the Royal Commission that “ridiculed [by officials] for expressing examined the property losses of Japanese the ludicrous idea of returning to the Canadians (120-24). However, her west coast” acquiesced to deportation analysis also uncovers new complexities. with disgust (18-19, 53). The injustice of Particularly revealing is a strain of exile, told at the level of the individuals analysis that runs through the book who experienced it, flows into a similar detailing the different fates of “homeland narrative of the particular challenges myths” in the construction of community faced by Japanese Canadians as they by the Ukrainian and Japanese-Canadian sought to establish themselves in a ethnic elite. In the pre-war period, devastated postwar Japan. Many sought leaders in both groups drew mythologies to return to Canada in the 1950s. Others of “home” and traditional sources of succeeded in Japan but still bore the identity together with articulations of legacies of their double uprooting. As one where immigrants fit into Canadian man poignantly remarked, since his exile: society. Fujiwara argues that pre-war “I’ve always thought that wherever I live, Japanese-Canadian issei leaders found it's just temporary” (56). Kage’s book, in ways of merging their own feelings of many respects, is about this loss of place. common lineage and racial superiority If Kage pushes the historiography with a commitment to Canadian to extend beyond national boundaries pluralism (67). For example, in 1934, by following the paths of exiles, the Tairiku nippô newspaper argued Fujiwara’s comparative analysis focuses that “maintaining racial pride and on transnational concepts and myths. strengths would never prevent [Japanese Drawing Japanese Canadians into immigrants and their children] from historical comparison with Canadians becoming good Canadian citizens” (57), of Ukrainian and Scottish heritage, the a sentiment echoed, as previous scholars book spans the years 1919 to 1971, exploring have noted, in the interwar Ukrainian how leaders in each community helped press. However, this commonality of to steer Canada “from unofficial ‘Anglo- the pre-war period was lost during the conformity’ to official multiculturalism” Second World War. During the wartime (3). Although, by admission of the years, nationalist Ukrainian Canadians author (18), Scots sometimes fade into “could renew their ethnic consciousness the background, the comparison is novel around their long-term goal of Ukrainian and illuminating. Fujiwara argues that independence,” (102) while seeing their leaders of all three groups (often riven by communist rivals marginalized. By internal differences) worked separately, contrast, Japanese Canadians were forced but in ways that ultimately converged, to to abandon celebration of Japan and racial redefine “ethnicity, race, democracy, and constructions of their identities, replacing citizenship” (13), eventually contributing these with anti-racist and assimilationist to Canada’s reimagining as a multicultural perspectives in a process that accelerated society. This framing of the trajectory of a shift in communal leadership towards 160 bc studies the Canadian-born nissei (Chapter 3). other matters, the question of Europe’s These changes, wrought during the displaced persons after the Second World 1940s, had enduring legacies as each War (205). group contributed very differently to the King was also the prime minister who postwar emergence of multiculturalism. presided over the uprooting, internment, The Trouble on Main Street is by and dispossession of Japanese Canadians. no means conceived by its author as a For readers with a focus on this aspect work of Japanese-Canadian history. of his legacy, the book offers glimpses Nonetheless, the book connects with of another area of education: in his the previous two because it pivots on early career King was also absorbing the “series of unplanned opportunities” and refining a racialized perspective on (204) that presented themselves to a the world. In these years, King observed young William Lyon Mackenzie King intense hostility within “white Canada” after he was dispatched to oversee the (54) to Asian migrants. He acquired federal inquiry into a landmark event skills of misdirection and euphemism in in Japanese-Canadian history: the matters of racial discrimination against, 1907 rioting in Vancouver that targeted for example, migrants supposed, falsely Chinese-Canadian and Japanese- (113), to be “accustomed to the conditions Canadian neighbourhoods. A work of of a tropical climate” and hence “wholly biography that draws primarily upon unsuited to this country” (98). In February King’s own private writings, the book 1909, travelling from India to China, proposes that his experiences as a young King boarded a German ocean liner and civil servant and then politician open reflected in his diary: “It is impossible “a fascinating window into Edwardian to describe how refreshing it is to be Canada and its place in the world” (3). again with people of one’s own colour. King’s role in the inquests that followed One becomes very tired of the black after the riots – offering compensation races after living among them” (168). to Japanese-Canadian and later Chinese- Almost forty years later, King would Canadian property owners – established teach Canadians about the “extreme him as a leading voice in discussions of difficulty of assimilating Japanese Asian migrants in Canada, a role that, persons in Canada” (House of Commons in turn, afforded him a place in sensitive Debates 1944). Gilmour’s book hints at and complex international negotiations, the international stage upon which race for which he travelled to England and ideology was learned by key figures of the United States, and subsequently to the mid-century. India, China, and Japan. For Gilmour, Scholars will find that each of these this is the story of the education of an works leaves room for significant influential Canadian who learned, in the further research and writing. Kage and course of these travels, how to operate at Gilmour, as might be expected given the highest level of international politics their intended audiences, offer little and who came to believe “that a time analysis, and Kage’s book, in particular, was coming” (202) when Canada would is somewhat anecdotal. Fujiwara’s require its own international presence. mishandling of some key issues – for Within this framing, King’s early instance in presenting Lord Tweedsmuir career is a context for understanding the as a “strong advocate of ethnic pluralism” subsequent evolution, under King the (58) and William Lyon Mackenzie King prime minister, of Canada’s role on the as a “sympathetic” and “moderate” voice world stage and his responses to, among on Japanese-Canadian matters (80- Book Reviews 161

81) – and questionable terminological and ammonium nitrate production, choices (including her consistent use all while navigating a tangled web of of “Japanese” instead of “Japanese private, provincial, and international Canadian”) somewhat undermine power interests. In some sense, the care that she exhibits elsewhere. these federal efforts are presented as Nonetheless, all three books contribute relatively successful as hydro capacity to pushing the historiography that they increased significantly in some parts share in new and promising directions. of the country. However, Evenden demonstrates that this expansion of hydro power in the name of wartime References expediency came at significant costs, House of Commons Debates. 1944. 19th Parl., including displacement of Aboriginal 5th Session. vol. 6, 5916. peoples like the Innu along the McAllister, Kirsten Emiko. 2001. “Captivating Peribonka River; disruption of parkland Debris: Unearthing a World War Two Cultural Values 5 1 near Lake Minnewaka, Alberta; and Internment Camp.” ( ): exacerbation of regional cleavages in 97-114. industrial development as provinces without significant hydro power (such as Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia) were left further behind. Allied Power: Mobilizing Drawing from a range of archival Hydro-Electricity during collections throughout Canada, this Canada’s Second World War book weaves several provincial accounts – notably ones in Ontario, Quebec, Matthew Evenden British Columbia, and Alberta – into a fascinating narrative that contributes to Toronto: University of Toronto 2015 290 $32 95 North American histories of international Press, . pp. . paper. relations, energy, environment, political economy, and consumption. For instance, Jonathan McQuarrie 4 University of Toronto Chapter explores the impact of wartime power restrictions and how they intersected with gendered understandings n Allied Power, Matthew Evenden of citizenship and consumption patterns expertly demonstrates how private within the context of long stalled andI public power commissions and Canada-US negotiations over water corporations throughout Canada diversions along the Great Lakes- expanded hydro-electric capacity in St. Lawrence basin. Sensory experiences response to the ballooning demands of the darkened city, reminiscent of Joy for power and production during the Parr’s Sensing Changes: Technologies, Second World War. He argues that Environments, and the Everyday (2010), the war “facilitated an unprecedented are considered alongside the protracted expansion of state control over hydro- St. Lawrence Seaway negotiations electric development” (8). To establish that were recently studied by Daniel this, the book traces the federal efforts, MacFarlane in Negotiating a River: particularly those directed by power Canada, the US, and the Creation of the St. controller Herbert J. Symington, to Lawrence Seaway (2014). A great strength increase and channel hydro capacity to of this book is the sheer number of essential war industries like aluminum historical conversations to which it adds. 162 bc studies

Readers of BC Studies might be (Canadian Historical Review 92, 3 [2011]). particularly interested in Chapter 7, Further, the extent to which wartime “Wringing the Last Kilowatt,” which conditions produced exceptions in the explores the origins of particularly firm connection between modernization sharp energy shortages in British and capitalism in Canada would bear Columbia in 1944, even as the war had more explicit commentary, although turned decisively in the Allies’ favour. some discussion about Symington’s link In particular, Evenden reveals how to private power concerns are suggestive difficulties in interconnecting the two (24). main power companies (the BC Electric Befitting a book with national scope Company and the West Kootenay Power and wide ambitions, much of the analysis and Light Company) combined with suggests new directions for study. To limited federal knowledge, corporate give but one example, the relationship unease over public power campaigns, between the need for constant power and an ill-timed dry spell in 1943 all and the “temporal rhythms of the contributed to power shortages. The market” is noted and merits further completion of the Brilliant Dam on the consideration in other forums (104). How Kootenay River eased these shortages, do rhythms, seasonality, and dry spells but difficulties with connecting to the operate alongside the abstract views of BC Electric’s Lower Mainland system energy marketplaces produced by state meant that capacity problems and debates representatives like Symington, which over energy in British Columbia persisted prized predictability and measurability? well after the war. Evenden explores I finished Evenden’s work with a mind aspects of these postwar debates in his full of new ideas and unexpected previous work, Fish versus Power: An connections, and I strongly suspect Environmental History of the Fraser River that other readers will enjoy a similar (2004). experience. Many of the accounts in the book speak to studies of the state perspective on modernization, which explore The Chinchaga Firestorm: When the ramifications of the technocratic the Moon and Sun Turned Blue perspective that emphasized centralized planning and diminished local Cordy Tymstra and Mike knowledges. The book produces glimpses Flannigan of the interplay between state and local knowledges, such as the labour Edmonton: University of Alberta 2015 $34 95 of Nakoda people during the dam Press, . . paper. construction near Lake Minnewaka, 148 Stephen J. Pyne Alberta, ( ) and of Doukhobor people Arizona State University in the Kootenay Valley (173). More theoretical scaffolding for studying and ome fires understanding modernization would have are justly renowned. helped to further clarify the significance Some are celebrities – known for of these encounters between the central beingS known. A few are famous for 1871 and the local. A recent model can be being unknown. The Peshtigo fire found in Tina Loo and Megan Stanley’s in the United States has long marketed examination of postwar high modernity itself as America’s Forgotten Fire. The 1950 on the Peace and Columbia rivers Canadian equivalent may be the Book Reviews 163

Chinchaga burn. Scotland. The pall and its effects merit In truth, the Chinchaga fire complex two chapters. has been known in the Canadian forestry The text covers a lot of topics – community since it happened, and, over anything that might give explanation, the past couple of decades, it has been context, or comparison to the Chinchaga studied by Peter Murphy and Cordy fires. But like the scattering of light Tymstra, who worked out its dimensions by which smoke obscures visibility, and dynamics. But there is a difference a narrative scatter blurs rather than between a big fire and a great one, and sharpens the contours. The text bounces the Chinchaga complex has nestled from fact-particle to fact-particle, from among the big. Now Tymstra and Mike one research project to another, from Flannigan have returned to argue that people who are introduced in 1952 and it is also a great fire in its ecological who then reappear in 1948. The authors and political effects and its message for note that a fire prevention program in Canadian society. No longer a big burn, the Peace River Country was a “huge it is reimagined as a firestorm. success,” as reported by the Peace River The Chinchaga fires became large Record Gazette on 21 September 1950; yet because the boreal forest is extensive, this was exactly the time of the great surge unbroken by the lakes of the Canadian of burning (122). The fires were singular, Shield; because the major fires started yet “not an anomaly” (133). The Chinchaga early and burned through the long season; River Fire had “lasting impacts,” yet it and because, north of the Peace River, the is absent from the 1957 forest cover map fires were beyond the established line of of Alberta that “represents the first view control for both the British Columbia and of Alberta’s forests” before modern fire Alberta forest services. The largest of the suppression ramped up (xxiv, 13). A kind pack, the 1.4-million-hectare Chinchaga of explanatory pall hangs over the book River Fire, merits detailed reconstruction that impresses by its dimensions yet can here in its own chapter. Some 81 percent confuse in its details. of fire spread occurred over a fifteen-day This is surely the definitive account period, the bulk during the great wind of the Chinchaga complex. It will be of 20-22 September 1950. welcomed by the North American fire It’s harder to demonstrate the community and by anyone interested Chinchaga fires’ significance beyond in the settlement of the Boreal Plains that staggering scale. They didn’t get Ecozone of western Canada. recorded in official statistics or fire atlases. They didn’t seem to influence major policy shifts, which were under way for other reasons. They didn’t burn in or over communities as did the 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park Fire, near Kelowna, and the 2011 Slave Lake Fire. Their major influence was an extraordinary plume – what became known as the Great Smoke Pall – that, “sandwiched” between inversions, stayed aloft for seven days while it trended southeast to the United States before warping northeastward and turning the sun and moon blue in 164 bc studies

Made in British Columbia: Her interpretations of broad themes of Eight Ways of Making Culture art, and of artists’ lives, make worthwhile reading, especially in understanding Maria Tippett the patterns that unite and separate Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, them. The majority – Rattenbury, Carr, 2015. 272 pp. $32.95 cloth. Woodcock, Coulthard, and Erickson – applied foreign-learned techniques Michael Kluckner and aesthetics to their work. Carr, Vancouver Woodcock, and Ryga could be said to be Outsiders versus the Establishment, while Coulthard and Erickson benefited t first glance, I was sceptical of greatly from parental support and Made in British Columbia. What connections. Rattenbury, Carr, and moreA could possibly be written about Erickson were lucky, while Woodcock painter Emily Carr or architects Francis achieved his literary reputation Rattenbury and Arthur Erickson? through vast productivity and dogged But Maria Tippett’s carefully crafted persistence. Rattenbury, Woodcock, biographies of them, and of novelist Reid, and Erickson were relentlessly and Martin Grainger, writer/critic George successfully self-promotional, while Carr, Woodcock, playwright George Ryga, Ryga, and Coulthard struggled along composer Jean Coulthard, and artist more like the solitary artists of legend. Bill Reid, deftly examine their artistic Carr, Woodcock, and Reid were legacy on the Left Coast. initially successful elsewhere, if only in The subtitle of the book refers to eastern Canada, giving them credibility “making culture” rather than to “making at home; Carr and Coulthard, especially, a culture”; it is in the subjects’ distinctive were disadvantaged by living in British oeuvres, and the paths they took to create Columbia rather than in, say, culture- them, that the book becomes more than centric Toronto. Ryga and Woodcock the sum of its parts. As Tippett writes used their art as a vehicle for social in her epilogue, the shaping of British change. Reid and Erickson happily Columbia’s culture “has more than one took sole credit for collaborative efforts. plot” (231). She makes no distinction As Tippett notes, all wanted to move between the fine arts – painting, music, “beyond provincialism” (192), meaning and fiction-writing – and the applied arts, they wanted their work to speak to such as architecture, non-fiction-writing, tastemakers in bigger, older, more and jewellery-making, and she focuses important cities. The cbc is mentioned the same level of analysis on each. many times and was germane to the Her subtext suggests a British success of Woodcock, Ryga, and Reid. Columbia that was a wilderness Eden All the voices are culturally white, once occupied only by Nature’s innocents including Reid’s with his “artifakes” (“One can only wonder what the (180), reflecting his conflicted part-Haida Lekwammen people must have thought” ancestry. Tippett provides an interesting [22]) who were dispossessed of their analysis of the appropriation debates land and culture, a theme that becomes that challenged both Reid’s and Carr’s focused in analyses of the work of work; however, some comparison with, Grainger, Carr, and Reid. No human- for example, the development of Inuit art made landscape, the book implies, could and its introduction into the museums equal the glory of the natural cathedral. Book Reviews 165 and galleries of southern Canada would Writing the Okanagan have been welcome. The odd one out is Englishman Martin George Bowering Grainger, author of Woodsmen of the West. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 2015. 1908 Published in London in , it was more 320 pp. $24.95 paper. successful there than in British Columbia and was out of print until 1964. It is read Ian Pooley “less as a work of imagination than as Kelowna a documentary chronicle” (30). His is the only true colonial story, of “man” eorge Bowering’s n e w exploiting the wilderness, whereas all of anthology, Writing the Okanagan, the others pursued their muses amidst a isG a collection of Bowering’s fiction more settled society. associated through setting, choice of Missing from the collection and characters, or autobiographical referents analysis is an Asian-ancestry voice, with the Okanagan, chiefly the south perhaps a writer’s. Tippett’s very few Okanagan, where he grew up. Many missteps concern people of Japanese of the pieces, poetry, short stories, 21 079 27 000 ancestry, , of whom, not , and excerpts from longer works use 202 ( ), were removed from the coast in the town of Oliver, where Bowering’s 1942 . Raymond Moriyama, Tak Tanabe, father taught high school chemistry, as and Joy Kogawa “never had a chance to a backdrop. gain early recognition ... for the simple Some of the sharply framed pieces 233 reason that they were interned” ( ) – draw on Bowering’s own experiences of they were only sixteen, nineteen, and life in a small farming town; they include nine, respectively, when the war ended. baseball games viewed from the rickety Architect Kenzo Tange becomes Tange press booth on top of the bleachers, where 214 Kenzo in the text ( ). the teenage Bowering worked as a sports In her epilogue, Tippett notes that reporter, the rites de passage of youth, the contemporary artistic scene is summer jobs on orchards and in the local considerably more diverse than the packing house, and a story about a self- one she has written about. British conscious young man returning to his Columbians such as artists Ken Lum home town for a class reunion. Bowering and Ian Wallace are now “exporting is particularly good at evoking, without 237 their culture” ( ). Pop culture goes indulging in nostalgia, an adolescent’s unmentioned – perhaps a future volume identification with the local landscape, in could tackle that subject? And, finally, she this case the dry, sagebrush-covered hills does right one wrong of many previous, surrounding the town, a place that offered including recent, works on Erickson: the escape from the stifling routines of small- voice of architect Geoffrey Massey, long town life, and room for contemplation subsumed in the tsunami of hagiography and solitude to a creative and ambitious about his former partner, is clearly heard. high school student. As a writer of fiction, Bowering has the freedom to mischievously insert invented characters into the local setting. I enjoyed finding a thinly disguised D.H. Lawrence preparing to meet a rattlesnake, a very well read vigilante heroine passing the night at the mining town of Fairview, 166 bc studies and a talented female disciple of W.H. local people. As he says himself: “You don’t Auden writing poetry on the sly in an cast aside your boyhood locus; it remains unobtrusive cottage tucked away in a as part of the breath and sound trying to peach orchard. make what you are trying to make. Trying The compact space of an anthology even now, forty-nine years on” (37). can cause problems, particularly for poetry. “Desert Elm,” a longer poem about Bowering’s father, suffers from Okanagan Artists in Their the omission of several verses. However, Studios even in an excerpted prose piece, like the fragment reprinted from Cars, Bowering’s Patricia Ainslie terse style is funny and satisfying, Calgary: Frontenac House, 2013. 208 sufficient in itself: “my buddy Willy $50 00 would say to a girl from Osoyoos, maybe, pp. . cloth. want to go for a spin in my snappy red 1954 Maria Tippett convertible, and what he had was a Cambridge University Morris Minor with the top sawed off” (250). Oliver has a strong cultural connection t is often said that the images with the Okanagan First Nations, and that come to mind when thinking the anthology contains several articles orI writing about the cultural history and poems that touch on First Nations of British Columbia are the province’s in the Okanagan Valley. It includes a varied landscape and the art of the short sketch from his novel Shoot! that First Nations people. One look at contains a fictionalized portrayal of a Patricia Ainslie’s Okanagan Artists in First Nations man whom Bowering calls Their Studios tells a different story. “Windy Bones.” The portrayal succinctly Among the thirteen artists featured in hits the mark: “Windy has a sense of this book are three landscape painters: humour that tells you that you had better Joice M. Hall, David Alexander, and be content to be a white man surrounded Ann Kipling. And there is one sculptor, by irony” (246). Byron Johnson, whose installations Particularly moving is Bowering’s comprise cast-off farm implements. essay on Mourning Dove, born Christine Yet these artists are in the minority. Quintasket in Idaho in 1885, one of the While Bryan Ryley’s studio might earliest North American First Nations be surrounded by dense woods, the women to write a novel. Before writing source of his stunning non-objective the piece, Bowering visited her grave in paintings and collages comes from Okanogan, Washington. He outlines within: “I am searching for a language her struggles to be a writer and her wherein perceptual change is activated close ties with her First Nations family through a constant flux of elements north of the border, which included from one edge of the painting to the both of her grandfathers and one of her other” (26). Jock Hildebrand’s bronze grandmothers. Mourning Dove herself and stone sculptures, among which taught at what Bowering calls “the Indian are Dancing Pedestrians (2001), speak school” north of Osoyoos in 1917. to the human form rather than to the Throughout the book, Bowering’s lyrical landscape. And while photographer sense of place shines through, both in Fern Helfand might have turned her descriptive passages and in evocations of camera to clear-cut logging in West Book Reviews 167

Kelowna, it is in her photographs and The West Coast Modern digital montages of Inner Mongolia, House: Vancouver Residential Las Vegas, and Paris that she finds her Architecture “voice” as a photographer. So why did Patricia Ainslie choose to Greg Bellerby approach the artists featured in her book 1 through their studios? Was she inspired Vancouver: Figure Publishing and the Charles H. Scott Gallery, 2014. by Robert Amos’s Artists in Their Studios, 175 $45 00 Where Art Is Born (TouchWood, 2007)? pp. . paper. Did this approach offer the only way of coming to grips with the mélange of styles and subject matter of her Finding a Good Fit: chosen artists? Or did the author feel The Life and Work of Architect that viewing artists’ studios was “user- Rand Iredale friendly” in that it offered her readers a segue into the sometimes difficult- Kathryn Iredale with Sheila to-understand contemporary art of the Martineau twenty-first century? Ainslie gives her own view. “Artists Vancouver: Blueimprint and 2008 375 surround themselves with objects and Kathryn Iredale, . pp. materials that are an intrinsic part $49.95 paper. of their ideas, thought processes and 7 Harold Kalman work” ( ) and, she continues, they “are Vancouver the sanctuaries that inspire their work” (8). The spaces featured inOkanagan Artists in Their Studios are as different as est Coast Modernism describes are the artists. Julie Oakes’s studio on a particular brand of mid- the outskirts of Vernon is high-walled twentieth-centuryW architecture that and pristine. The arched stained-glass developed in the Vancouver region, windows and vaulted ceiling of Jim a style much talked about but not Kalnin’s studio-home leaves no doubt that widely published. The firms most this space was once St. Mary’s Anglican closely associated with the manner Church. On the other hand, there is little include Thompson, Berwick, and romance in Fern Helfand’s multi-screen Pratt; Hollingsworth and Downs; computer-printer dominated studio. and Erickson Massey. This mid- Only David Alexander’s studio fulfills century style developed in parallel with the cliché of what we think an artist’s International Style Modernism, which studio should look like: splattered paint prevailed in central Canada, led by dishes and brushes, rolls of canvases, and Toronto’s John B. Parkin Associates. a cabinet stocked with art books. In the The two variants of modernism shared midst of this apparent chaos stands the many features. Both abandoned artist looking at his work. historicism, featured vertical posts and Patricia Ainslie presents these interior horizontal beams with flat roofs, used images to us through the eyes of her large expanses of glass, and adopted photographer, Glenna Turnbull, who played open planning. The West Coast version no small role in shaping this beautifully distinguished itself by exploiting wood presented and informative look at artists as the main structural and cladding and their studios in the Okanagan. material, developing a particularly 168 bc studies close relationship between building Vancouver architects and planners in and landscape, and exploiting post- West Coast Modernism. and-beam construction aesthetically as In Finding a Good Fit, Iredale’s well as structurally. widow, Kathryn Iredale, perpetuates Gallery director and curator Greg her husband’s memory and presents Bellerby focuses on the style’s residential his work as a designer and educator. buildings in The West Coast Modern House. The book takes the reader on a quirky He reprints a landmark 1947 article but delightful journey, combining the on the emerging style by architect- personal memories of Kathryn and their protagonist C.E. (Ned) Pratt and follows children with a biographical narrative this with two short essays: “Landscape and descriptions of about forty projects and the West Coast Modern House” in architecture and planning, ranging in by architectural historian Jana Tyner scale from the powerhouse and associated and “The Next Modern House” by buildings built for the W.A.C. Bennett architectural educator Chris Macdonald. Dam to modest residences. Iredale’s ubc The principal section is a collection of student seminars in Venice and at the fifty-three houses built between1940 and family’s Mayne Island retreat rounded out 1966. Each features a short description his professional work. Kathryn Iredale’s and superb black-and-white photographs, text is supplemented with excerpts from mostly from Western Homes and Living. Rand’s writings (principally his Project The monthly magazine, launched in 1950, Manager’s Manual, 1997), the architectural documented new residential architecture press, professional reports, and comments and commissioned talented architectural by colleagues. The book offers a wealth of photographers, principally Selwyn insights, if relatively little new analysis, Pullan (subject of a recent monograph), although it would have benefited from a John Fulker, and Graham Warrington. firmer structure and tighter editing. The final section offers colour photos of selected “contemporary” (1990-2014) houses. Last Dance in Shediac: The book is a pleasure to thumb Memories of Mum, through but thin on critical analysis. The houses have been thoughtfully selected Molly Lamb Bobak to represent what are arguably the finest Anny Scoones domestic buildings by both familiar and forgotten architects. In contrast to Victoria: TouchWood Editions, 2015. Macdonald’s and Tyner’s general insights, 192 pp. $19.95 paper. however, Bellerby’s introductory chapter and the descriptions of the houses provide Maria Tippett no new observations. Cambridge University One architect omitted from Bellerby’s book is W. Randle (Rand) Iredale (1929- his is a very peculiar book. 2000). He opened his practice in 1957 and Although its subject is an artist, the soon joined in partnership with William Vancouver-bornT painter Molly Lamb Rhone. Rhone and Iredale Architects Bobak, the first female war artist in (1960-80), along with Thompson, Berwick Canada, there is little about Bobak’s art. and Pratt, was one of two incubator Molly Bobak did much more than offices that immersed a generation of record the Women’s Army Corps (wacs) during the closing days of the Second Book Reviews 169

World War. Working largely in the couple: “Mum and Dad were part of a watercolour medium she painted exquisite bigger world than their family. For their “portraits” of flowers and crowds. I would art to be honest and free and worthwhile, have expected a book about Bobak to they had to be open to more than just compare her affinity with the flower being paternal or maternal.” “Children painter Winifred Nicholson, whose of artists and creative thinkers,” she work Bobak would have encountered concludes, “must accept this” (147). when she and her painter-husband, Scoones explores all of these themes Bruno, lived in England during the brilliantly. And anyone who might be 1950s. I would have expected the author disappointed in not learning more about to compare Bobak’s stick-like figures Molly Lamb Bobak the artist will come to the oil paintings of another English away from Last Dance in Shediac with painter, L.S. Lowry. And, indeed, to tell something that transcends art. us about Bobak’s extraordinary father, Harold Mortimer Lamb, whose own paintings, photographs, and, above all, Live at the Commodore: participation in Vancouver’s cultural life The Story of Vancouver’s Historic during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s helped build artistic reputations, including that Commodore Ballroom of Emily Carr, and make culture in Aaron Chapman British Columbia what it is to this day. But this book is not about Molly Bobak Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, the artist. As the subtitle of Last Dance 2014. 206 pp. $28.95 paper. in Shediac makes clear, this is Anny Scoones’s recollection of Molly Bobak David Wright as a mother. Moreover, on the few Douglas College occasions when the author ventures into artistic territory, descriptive phrases like rom the beginning, Aaron “humanistic painting” fall flat 48( ). Chapman is clear about his Last Dance in Shediac is annoyingly intentionsF for Live at the Commodore: The self-indulgent; but, although the author Story of Vancouver’s Historic Commodore rambles from one subject and from one Ballroom. The renowned Granville time frame to another, the book somehow Street concert venue is a place where works. This is because the author “the history of the room is the history structures her narrative around road trips of how Vancouver has entertained made with her mother on both sides of itself” (11). Chapman’s large-format Canada, particularly during the closing book is full of pictures of the ballroom’s years of Molly Bobak’s very long life. past, present, and future; scattered Scoones also writes about the tensions concert ephemera and paraphernalia that existed between Molly and Bruno. accompany the in-depth historical She explores Molly Bobak’s physical record. The anecdotes and materials decline and her own struggle to broach Chapman collects speak loudly to the geographic distances and to cope with cultural history that has passed through nursing homes and all the other things the doors of this venerable Vancouver associated with death and dying (Bobak institution. died in 2014 at the age of ninety-four). Beginning with a brief history of Anny Scoones shows, above all, what Vancouver itself, Chapman sets the it was like to be the child of an artist- historical scene of 1920s Vancouver 170 bc studies into which the Commodore was born. are not the same as they used to be and Referencing the shifting landscape that the Commodore’s days are numbered of Granville Street, Chapman even as its doors remain open. To this moves chronologically through the end, the book is a wonderful example of Commodore’s early cabaret days to the odd paradox that permeates histories its current status as a live music and of buildings: there is a tendency to lament entertainment venue. the loss of something that is still there. More than simply a musical history, The ephemera the book collects, both Chapman’s book combines the visual through text and image, while certainly scope and presentation qualities of a referencing the ballroom, speak more to good coffee-table book with an in-depth the different socio-cultural eras hosted by cultural history. Numerous images of the Commodore’s uniquely sprung dance Commodore ephemera – floor plans, floor. To that end, Chapman undoubtedly tickets, menus, concert bills – help the accomplishes what he sets out to do: show text work through key junctures in both that the stories about the entertainment the ballroom’s history and Vancouver’s. history of Vancouver are indeed etched in The text never lingers too long, moving the walls of the Commodore Ballroom. quickly to the next representative figure, cultural scene, or musical act that might serve as an exemplar of the Commodore’s No Regrets: Counter-Culture significant historical value. and Anarchism in Vancouver The book might be accused of relying too heavily on anecdote and reportage Larry Gambone after it leaves the confines of a well 1950 Edmonton: Blackcat Press, 2015. documented pre- s cabaret history and 200 $19 95 moves into a prolonged survey of arguably pp. . paper. the Commodore’s high-water mark as a 1970 Eryk Martin concert venue in the s through to the Simon Fraser University early 1990s. That said, some of the book’s more colourful tales come at precisely this juncture and provide counterpoint ince the 1960s, anarchist activism to the established history. We move has played a critical role in shaping briskly through the eclectic musical acts theS radical political landscape of representing movements such as the Vancouver. Nevertheless, there are Blues Revival, Punk, New Wave, and very few scholarly considerations Grunge. Pictures of Kiss, playing with of this history. Instead, most of the all their makeup, attitude, and high- work that has gone into documenting booted style, to an audience of fewer anarchism’s recent past has come from than a thousand, and Nirvana’s debut activists themselves, many of whom as an opening act for another less-iconic were participants in the assorted array band, are both representative examples of anarchist political and cultural of how Chapman’s book underscores initiatives that emerged at the end of the role cultural institutions such as the 1960s and expanded rapidly across the Commodore play in anointing, the 1970s and 1980s. Larry Gambone’s supporting, and facilitating shifting autobiography, No Regrets: Counter- cultural moments. Culture and Anarchism in Vancouver, is There is a prevailing sense of loss in the an exciting and thoughtful contribution book. A tone that suggests that things to this body of writing. Through a Book Reviews 171 compelling personal narrative, the items between Vancouver and the wider author effectively demonstrates how world. anarchism and the counterculture Narrated with both humour and wit, shaped Vancouver’s radical history, and Gambone’s autobiography provides an he passionately defends their continuing accessible and engaging entry point into relevance in the present. a series of social, political, and cultural Starting with Gambone’s early themes that have defined recent historical experiences in the Comox Valley during writing on activism in the postwar the 1950s, the author quickly moves period, from the fluidity of the New Left to describe and explain the politics, to the influence of transnationalism to activism, and culture of the radical left the legacies of the long sixties. At the in Vancouver during the 1960s, 1970s, same time, he also provides a passionate and early 1980s. In doing so, Gambone examination of anarchism’s contributions discusses his involvement with a host to modern political life, a topic that has of left-wing movements and cultural been constantly underappreciated or influences. These include the bohemias of misunderstood. In the end, No Regrets the beatnik scene, the counterculture, and tells a fascinating story about Vancouver’s an eclectic array of Maoist, Trotskyist, radical past that will be of interest to and anarchist political traditions. From academics, activists, and the general this narrative, Gambone effectively public alike. explores the complicated political diversity of the New Left and argues that the activism and culture of the 1960s was Cold Case Vancouver: The City’s crucially important for the expansion of Most Baffling Unsolved Murders social movements in the decades that followed. Eve Lazarus At the same time, the author situates Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2015. this personal narrative within a wider 184 $21 95 pattern of social activism taking place pp. . paper. both locally and globally. Gambone Bonnie Reilly Schmidt places his personal involvement with Vancouver the growth of the counterculture, the student New Left, anti-war protests, environmental activism, labour and ve Lazarus’s fascination with community organizing, and the creation Vancouver’s history continues with of a dynamic array of anarchist political herE latest book, Cold Case Vancouver: projects taking place in Vancouver into The City’s Most Baffling Unsolved a broad geographical context. In doing Murders. Crime buffs and readers so, he demonstrates that activists in interested in true crime literature or in Vancouver filtered local experiences understanding how police investigate through a global political imagination. serious crime will find the book a No Regrets also illustrates that activists satisfying read. Lazarus examines in Vancouver did more than merely nineteen of the city’s most troubling imagine themselves as part of a larger unsolved murders, which are arranged political community; rather, they actively chronologically in the book, beginning created links with activists in other with the murder of Jenny Conroy in 1944 places, connections that facilitated the and ending with the murder of Vivien movement of people, ideas, and material Morzuch in 2000. Although most of 172 bc studies the cases may be unfamiliar to today’s and assumptions made, by the police readers, they were sensational events when investigating crime in the previous that shook the city when they occurred. century. Before scientific advances in Lazarus relies on a number of sources, the preservation of evidence, and before in addition to media accounts, to dna technology, evidence was often lost, create a more in-depth telling of each destroyed, thrown out, or compromised murder, including vital statistics records, at the scene. Assumptions about race, obituaries, autopsy reports, and police class, gender, and sexual orientation also files 10( ). She also relies on oral history influenced how the police conducted interviews with friends (110, 135, 138) and their investigations and how the media family members (66, 128) of the victims, reported on the crimes. Lazarus does some of whom were the last people to not shy away from examining the role see them alive. Although some of the these assumptions played. We can only memories shared with Lazarus are speculate about whether the outcomes seventy years old, the trauma of losing a for the murders of an unwed mother loved one to a violent death was evident (22), a Métis child (42), and a homosexual in much of the interview material quoted (57) may have been different if socially in the text. constructed assumptions about the These interviews are the strength of victims had not been a factor in how the book for the simple reason that they many people understood the murders. humanize the victims. Rather than To her credit, Lazarus ends the book “cold cases,” the victims are presented with an appeal to the public for more as people with productive and promising information about these unsolved cases, lives that included family and friends no matter how old or how insignificant who loved them and missed them long the information may seem. In doing after they were gone. Lazarus notes this, she seeks closure for the families in her introduction that, even though and justice for those who lost their the victims are “invisible, forgotten by lives during the commission of some of everyone” decades later, she felt it was Vancouver’s most infamous crimes. important to tell the “stories of their lives” as well as their deaths (11). Lazarus also interviewed retired police officers, and their narratives demonstrate that solving crime is sometimes the result of good luck rather than skill. This was true for the only murder in the book that was successfully solved (Chapter 19). Luck played an important role in solving the murder of Vivien Morzuch after a fingerprint analyst in Ottawa partially matched a thumbprint from the murder scene to the fingerprints of a suspect in an unrelated crime. The chance analysis led to a chain of events that resulted in the successful conviction of the murderer seven years later (167). Some readers may be astounded by the techniques used, and the oversights