BOOK REVIEWS
Writing British Columbia Chapter 1 describes the earliest History, 1784-1958 accounts of British Columbia, using Captain Cook’s posthumously Chad Reimer published journal of 1784 as the starting point. The earliest BC histories do not Vancouver: ubc Press, 2009. 206 pp. $85.00 $29 95 acknowledge the long history of First cloth; . paper. Nations and their oral histories and, Kenneth Favrholdt later, only show tangentially how their Kamloops histories served the purpose of imperial discourse. First Nations stories had istoriography may seem like a no bearing on the early Eurocentric Hdry, pedantic exercise that would perspective, a gap not corrected until only attract a handful of readers. Add to recent decades (and outside the scope that the seeming lack of history that the of Reimer’s book). Reimer uses Cook’s subject of British Columbia suggests. accounts as the beginning date of But a recent addition to the shelves the colonial narrative that is British is Chad Reimer’s book, which will Columbia. The accounts of those early become essential reading for students explorers, however, are significantly and scholars of BC history. It is also a more geographical than historical. very readable text for anyone interested American writers contributed to the in how the writing of BC history has earliest phase of British Columbia’s evolved in the province’s first 175 years. historiography – writing about the Reimer divides the book into what dispute over Oregon, which pitted theirs he describes as genres, representing against British interpretations, the first not only different styles of writing counter-narrative in the historiography. but also overarching periods of BC At this point, and in the next genre, we historiography. In his direct and clear see the positioning of First Nations in style, he states the purpose of the book, relation to an international discourse. to examine “how from its beginnings Great Britain, through the Hudson’s until the middle of the twentieth Bay Company, was seen as benevolent century, BC historical writing was part towards the Natives, while the United of a larger imperial process” (151). States was seen as expansionist and warmongering. bc studies, no. 66, Summer 10 103 104 bc studies
Chapters 2 and 3 explore pioneer Chapter 3 focuses on what Reimer history, the period of the gold rushes terms the golden age of Edwardian and early settlement. The former history, which spawned interest in produced a sizeable historical literature, collecting the past and the establishment for example William Carew Hazlitt’s of the Provincial Archives of British British Columbia and Vancouver Island Columbia in 1908, spearheaded by (1858), described by Reimer as part R.E. Gosnell, E.O.S. Scholefield, imperial history, part promotional and Judge Frederic Howay. Gosnell’s literature. The emergence of guidebooks A History of British Columbia (1906) and directories about British Columbia was followed by Scholefield’s British furthered this genre. Richard Mayne’s Columbia from the Earliest Times to Four Years in British Columbia and the Present, Vol. 1 (1914) and a second Vancouver Island (1862) provided a more volume by Howay. Chapter 4 is devoted authoritative account, with the colonial entirely to Howay, originally a teacher project front and centre. Both those and lawyer, who became the province’s writers included Native peoples in their most pre-eminent historian before the narratives, although assimilation was Second World War and who had a long the underlying assumption regarding list of publications. how they would fit within the dominant Chapters 5 and 6 focus on the discourse, and Hazlitt and Mayne professional genre of historical writing portrayed British Columbia as a benign on British Columbia, coinciding with area for immigrant settlement and a the establishment of a school of history Christian population. at the University of British Columbia. Yet, the early portrayal of British W. Kaye Lamb, who later became Columbia was tentative until the the provincial and then Dominion province was established and the colonial archivist, and Margaret Ormsby, who project could be fully implemented. taught history at ubc and elsewhere, The first full-fledged attempt at were the defining personalities of providing a comprehensive picture was British Columbia’s historiographical the 1887 publication of Hubert Howe evolution from the 1930s onwards. Bancroft’s History of British Columbia. Lamb, who established the British This was written from an American Columbia Historical Quarterly, made the perspective, although Bancroft, based writing of BC history more rigorous. in San Francisco, undertook first- Ormsby, originally from the Okanagan, hand research, visiting Victoria and introduced a hinterland focus in her interviewing old-timers. This empirical work and affirmed that the writing approach to the formulation of history of history need not be dominated by as an evolutionary process continued Anglo-Saxon males. to negate Native peoples as doomed, Reimer only takes his analysis as far although Bancroft, cited by Reimer, as 1958, avoiding the “messier” or more was critical of his American colleagues complicated discourse of postcolonial and viewed British Columbia as an studies of BC history. Nineteen fifty- anomaly “because of the peaceful eight is an appropriate cut-off as that is working out of the universal process of when the government celebrated British civilization’s victory over savagery” (38). Columbia’s centenary and Ormsby’s It was not until the 1890s that Canadian classic British Columbia: A History was historians countered American views published. Reimer’s work, of course, and provided a British perspective. benefits by being the product of the Book Reviews 105 postcolonial turn, which recognizes Contesting Clio’s Craft: the “other” and minority viewpoints New Directions and Debates in that were barely portrayed in British Columbia’s first one hundred years. Canadian History There is an extensive section of Christopher Dummitt and notes and a bibliography accompanying Michael Dawson, editors Reimer’s text. One may criticize him for glossing over some historians. London: Institute for the Study One individual mentioned in passing of the Americas, University of – A.C. Anderson – amassed a great London, 2009. xix, 186 pp. deal of knowledge from his work for $29.95 cloth. the Hudson’s Bay Company and later, including Handbook and Map to the Allan Smith Gold Region of Frazer’s and Thompson’s University of British Columbia Rivers; with Table of Contents, to which is Appended Chinook Jargon – iewing the historical study of Language Used, etc. (San Francisco, VCanada over the past few decades 1858); The Dominion of the West: A Brief as having put class, gender, ethnic, Description of the Province of British regional, and cultural conceptions at the Columbia, Its Climate and Resources … heart of Canadian inquiry, contributors (Victoria, 1872); Notes on Northwestern to this volume turn to what remains to America (Montreal, 1876); History of be done. Six broad areas are presented the Northwest Coast (
Attention to source-use and important age of revolutions from the periodization takes the book to the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth more straightforwardly domestic centuries, that work is poised to move domains with which it is concerned. discussion even more fully beyond its Steven High considers the first of these, familiar forms. Involved in redefining concentrating with particular force on the oppositional relationship between the importance of, and what ought to be revolutionary and counter-revolutionary the nature of, historians’ relationship to ideas, in focusing attention on an oral evidence. Intensified appreciation Atlantic-area consciousness that of that relationship’s mutuality is seen as includes Canada and Quebec, and especially important: only if historians in explicating complexes of tensely view oral sources not only as active interactive commonalty, difference, but also as manipulated agents in the and sharing, it stands to do nothing narratives they create can they develop less than “integrat[e] the Canadian stronger empathy for the situations and Quebec experience within Atlantic being examined, produce more sensitive history … revisit colonial ideological reportage, and generally be more oppositions in a broader context, and involved and engaged. give new meaning to local political Michael Dawson and Catherine struggles” (186). Gidney conduct their careful Recommending continuing consideration of the periodization issue investigation in the area of postcolonial through examination of the time-based and new imperial history, Andrew dimension of factoral interactivity, Smith, Adele Perry, and Katie Pickles particularly in relation to class, gender, emphasize that activity’s ongoing ethnic, and demographic patterns. potential to generate complex Identifying that dimension as giving perspectives in a number of areas. each of these patterns its own rhythm Extending awareness of system and pace, they stress the impossibility complexity, pointing to backward and of working to a single temporal frame. forward linkages, emphasizing the Emphasizing, above all, the patterns’ periphery’s impact on the centre, and lack of congruence with the political stressing resistance’s very complicated chronologies to which they have almost relationship to hegemony, such activity always been assimilated, Dawson and will – they insist – also produce fresh Gidney urge a move away from those assessments of the cost-benefit nexus; often distorting devices. “Breaking underscore the bi-directionality of free from comfortable and convenient economic, social, and institutional reference points” is essential; only by so currents; and bring additional attention doing can we “ask new and challenging to both the positive and negative questions about Canadian history” (74). dimensions of feedback: old simplicities Consideration of the increasingly will go, complexity will come forward, active transnational area gets the bulk and a structuring impulse will emerge of the book’s attention. Concerned with an altogether new clarity. with Canada and Quebec in Atlantic Concern with broadly transnational contexts, Michel Ducharme’s wide- themes is present throughout the ranging essay sees work in that field as volume. Attention to local-global little short of transformative. Having interaction, the permeability of already deepened an understanding of frontiers and borders, cultural transfer, ideological development in the critically transcommunity interaction, and Book Reviews 107 overall mutuality becomes, indeed, past” (122) will be about. They also its leitmotif: seen as essential to an leave one wishing that remarks that understanding of Canada itself, scrutiny do suggest a conceptualizing approach of these matters is also projected as to questions of nation (Perry, 139) had involving Canadian study in a larger been more fully developed. Their game. Placing that study in a position existence noted, though, one should to “draw more fully on, and contribute not stay too long with them; even in to, international historiography” (xviii), concentrating on reconfiguration and such scrutiny will, in fact, situate it in repair rather than on the phenomenon contexts of the most vigorously ample, undergoing these procedures, the book productive, and enriching kind. does much. Specifying difficulties, Strong in its argument concerning indicating ways of dealing with them, these critical areas, Contesting Clio’s and proposing a number of paths Craft perhaps misses an opportunity towards a more effectively engineered in failing to theorize nation explicitly set of representations, it makes time and as such. Alert to nationality’s spent in its presence equally a stimulus “fictions,” and very aware of the pitfalls and a pleasure. Readers will find their – totalizing syntheses, retrospectively contact with Contesting Clio’s Craft imposed unities, assumed teleological amply rewarded. drives – to be avoided in its study, contributors never quite come to grips with the conflicted, fluctuating, yet comprehensively aggregative dynamic The Encyclopedia of Raincoast whose gathering up of various spatial, Place Names: A Complete temporal, cultural, economic, and institutional simultaneities licenses that Reference to Coastal British study (and the production of this book) Columbia in the first place. And not only is this Andrew Scott vital matter left in abeyance but so are a number of related issues. In overlooking Madeira Park, BC: Harbour the border’s character as consolidative Publishing as well as transgressive, paying no 2009. 664 pp. $49.95 cloth. attention to the protocols governing the treatment of communities that are Mark Diotte not initially but that will become parts University of British Columbia of larger complexes, and setting aside the measure in which postnational he publication of Andrew Scott’s perspectives link to and incorporate TThe Encyclopedia of Raincoast as well as transcend national ones, the Place Names: A Complete Reference to book, indeed, disregards a good deal. Coastal British Columbia in 2009 both These absences are not minor. They commemorates the one hundredth make it hard to see – unless one is anniversary of Captain John T. looking through a purely topical lens Walbran’s British Columbia Coast Names – what historical work confected in and continues Harbour Publishing’s response to Christopher Dummitt’s call exemplary dedication to publishing in for a return to encompassing narrative British Columbia. In the promotional and a “telling [of] big stories that can material, Raincoast Place Names is explain key questions about Canada’s described as a “monumental work,” 108 bc studies one that Howard White sees in terms on an uncharted rock or reef – the of “sheer magnitude” and “remarkable result being your name “printed on the achievement.” At 664 pages, covering charts for fellow mariners to chuckle four thousand detailed entries, and over until the end of time” (46). Despite the stories of over five thousand place the many instances of humour, Scott names, Scott’s work lives up to its also tackles the serious side of naming descriptors. The book is impressive, – the oppressive colonial practice of and in approaching it I was somewhat supplanting First Nations place names daunted by its size and extraordinary with European place names. He does, depth of detail. This was a reaction however, indicate that progress has been I expected given that it is, after all, made in redressing this issue, and, in an encyclopaedia. Unexpectedly, as I the essay entitled “Nisga’a First Nations turned the pages and ranged through Names,” he remarks that, in the years the entries, photographs, essays, and to come, the BC gazetteer “will need maps, I experienced excitement and extensive revision” because “one aspect delight. Scott’s work is more than an of most treaty negotiations involves encyclopaedia: it is a history and an the restoration of traditional names as inspiring work of literature filled with ‘official’ names” (421). passion, humour, and irony. In terms of the scope of the volume, In Scott’s helpful “User’s Guide” Scott states that, “with very few located at the beginning of the book, exceptions, only official or ‘gazetted’ he is quick to state that Raincoast Place names have entries” (21). While this Names is primarily “about the history might seem limiting, outdated and local of the place names, not the places names are listed and cross-referenced themselves” (21), yet this is a modest with official names. What has been claim. While it is certainly true that no excluded? Primarily it is names for explicit “history of place” is attempted, which Scott could find no information every page in the encyclopaedia does, or for which the information found in fact, provide a history of the place proved unreliable. Scott does, name and, most often, the individual however, provide a wealth of sources associated with that name. Even a for further information. Foremost small entry such as “Bonner Islet” among these sources is the British provides the information that “Frank Columbia Geographical Names Office Richard Bonner was a seaman aboard and its online Names Information CGS William J. Stewart, which was System (bcgnis). Other important conducting survey work in this area in sources include Kathleen E. Dalzell’s 1937” (79). Taken together, these entries The Queen Charlotte Islands: Place and do provide something of a history of Names; the Encyclopedia of British place – namely, that of coastal British Columbia, edited by Daniel Francis; Columbia. and Captain John T. Walbran’s British Aside from looking up a specific Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: Their entry or casually perusing the volume, Origin and History. Scott has appended an engaging manner in which to a D, E, or W, respectively, to indicate approach this encyclopaedia is through when a source has been invaluable to one of the twelve entertaining essay- a particular entry. Scott’s inclusion style interludes. In “Naming Rocks of these sources is crucial considering the Hard Way” Scott examines the he has not included a bibliography, an disgrace of having your vessel wrecked addition that, in his words, “would have Book Reviews 109 greatly lengthened what is already a Those who have read Harry Logan’s very long book and made it needlessly Tuum Est, which commemorated ubc’s repetitive and formal” (23). What first fifty years, will be familiar with would be quite helpful, however, is much of the early story, but Damer a searchable, online component or and Rosengarten, who acknowledge edition. their debt to Logan, have taken a While Scott’s encyclopaedia is titled more analytical approach. Although a “Complete Reference,” I find it to be they mention many individuals by an exciting starting point for further name, lists of members of the Board of research and discovery. This book is, in Governors, presidents of the Faculty my opinion, an invaluable resource for Association, the Alma Mater Society the academic and student alike, and it (ams), and other bodies are consigned deserves its place on the short list for the to appendices (though the concluding Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize chapters incorporate lists of donors and for “the book that contributes most to their projects). Biographical sketches the enjoyment and understanding of of important individuals, such as British Columbia.” presidents and noteworthy faculty, appear as sidebars, often written by scholars other than the authors. Damer and Rosengarten built their book around six themes: (1) the BC UBC: The First 100 Years context; (2) government attitudes Eric Damer and Herbert to the university, especially relating Rosengarten to funding; ( 3 ) administ rat ive decisions; (4) the growing diversity of Vancouver: University of British undergraduate studies; (5) the growth Columbia, 2009. of graduate studies and research; and 372 pp. $39.95 paper. (6) student life. Because they had to paint with a broad brush, they regret Patricia E. Roy their inability to give more attention to Victoria the ams (the student council) and the essential work of the staff, much of it ith its heavy glossy paper, large behind the scenes. Wformat, and copious illustrations, That the university has always this looks like a celebratory coffee table depended on the good will of the book. To classify it as such would be government is abundantly clear. wrong. Drawing on previous histories The vagaries of its funding reflect of the University of British Columbia fluctuations in politics and a resource- (ubc), the student newspaper (the based economy; increasingly, the Ubyssey), the university archives, and government has encouraged ubc to oral histories, Eric Damer and Herbert seek more funding from philanthropists Rosengarten have written an excellent and industry. Ubc was also subject overview of the history of ubc, its to conflicting views of the value and problems and controversies as well as nature of higher education. Was there its successes. They have set everything a place for liberal arts or should the within the context of the histories of emphasis be on applied sciences such as the province and of higher education agriculture, engineering, and nursing? generally. As the university grew, especially in the 110 bc studies two decades after the Second World in political protests, but conservatism War, new professional programs such as generally reigned. In another respect, law, pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, and student life changed little. The text education were added, and offerings in and illustrations capture much of the engineering and commerce expanded. flavour of clubs, sports, and other At the same time the arts side grew extracurricular activities. with the addition of music, the fine The demography of the student body arts, and more foreign languages. has changed. Although female students Although ubc has not neglected the were always present in significant teaching of undergraduates, during numbers (except in engineering and the war it began moving from being a few other programs), by 1980 they primarily a teaching institution to one were predominant in arts; formed whose faculty engaged in research on about a third of the enrolment in their own and with graduate students. commerce, medicine, law, and science; That trend, which greatly accelerated and were more than token numbers in the 1960s, created conflict in the in engineering and forestry. The professional schools between advocates first students were “overwhelmingly of “science” and those who favoured Anglo-Canadian, Christian, and “practical” studies (190). middle class from homes in Vancouver Students and student life are an or the Fraser Valley” (40). By the late essential theme. Ubc students have 1920s, a few Asians, Americans, and followed their motto, “Tuum Est” (“It’s continental Europeans had enrolled. up to you”), on many occasions in dealing Since the Second World War, the with government, as, for example, in the student body has become more diverse Great Trek of 1922, which helped to as international students began arriving convince the provincial government to in number in the late 1950s and as open the Point Grey campus, and the immigration changed the face of the “Back Mac” campaign of 1963, which province. The student body in the first persuaded the government to slightly years consisted largely of the children increase the university’s grant. of the business and professional classes, The number of students grew almost but, even in the 1930s, some children of steadily from 379 in 1915, ubc’s first year blue-collar workers were present, as is of operation, to almost fifty thousand illustrated by diverse complaints. Some in 2008. In its first decade, ubc acted objected to the lack of parking facilities; as loco parentis. When students failed, others, to long streetcar and bus rides. their parents were notified. By the Despite special funding for students late 1920s, despite concerns of deans with limited financial resources, the of women (a position that was not offspring of the middle classes still abolished until 1978), the university predominate. Efforts to encourage was doing less to regulate the morals the First Nations to attend have not of its students, a policy that it could fully succeeded: as of 2003, ubc had seldom enforce effectively. Hazing has not reached its target of having one largely disappeared, along with many thousand self-identified Aboriginal traditions designed to foster school students. spirit (though some new ones were In sum, putting up with the introduced in the late 1990s). Especially inconvenience of the awkward format of in the 1960s and 1970s, and again since this physically heavy volume will repay the late 1980s, some students engaged the reader, who will come away with a Book Reviews 111 great appreciation and understanding of States was similar in method and intent how ubc evolved from a branch plant of during its early stages, especially as it McGill to a multiversity with its own pertained to their incarceration, but satellite at ubco in North Kelowna. that it diverged as the war continued. And, incidentally, because of the broad Whereas the US government began to context within which the book is set, release Japanese Americans from the readers will learn much about British internment camps as early as 1944, the Columbia’s history. absence of constitutional constraints in Canada like those articulated in the Bill of Rights made it possible for the Canadian government to proceed with Voices Raised in Protest: plans to deport Japanese internees and to Defending North American expatriate citizens of Japanese ancestry born in Canada. One consequence, Citizens of Japanese Ancestry, Bangarth notes, is that, while dissent 1942-49 in the United States was focused Stephanie Bangarth primarily on the initial internment and incarceration of Japanese and Japanese Vancouver: ubc Press, 2008. 296 pp. Americans in the United States, dissent $34.95 paper. in Canada only coalesced around the proposed deportation and expatriation Andrea Geiger of Nikkei. While Bangarth notes Simon Fraser University the role dissenting voices played in eventually bringing about a policy shift oices Raised in Protest provides in each nation, a point not explored Va comparative assessment of the to the degree it might have been is incarceration of citizens of Japanese the extent to which the divergence in ancestry in Canada and the United States the policies of the two governments during the Second World War, with a regarding Nikkei citizens was itself particular focus on dissenting voices that a product of differing constitutional emerged during this period. Bangarth contexts. Somewhat puzzling, as well, posits that the differing constitutional is Bangarth’s assertion in the opening framework of each country explains chapter that both nations developed differences in the way the rhetoric “policies that were used to defraud the deployed by dissenters evolved over Nikkei of their property,” seemingly time. She argues persuasively that the implying that these were similar in Bill of Rights in the United States nature and scope (3). In fact, as evidence allowed dissenters there to invoke civil that Bangarth herself cites elsewhere rights as a basis for challenging the in the text reveals (e.g., 133), there was internment of Japanese Americans as no equivalent in the United States to unconstitutional, whereas the absence Canada’s Custodian of Enemy Property, of a constitutional equivalent in Canada which enabled the state to seize and forced dissenters, over time, to base sell the property of Nikkei citizens, their challenges increasingly on broader precisely because of constitutional appeals to universal human rights. differences similar to those that she Bangarth contends that domestic describes with considerable facility in policy pertaining to citizens of Japanese the context of her discussion of dissent – ancestry in Canada and the United arguably a missed opportunity to extend 112 bc studies her discussion of other implications of ago and under what circumstances? the differing constitutional constraints Who set up the memorial? Do they limiting the power of government in continue to visit it? These questions each country. are usually forgotten when the demands Bangarth’s purpose is, in part, to of driving snap the motorist back respond to Roger Daniels’ call for to attention, but John Belshaw and comparative studies of the incarceration Diane Purvey recognize roadside death of citizens of Japanese ancestry in memorials as a phenomenon deserving Canada and the United States. As closer scrutiny. Private Grief, Public such, it makes a welcome contribution Mourning examines why they have to an evolving discussion comparing become so common in British Columbia domestic wartime policy in both over the past fifteen or twenty years, countries, which, in turn, sheds light on and it seeks to contextualize them the parallels and differences in the ways within the province’s social history. in which “race” and civil liberties were The book is divided into four historically understood in each country. chapters. The first discusses the diverse The next step in this conversation may forms of public reaction to death in well be to analyze these issues within British Columbia from the colonial a broader context still, also taking period up to the early 1920s. Not into account, for example, policy in only was British Columbia a site of Australia or other parts of the British confluence for many cultures but Empire and Commonwealth with its early history also coincided with respect to the internment of those important changes in Western attitudes categorized or perceived as enemy aliens towards death and mourning. Death in wartime. was increasingly mediated by doctors, hospitals, and undertakers; cemeteries were pushed to the edge of town, away from everyday life. Mourning Private Grief, Public Mourning: lost much of its personal meaning and went from being a private to a semi- The Rise of the Roadside public affair. However, in a society as Shrine in BC divided as turn-of-the-century British John Belshaw and Diane Columbia, the use of public space for Purvey mourning was usually limited to elite- and state-sanctioned events, punctuated Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2009. by occasional outpourings of popular 160 pp. $20.00 paper. sentiment. Many examples are drawn on to illustrate these trends, including Ben Bradley the changing deathscapes of Kamloops, Queen’s University Victoria, and Cumberland, and the mourning and memorialization of ypically involving a cross Robert Dunsmuir, Ginger Goodwin, Tand some flowers, the roadside Pauline Johnson, Joe Fortes, and the memorials located along British fallen of the First World War. Columbia’s highways catch the passing Chapter 2 outlines the global motorist’s attention and instantly raise context of spontaneously built shrines a series of questions about death and and memorials. Chapter 3 presents mourning. Who died there? How long photographs and findings from a survey Book Reviews 113 of nearly fifty roadside memorials displays of mourning, and government on Vancouver Island and between agencies have learned to tread carefully Kamloops and Prince Rupert. Here when dealing with them. In a sense, memorials are examined as material the roadside death memorial has made culture, with commonalities and a transition from vernacular to popular differences suggesting underlying culture over the past fifteen years. More attitudes towards mourning and “nuts and bolts” information about the memory. Common features include the roadside as public space could have use of crosses, identifying the deceased been helpful here. For example, what by name, and the placement of wreaths, are British Columbia’s regulations flowers, notes, and photos. Teens and about signs in highway right-of-ways? young adults (especially males) are Might the rise of the roadside memorial often memorialized as children, with be connected to a lack of uniform stuffed animals and toys, while other standards in highway maintenance memorials use beer cans and liquor since those services were privatized in bottles to express a “rough” masculinity. the 1980s? The authors point out stylistic flourishes By Chapter 4, a significant chronological that assert the deceased’s individuality, gap is apparent. Chapter 1 covers up to while also detecting a general trend the 1920s, and Chapter 3 reaches back towards permanence, with memorial- to the 1970s, but it was during the builders using more durable materials intervening half-century that British and even setting memorials in poured Columbia developed a modern road concrete bases. Noting that British network and culture of automobility. Columbia’s traffic fatality rates have This was when British Columbians declined considerably since the 1970s, became familiar with the roadside as a Belshaw and Purvey suggest that the communicative space and with death- recent rise of the roadside memorial by-automobile as a seemingly inevitable can be interpreted as an attempt cost of “progress.” More discussion to make meaning out of a form of of driving, death, and mourning in death that seems meaningless. Friends the period between 1920 and 1970 and family are able to show that the would have strengthened Belshaw and deceased was someone who mattered Purvey’s linkage of roadside memorials and is remembered but without making to British Columbia’s earlier history. claims to respectability according This is a minor shortcoming, however. to established social or religious Private Grief, Public Mourning is an conventions. important contribution to the study The final chapter considers British of vernacular and popular culture Columbia’s roadside death memorials in British Columbia. It provides an as examples of modern mourning, insightful, sensitive, yet rigorous particularly in the context of religion, treatment of a delicate topic. Historians, secularism, and the media. It argues geographers, and anthropologists of that, while roadside memorials and the British Columbia will want to have this attitudes towards mourning that they book on their shelves, and its images, express predate the death of Princess accessible prose, and familiar topic also Diana in 1995, they were powerfully make it of interest to a broader, non- validated by media coverage of that academic audience. event. People have subsequently become more willing to claim public space for 114 bc studies
Up Chute Creek: unexpected delights. The use of lists is An Okanagan Idyll one of the pleasures of this book, and their cumulative effect is not unlike that Melody Hessing of a birder’s life-list: close observations and encounters with the natural world Kelowna, BC: The Okanagan 2009 208 $20.00 that form a provisional calendar. Institute, . pp. paper. In their seasons, weeds exasperate, Theresa Kishkan birds entertain and annoy (a red- Madeira Park, BC shafted flicker drilling into the wall ruins sleep). And the landscape is alive with predators: an amusing little riff on n the early 1970s, Melody Hessing predator control from the perspective of Iand her husband Jay Lewis bought coyotes, cougars, rattlesnakes, and so on acreage in the south Okanagan near makes a serious point about interspecies Naramata. They called their property relationships. the Granite Farm. They were idealists, Melody and Jay find ways to fit into hoping to build a house and a life in the human community, too. But, as a place. Up Chute Creek: An Okanagan couple, they have difficulty attaining Idyll is the chronicle of that pursuit, an ideal balance between the hard detailing the difficult and exhilarating work inherent in homesteading and work of creating foundations, framing outside employment that utilizes skills walls, and learning a new terrain. It long in the learning and that provides is also an admirable treatise on the necessary income. Melody continues shifting nature of our relationship to PhD studies and teaches at a local places we love and aspire to know. college. Two children are born and the The Okanagan that Hessing and balance shifts again. “Time flies; things Lewis moved to was a place of “stucco change. Home is where you can make motels, benchland orchards and fun-in- a living. Over the next two decades I the-sun tourism” (6). This was before teach Sociology in Vancouver at various the estate wineries, the lavender farms, colleges and universities; Jay works at the artisan cheesemakers, the purveyors different jobs; the kids are in school” of speciality honeys. Yet it was always a (137). storied place. I think of Sandy Wilson’s The adjustments at the Granite wonderful film, My American Cousin, Farm mirror the transformations in the based on her late-1950s childhood at Okanagan Valley itself. When Melody Paradise Ranch; or even earlier, the and Jay bought the property in the 1970s, Home Theatre of Carroll Aikins in road access was a little problematic, Naramata, where productions of The though the neighbour selling the land Trojan Women and Synge’s The Tinker’s was willing to allow them continued Wedding took place in a theatre over a use of an existing access point. But one fruit-packing shed, officially opened day, that changes: “Bit by bit, fences in 1920 by then prime minister Arthur chopped the landscape into subdivisions Meighen. and orchards, pasture and vineyards, This book is lively and original – part fragmented and subjugated to human photo album, part journal, part musical use. When we purchased the steep land score: the Chute Creek Falls Overture on the northern fringes of Harrises’, (35) and the Torch Song (174) – in we assumed an entitlement founded A minor if you want to hum along – are on word, nuance, and better times, Book Reviews 115 on a friendship attenuated by shifting David Suzuki: relationships, market values and the The Autobiography passing of time.” (143). As a sociologist, Melody Hessing is David Suzuki ideally placed to observe and record the Vancouver: Greystone Books, 2006. evolution of a community and the small 406 $22 95 niches within it. When demographics pp. . paper. change, the values of a location and its history are remembered in different ways. A remnant of a wooden flume The Big Picture: Reflections from the old days of the Paradise on Science, Humanity, and a Ranch occasions a brief meditation on Quickly Changing Planet contemporary water use and the way it can polarize a community. Agriculture’s David Suzuki and dependency on irrigation doesn’t always Dave Robert Taylor keep pace with climate change, the cycles of drought and abundance. The Vancouver: Greystone Books and Okanagan Mountain fire that brackets David Suzuki Foundation, 2009. 272 the book is a valuable reminder that pp. $24.95 paper. landscapes reshaped by humans are Melody Hessing particularly vulnerable. Vancouver Up Chute Creek is an important book that speaks to issues both broad and particular. It does so with humour or Canadians, David Suzuki and fierce intelligence and moments of Fis an earth-household name, our pure poetry: “Right now, peach-pink local (think global) brand, our Green Kokanee trout are spawning in Darke Machine. Geneticist, media host, Creek, already bleached to grey and and co-founder of the David Suzuki white. Ghost trout, they are just able to Foundation (dsf), the man has dedicated swim in a holding pattern against the his life to environmental awareness. flow of water. How much effort does it While most Canadians recognize the take to resist, to stay still against the name “David Suzuki,” his personal current?” (205). story and the range and character of his observations may be less familiar. These two recent publications introduce readers to Suzuki’s environmentalism. David Suzuki: The Autobiography introduces the key forces that have shaped his life and work. Deep affection for the family personalizes his writing while it links his observations to the biophysical world. A burgeoning involvement in environmental issues shapes the story as Dr. Suzuki spins academic employment as a geneticist into a broader spectrum of public education through a range of media. Beginning with Quirks and Quarks and 116 bc studies
It’s a Matter of Survival on cbc Radio, in a series of short, informal essays. Suzuki moved to television with the The interconnection of popular science, Nature of Things, hosting a succession personal experience, and political of television series and film ventures. perspective, in turn, constitutes a Suzuki’s involvement in biography of the environment, while environmental “hot spots” in the it constructs Suzuki’s trademark Amazon, Australia, and Canada is environmentalism. not only personally formative but also What are the contributions of fodder for environmental consciousness- these biographies? The familiar yet raising. However, he also recognizes authoritative “voice” of these narratives the limitations of brushfire tactics as attracts a popular audience to a complex “each crisis is merely a symptom or and contested array of issues. Both books manifestation of a deeper, underlying text/message an “environmentalism” root cause” (220-21). In response, that integrates scientific perspective, with wife Tara Cullis, he establishes public education, and activism (both the eponymous dsf to conserve the personal and political) in a commitment environment through science-based to support the planet. Don Quixote education and advocacy. Suzuki himself laments his greatest The Autobiography reads like a shortcoming. Armed with pen, personal road trip with family and computer, and camera, spoken word work, but it also affirms Canadian and exotic visuals, the man has devoted values. The internment of the Suzuki a lifetime to tilting at windmills family in the Kootenays during the (and alternative energy conservation) Second World War provides first-hand to promote an ecologically informed experience of racism. Membership in society. In spite of these efforts, society a brotherhood of (visible) minorities resists the significant ideological and not only anticipates an emergent institutional shifts required to protect multiculturalism but also presages and promote the natural systems of Suzuki’s adoption by and connections to this planet. First Nations communities. His writing These books introduce the “brand” style is congenial, forging career with (the dsf and the man himself), but, charisma in a unique blend of hubris, more significantly, they construct an humility, and intellect. environmentalism that celebrates and While The Autobiography chronicles would protect life on earth. For British Suzuki’s life, The Big Picture : Columbia, Suzuki not only puts us Reflections on Science, Humanity, and “on the map” but also reconceptualizes a Quickly Changing Planet is just that this place we call home. – a constellation of approaches to preserving life on Earth. Suzuki and Taylor explore the natural systems of the planet and our place in them. The book begins with an overview of science – its analytic and political relevance, its framework a lens for critically understanding “the environment.” Biodiversity, climate change, transportation, food, technology, and public policy – each arena is discussed Book Reviews 117
The Manly Modern: Masculinity hand, veterans claimed that, because of in Postwar Canada their risk-taking during the war, they were the ideal modern subjects; yet, Christopher Dummitt on the other hand, they claimed that they were treated poorly by the experts Vancouver: ubc Press, 2007. 232 pp. $34 95 and bureaucrats of the modernist . paper. welfare state – a state established to Jarrett Rudy manage the risks in Canadians’ daily McGill University lives. The second chapter moves to the physical work of building the megaprojects of this postwar modernist heorists of modernity have often project. By focusing on the 1958 Second Tbeen particularly blind to the roles Narrows Bridge collapse, Dummitt of gender. In numerous otherwise is able to show that views of risk thought-provoking theoretical works were linked to class-based norms of on modernity, gender either disappears masculinity, once again leaving some from the analysis or is treated awkwardly. men, largely workers, frustrated with Historians, to a degree, have been and defiant towards the new norms of more successful. A case in point is risk management and the localization of The Manly Modern: Masculinity in expertise (among engineers rather than Postwar Canada. Christopher Dummitt workers) that came with this mega- brings together five diverse BC case modernity. studies that elucidate what he calls in Managing risk was not only done his conclusion an authoritative voice of in the workplace. The third case study “the manly modern” during the postwar in Manly Modern looks at the growth era. He argues that, after the Second in popularity of mountaineering as World War, technological modernity a way in which middle-class men became the basis for a new hegemonic sought to escape the alienation ideal of masculinity. His work shares and feminine influence of postwar much in common with recent writing suburban modernity. Climbing was on modernity. Instead of portraying an opportunity for these men to lead, modernity as a triumphal retooling of to evaluate risk, and to triumph over capitalism into a more humane system nature: for some, it was an opportunity or as one of Walt Rostow’s stages to perform modern masculinity. of “proper” development, Dummitt Once again pointing to irony and shows it as a dynamic process with contradiction, Dummitt shows how contradictions, ironies, and anxieties mountaineers both lobbied for roads all inherent to an economic boom and in order to open up new possibilities the concomitant transformation of of discovery and lamented the loss of daily life. isolation that came with the increasing In the first case study, Dummitt numbers of climbers that arrived using focuses on a 1947-48 Royal Commission these roads. into veterans’ complaints about poor The fourth case study uses capital treatment by government agencies and, murder cases to look at the rise of in so doing, demonstrates that the same psychology and psychiatry as new sense of authority was seen as both the fields of expertise that ubiquitously justification of veterans’ claims and provided a normative language of the root of their problems. On the one modern masculinity – a process that 118 bc studies
Dummitt calls the medicalization critiques signalled the decline of manly of manhood. Psychologists and modern authority, which had risen to a psychiatrists presented their scientific hegemonic position in the postwar era. explanations before the courts and In all of these studies, Dummitt elsewhere, becoming the leading gives readers impressively nuanced, managers of risks pertaining to men’s highly theoretically contextualized violent behaviour. They maintained insights into questions that have rarely that a man’s ability to control his violent been studied by Canadian historians. urges could be rationally explained Yet, readers of this journal may find by a poor environment slowing his that the book tells us very little about maturity (or, in some cases, racialized the experience of modernity in British primitivism) rather than by his biology. Columbia. As Dummitt admits in his The final case study focuses on introduction, it is not a book about the expansion of car-centred culture “the history of Vancouver modernity in the postwar era, with Dummitt and masculinity but a history of uncovering the qualities of what made manly modernism as it took shape in a good driver. Cars were the foundation Vancouver” (26). Still, the questions of suburban Vancouver development. of what the Vancouver example tells us They allowed the city to spatially about masculinity and modernity that expand and were promoted as family studies of other cities would not, and space – with men in the driver’s seat. what these case studies say about the What made a good driver was strikingly experience of modernity in Vancouver, similar to what made a good man. lurk in this reader’s mind. Indeed, safety “experts” maintained Certainly, some of the case studies that traffic safety was a matter of do provide insights into these questions, learning how to successfully manipulate but some leave the reader wanting more. the carefully engineered automotive In the final case study, for example, technology. The path to becoming a one gets very little sense of the impact responsible driver was through driver of Nader’s critiques on Vancouverites education and the enforcement of traffic (though we hear about a Quebec MP’s rules, much like the structures of risk initiative in the House of Commons). management in other case studies found Similarly, it would have been useful to in the book. On the question of car have concrete examples of Jane Jacobs’s culture, however, a far more radical and influence on those fighting against sustained critique developed, beyond urban redevelopment rather than simply any of the anxieties discussed in earlier being presented with the suggestion chapters. In Not Safe at Any Speed Ralph that activists could rely on her work. Nader pointed to technology, not the Were there reading groups? Did she driver, as the problem. No amount of visit? Was greater public consultation education, risk management, or sense built into development projects of of responsibility could make cars safe. the future? More details would have Car culture was also condemned by been nice, especially considering that anti-urban renewal protestors of the these last two case studies constitute late 1960s and 1970s who challenged an important part of how Dummitt the male, bureaucratic “expertise” shows change over time. In conclusion, of those who sought to redevelop The Manly Modern will leave some their Vancouver neighbourhoods. readers wanting to know more about According to Dummitt, these kinds of whether this kind of masculinity was Book Reviews 119 similar to or different from identities elsewhere and whether the experience of modernity was similar to that which occurred in other places. Still, Dummitt offers a great deal of creativity in problematizing new historical subjects and proposes useful thoughts on the relationship between modernity and masculinity that will, no doubt, be taken up by historians and social theorists of the future.