"OH CANADA— OH " A Review Essay

By Norman J. Ruff

Thirty Million Musketeers: One Canada, For All Canadians Gordon Gibson Toronto: Key Porter-Fraser Institute, 1995. 242 pp. $19.95 paper.

Ottawa and the Outer Provinces: The Challenge of Regional Distribution in Canada Stephen G. Tomblin Toronto: Lorimer, 1995. 214 pp. $19.95 paper.

The Institutionalized Cabinet: Governing the Western Provinces Christopher Dunn Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 1995. xiv, 333 pp. $44.95 cloth.

RITISH COLUMBIAN views on of contemporary social and political Confederation have typically forces and their policy consequences. B made Easterners uneasy. Lester Though at times he raises more questions Pearson was not alone when he ad­ than (as he repeatedly admits) "can be mitted that he would have to think answered in this book," Gibson's re­ two or three times before deciding flections on contemporary social issues whether to take W.A.C. Bennett's draw the reader deep into the public views seriously. The vacuum that has policy dialogue and inform his policy emerged in the post-1992 brooding imperatives for a more secure future. over the future of Canadian feder­ Gibson argues that, while most alism has, however, created a public Canadians have become security audience more attentive to voices conscious conservatives, Quebecers have other than those legitimated in Ottawa. given greater priority to personal and Former BC Liberal party leader cultural identity and are more open to Gordon Gibson Jr. is one of the more state intervention. Gibson adds that new prominent voices that have helped fill Canadians (with their increasing num­ that vacuum. His commentaries carry bers and their concentration in Toronto, arresting ideas about the dynamics of Vancouver, and Montreal) comprise a Canadian federalism and its future third, more future-orientated group, options. In Thirty Million Musketeers who care little for Canadian history and Gibson provides a highly eclectic but who are eager to improve their position conspicuously well informed overview rather than to conserve what they have.

BC STUDIES, no. 114, Sumer 1997 05 86 BC STUDIES

This growth in social diversity, along government representatives. British with differing goals, makes federalism Columbia could take control of its fishery and increased decentralization more and possibly turn it over to a govern­ necessary than ever. ment quango, run in part by industry Gibson's writing constructs an irre­ interests. Ottawa would vacate "Indian" sistible sense of reasonableness around affairs and "make Natives ordinary what he portrays as inevitable trends. Canadians in law." And so on. Gibson Many of his prescriptions for federal/ adroitly raises one policy issue after provincial relations are also in tune with another and shapes them into his directions currently being pursued by "Canadian solution." Ottawa and the premiers, who are look­ Gibson's preference for the private sec­ ing for ways to decentralize and yet to tor is linked to his reading of Canadian maintain a sense of national purpose cultural attitudes. The title of the book (i.e., in the country's social programs). was derived from former Newfoundland Gibson's outlook is also informed by a premier Clyde Wells's comment that more contested perspective — one that Canadians were, like Alexander Dumas's views politics as a marketplace in which three musketeers, bound by the senti­ voters are characterized as "customers" ment "All for one and one for All." of the state. His view that Canada is Gibson argues that this common bond on an inevitable path to political decentra­ has gone and that the dominant culture lization is shaped by his preference for is now more individualistic. His diag­ the private sector. Gibson begins with nosis and prescriptions to "save Canada" the assumption that privatization will be make this not just another book on the encouraged and that the "private Constitution, but a fundamental re­ marketplace is better developed and thinking of the role of the Canadian more efficient than the political market­ state. This book is a salutary reminder place. Thus, anything that can be moved that re-inventing Canadian federalism there should be moved there. What we will be more than a matter of inter­ deal with in the political marketplace governmental relations and that more is is what is left." at issue here than the province of Québec. Gibson's formulae for rearranging Stephen Tomblin, in Ottawa and powers would significantly decrease the the Outer Provices: The Challenge of current responsibilities and policy in­ Regional Distribution in Canada, cursions of the federal government and shares Gibson's diagnosis of the give the provinces more control in areas Canadian predicament: the country of concurrent jurisdiction. Since Unem­ must deal with a decline in Ottawa's ployment Insurance (UI) is a social power and a rise in increasingly safety net program, for example, Gibson powerful marketplace forces. Like proposes that it be transferred to the Gibson, Tomblin would also redesign provinces. At present, he argues> UI has the country, but what he considers become a device for transferring money necessary "for holding the country from Ontario and the West to the less together" walks a more well-trodden prosperous provinces and that, if we pathway. Tomblin is attuned to the want to do this, then we should to it formidable obstacles to regional in a more straightforward manner. integration. The rules of the game and The maintenance of internal national the existing power structure reinforce policy interests and standards would fall territorial competition among the to a federal council made up of provincial provinces, but Tomblin asks us to Book Reviews 8j

consider regional integration as a tion of Canada is no longer merely an means of restraining increased gov­ amusing novelty, and the concept of a ernment independence in the West, of Pacific Northwest Cascadia has reducing the costs of government, and started to give some tangible expres­ of assisting in "solving the regional sion to British Columbia's "north- disparity problem" in the Atlantic south pull." region. In exploring this, he provides Tomblin's account identifies the a valuable regional perspective on the personal leadership styles of Atlantic history of national development and Western premiers and their policies, their contradictions, and the defence of provincial interests against attempts at integration among gov­ outsiders as primary factors in the re­ ernments in the Atlantic and the gional integration debate. Chris Prairie/Western regions as well as an Dunn, in The Institutionalized exploration of BC's disinterest in Cabinet: Governing the Western regional cooperation. Provinces, provides an additional per­ Tomblin refers to "the movement" spective on the dynamics of provincial but one would be hard pressed to find government-building in his exami­ any new-found momentum towards nation of the way that Western pro­ regional integration within either vincial premiers have organized the Canadian periphery, despite the fed­ structures and processes of cabinet eral Liberal party embracing the government. Albertan officials unfor­ concept in the celebrated 1993 Red tunately proved uncooperative, and we Book. There is an unresolved tension are denied their insights, but post- in the book between a predilection for Second World War Saskatchewan, regional integration and a sensitivity Manitoba, and British Columbia are to the political reality of achieving it. well served by Dunn's comprehensive Although Tomblin asserts the research. Based on 200 interviews, he necessity for a "pan-Atlantic Canadian painstakingly reconstructs the evo­ vision," he cautions that it must lution of the cabinet structure and recognize territorial considerations. executive decision processes in these British Columbia has always looked three provinces through to the 1980s. more towards its Pacific rather than Twenty years ago, Paul Tennant towards its Prairie neighbours, and captured the essence of British this fact is explored in detail. The Columbia's pre-1975 experience in the ghosts of McBride, Pattullo, and concept of the "unaided" cabinet. W.A.C. Bennett haunt Tomblin's Dunn refines its components, con­ analysis of BC's isolationalism and trasts their tendencies to those in defensive province-building expan­ Stefan Dupré's "institutionalized" sionism. His explanations of BC's po­ cabinet model, and attempts to ac­ sition are too convincing to lead one count for the growth and persistence to expect any road-to-Damascus con­ of institutionalization. The one con­ version to Western integration. Also, stant difference between the two mo­ the increasing economic and political dels is that, in the "institutionalized" self-confidence of the 1990s has pro­ form of cabinet committees and bably heightened British Columbia's central staff agencies, the premier is sense of detachment from all nine of not only a chooser of cabinet col­ its Canadian neighbours. Bennett's leagues, but also an "architect" of twenty-year-old five-region concep­ cabinet structure (being part of a 88 BC STUDIES

"persistent search to make decision the way to a new destination." More making more manageable" recent times and new policy agendas Dunn argues that a mixture of three have nurtured new policy structures factors •— ideology (particularly in and processes, since, for example, the path-breaking Saskatchewan), prag­ Harcourt government produced a matism, and historical precedents pe­ confusing proliferation of unco­ culiar to each of the three provinces ordinated central agencies to serve the — account for the initiation of cabinet premier and the cabinet. In both the institutionalization. The explanations Harcourt and Clark administrations, for its persistence are more complex. political communication has become Internal explanations may include the as central to the processes of gov­ premier's quest for influence, an erning as is policy choice. Spin doctors unsatisfactory partial deinstitu­ in the premier's office or the cabinet tionalization, the emulation of prede­ policy and communications secretariat cessors, the cabinet's own quests for at times appear to wield as much political and financial control, influence in the central agencies as do streamlining, ideology, and/or the the policy analysts. But then perhaps internal logic of structured reforms. public image-making is what a large External explanations may include the part of these "policy" agencies and necessity for policy coherence in inter­ secretariats were always really about. governmental relations, policy sema­ The 1996-97 BC budget illustrates the phoring through cabinet structure, the policy injuries that can occur where influence of social science rationalism, those roles collide. and/or the facilitation of interest Immersion in this account of cabinet group input. committee systems and central agencies Dunn is probably right in arguing reinforces a suspicion that we may that British Columbia's institutional have been overly preoccupied with cab­ development has been "as insular as inet architecture. It begs the question its political culture." He attempts, how­ raised by Aaron Wildavsky concerning ever, to modify the image of the our propensity to applaud the con­ province's cabinet as an unaided struction of elaborate central policy- laggard by arguing that there was an planning structures without a post- "incipient institutionalization" of the audit of their actual impact. Dunn's BC executive long before the mod­ institutional account is exceptionally ernizing post-1975 reforms of Bill thorough but, while it considers some Bennett. This wriggle room, for the of the impacts on political actors, it purpose of accommodating W.A.C. suspends judgement on its effects on Bennett, tends to undermine the policy outputs. What differences did utility of unaided/institutionalized the pattern of evolution make to the modelling. substance of provincial public policy? The cabinet institutionalization How has flamboyant cabinet institu­ phenomenon of the 1970s coincided tionalization contributed to the real with a period when Canadian public well being of British Columbians? administration had become dom­ The answers to these kinds of inated by the "rationality" project. questions don't come easily, but such Dunn's own conclusion warns that "it questions need to be addressed by all could be that the institutionalized would-be institutional and consti­ cabinet has become a whistle stop on tutional reformers. OUR EMILY A Review Essay

By Nancy Pagh

Beloved Land: The World of Emily Carr Robin Laurence, Introduced by Vancouver: Douglas 8c Mclntyre; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.104 pp. Illus. $19.95 paper.

Emily Carr: An Introduction to Her Life and Art Anne Newlands Willowdale, Ontario: Firefly, 1996. 64 pp. Illus. $14.95 paper.

This Woman in Particular: Contexts for the Biographical Image of Emily Carr Stephanie Kirkwood Walker Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996. xvi, 212 pp. Illus. $34.95 cloth.

"LITTLE OLD LADY on the (including Klee Wyck, which won the edge of nowhere," as she Governor General's Award for 1941) Adescribed herself, has pro­ remain in print and have even been bably drawn more national and inter­ collected into a popular "omnibus." national attention to British Columbia She is the subject of several bio­ than has any other person. As a painter, graphical studies. Whether she is being Emily Carr (1871-1945) intrigued eastern discussed in Canadian Art as an Canada with her contribution to the appropriator of Native culture or being National Gallery of Canada's discovered by a class of kids touring Exhibition of Canadian West Coast Art the Vancouver Art Gallery, Carr in 1927. She went on to become British remains visible and prominent in con­ Columbia's — and arguably Canada's siderations of BC culture and identity. — most renown artist. "Convinced Two new collections of her images are that the old way of seeing was a testament to her continuing rele­ inadequate to express this big country vance and popularity as an artist, while of ours," especially the landscapes and Walker's text is a critical study of the people of British Columbia, Carr role Carr's biographical image has brought freshness and intensity to BC played in our fascination with her. landscape art and to regional writing. Robin Laurence's Beloved Land: The Reproductions of her images decorate World of Emily Carr and Anne posters, t-shirts, books by other writers, Newlands' Emily Carr: An Introduction stamps, mugs, shopping bags, and the to Her Life and Art both offer affor­ like, and her autobiographical books dable anthologies featuring high-

BC STUDIES, no. 114, Sumer 1997 89 ço BC STUDIES

quality reproductions and interesting less expensive and significantly shorter background information on the painter than is Laurence's book, however the and some of the contexts for her work. variety of its images is superior. Beloved Either is a better choice than is the Land only features réproductions from weighty coffee table book offered the Vancouver Art Gallery (which, several years ago by the University of admittedly, houses a very large Washington Press, which featured very collection of her work). Newlands's poor colour reproductions. Although text incorporates images from the VAG these books are slimmer and have and from at least nine other col­ smaller pages, the images are well lections, including those of the chosen and are printed on quality National Gallery of Canada, the paper. Carr's "darker" paintings appear Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the vibrant, not muddy or dull. These two McMichaeJ Canadian Art Collection, works seem somewhat redundant, both and the BC Archives and Records vying for the same audience — persons Service. As a result, Newlands offers with a casual or friendly interest in Carr images that cover a broader spectrum, who would like a home reference to including more of Carr's earlier work show-case some of her best work and and some of her most recognized pieces, to provide interesting details about her such as "Indian Church, 1929," which is life and artistry. However, there are some missing from Beloved Land. significant differences between the two. Newlands's writing focuses on Carr's Beloved Land, which focuses on life experiences and, to support this, the Carr's relationship with the envi­ text includes more black-and-white ronment and her sense of nationalism, photos of Carr at different stages of her offers more illustrations than does Emily life. Notably, Newlands has also brought Carr, along with images that are larger in more contextual material. I found and better displayed, without text or the inclusion of Lawren Harris's busyness to clutter the page. Several of "Above Lake Superior" and the reproductions straddle two pages photographs from Carr's first National (and are aligned well) so that the viewer Gallery of Canada appearance quite can better appreciate the movement appropriate; Newlands has worked to and detail Carr sought. I felt the best show some of the movements that shaped Carr and has tried to give us a feature of this collection was the way sense of how her contemporaries Laurence separated her well-written greeted her work. twenty-six-page introduction from the rest of the book and honoured Choosing between these two good Carr's words and vision by placing works is a matter of taste. Laurence substantial quotations from her writing offers more and larger images and more on the pages facing her images. These specific information about the par­ quotations are carefully selected and ticular images included, and she usually comment directly either on focuses on Carr's sense of the impor­ what is depicted in the corresponding tance of place. Newlands has divided images or on the process of those works. her text into numerous short, thematic Because Carr wrote with such inven­ sections that are organized chrono­ tiveness and tenderness, these pages bal­ logically. She takes us on a voyage ance the beautiful reproductions well. through stages in Carr's life, offering Newlands's Emily Carr: An Intro^ fewer and smaller illustrations but a duction to Her Life and Art is slightly greater variety of them. Book Reviews ci

This Woman in Particular addresses a published in 1992 alone (Journal of much more scholarly audience — Canadian Studies 27/2, Studies in namely, theorists of language, culture, Canadian Literature 17/2, and Mosaic and subjectivity. Walker's project is to 25/4, only one of which Walker acknow­ examine the capacity of the genre of ledges) that contain the genesis of biography, focusing on one biographical these thoughts. All of these essays, by subject: Carr. As noted in the fore­ relying on feminist analyses of sub­ word contributed by William Closson jectivity and modern definitions of the James, Walker argues for abandoning self, defend Carr against charges of historical biography s pretence of objec­ "lying" in her writing. However, tivity (a pretence that has, I think, Walker engages in this project with largely been shed in the last decade). skill and in much greater depth than More compelling is her insistence that has any previous thinking in this biography is a spiritual/religious act; direction. Carr's greatness, Walker she explains that her "primary interest concludes, lies not in her genius as a here lies in biography as a literary painter but in the multitude of ways form able to convey or display reli­ she fashioned her life and the gious matters within a milieu perceived multitude of ways we have sought to as predominantly secular." Writing any conceive of her. Because of Carr's own life history, she explains, "requires an act strong and appealing sense of of imagination directed toward the spirituality, we are bound to appreciate order of being." I was especially intri­ Walker's emphasis on the positive gued by her attributing Carr's recent nature of these rebirths and/or appeal to "an increasingly common spiri­ transformations. tuality allied to ecological perspectives." Walker makes peripheral mention of Because of Carr's position as a female the "mystique" of the BC coastal land­ artist at a time when women were not scape and the new power of British heralded as great artists, and her Columbia as "a cultural centre on its propensity for reinventing herself again own terms"; this study is not crucial for and again in her own writing, Walker scholarship about British Columbia. has chosen an excellent subject for her However, I think this work deserves project. These elements allow Walker genuine interest from literary and to show how important the emergence cultural critics concerned with bio­ of feminism and modernity has been graphy, autobiography, and subjectivity, to the changing appreciation of Carr's and its existence demonstrates the greatness. This argument is not growing importance of "our Emily" to especially new; I know of three essays scholarship outside of British Columbia.

The Schoolnet Emily Carr web site provides in-depth information about the life and work of Canadian artist and author Emily Carr. There are six sections to the site: a Virtual House Tour of the Victorian house where Emily Carr was born; a Writing section containing descriptions of her books, and articles about her (con­ tributed by the National Library of Canada); a Family Album of archival images and brief biographies of the Carr Family; an On-Line Exhibition of over 400 examples of Emily Carr's paintings, drawings, and pottery from the various col­ lections in BC and Canada; a Current Events and Issues section; a Team and Sponsors section with information about the people who created this site and those who funded the project. The site is located at: http://www.schoolnet.ca/collections/ carr and is mirrored at: http://www.tbc.gov.bc.ca/culture/schoolnet/carr. Ç2 BC STUDIES

Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian Pioneers in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest Tom Koppel Vancouver: Whitecap, 1995.152 p. Illus. $14.95 paper. By R.W. SANDWELL, Simon Fraser University

C HISTORY HAS CHANGED. from Forts Stikine and Simpson to Until quite recently, only the Langley and Victoria. Their important B public and political activities contribution to whaling, sealing, and of White adult males fell within its fishing on the coast is also described. purview. Over the past two decades, When work in the fur trade and related however, the province's history has industries declined, a number of Kanakas expanded to include the experiences settled in northern Washington state. of a much wider spectrum of society, When they were prohibited from and, as a result, more varied inter­ taking up land south of the forty-ninth pretations of social and political rela­ parallel in the early 1870s, some families tions are becoming common. As the moved north. The second half of the Forum in the Autumn 1996 edition of book examines the areas of Hawaiian BC Studies suggests, the growing settlement in the Lower Mainland and complexity of the province's history is the southern Gulf Islands. stimulating lively debate about the Koppel has painstakingly traced the ways in which class, race, gender, lives of the families, many comprised colonialist discourse, and other of Hawaiian-Aboriginal marriages, relations of power can bring these who took up land and made a living newly emerging people and exper­ from both the land and the sea in the iences into better focus. Tom Koppel's nineteenth and early twentieth Kanaka: The Untold Story of Hawaiian centuries. The research difficulties Pioneers in British Columbia and the here should not be underestimated: in Pacific Northwest reflects this interest documents in which Hawaiian names in ethnic diversity. Unfortunately, seldom appear twice with the same because the Hawaiians who appear in spelling, tracing families over time and its pages are too often left stranded in different places requires considerable outside of descriptive or analytical skill and patience. Koppel describes contexts, the book also provides a the cultural and familial context of timely reminder that both description Kanaka society up to the present day, and analysis are needed to render the providing abundant details about experiences of the past into mean­ particular individuals as they became ingful and significant history. integrated into BC society. This popular history looks at the Although the book gives an lives of the Hawaiian "pioneers" who overview of the "untold story" of the first arrived in the Pacific Northwest Hawaiian presence in the Pacific in the early nineteenth century to work Northwest, the story that emerges is, as labourers in the American and the unfortunately, limited in scope and British fur trade. Koppel explores their significance by the author's narrow varied living and working conditions approach to his subject. His uncritical from Astoria to Fort Vancouver, and reliance, in the first half of the book, Book Reviews pj

on the writings of Hudson's Bay weakness of historical analysis. Ana­ Company officiais and missionaries is lysis and explanation are seldom probably responsible for the hollowness offered, and, when they are, they tend of the Hawaiian experience revealed in towards historical determinism in lieu these pages. This is very much the story of any other theoretical models. of Hawaiians as seen by nineteenth- Appalling working conditions, for century Europeans. These early example, which have provided the Hawaiian arrivals seldom transcend focus for considerable debate and their role as amusing, primitive cari­ discussion about race, class, and catures within the colonialist discourse. gender throughout BC historiography, Like nineteenth-century writers, are naturalized in a way that removes Koppel seems to have little interest them from the realm of historical either in the world that the Hawaiians significance: Koppel argues that if left or in their reasons for leaving: Kanakas accepted these conditions, their motives, beliefs, fears, and joys then they "must have been acceptable remain as opaque to the reader as they by the yardsicks of the time and did to their nineteenth-century compared to opportunities at home in observers. Hawaii" (p. 27). Discussions about the Even when Koppel draws on oral inequality that clearly permeated the history sources to explore a more lives he describes are limited to Hawaiian-centred view of their descriptions of the "pecking order" history in the second half of the book, that ranked Hawaiians above Native his exploration of family, economy, and peoples and below Whites, and a culture is constrained by his failure to whole literature about the meaning of contextualize this population within race and class in British Columbia is broader frameworks of Canadian, ignored. Violence, work, leisure British Columbian, or Hawaiian activities, family, and cultural history. There is simply not enough traditions beg to be interpreted within historical context to allow us to under­ specific contexts. Without these stand the behaviours he describes. contexts it is impossible to ask Descriptions of lives marked by questions of central importance to our violence, drunkeness, racial inter­ understanding of history: Why did marriage, and high rates of mobility these people live as they did? What and mortality are presented hap­ sense did they make of their own lives? hazardly throughout the book. What did their presence mean in Because we have no idea how these British Columbia? behaviours related to other Hawaiians, Although Kanaka contains some Aboriginal peoples, or BC immigrants, solid and difficult research concerning it is difficult to understand their the Hawaiian presence in British meaning or significance. Why did Columbia, it fails to provide the clear they drink so much? Why did they historical lens needed to both see and take up land rather than move to understand the Hawaiian experience. cities? What did the luaus mean to As this book is grounded in neither their society? Why did so few women Hawaiian nor BC society, its signi­ emigrate to British Columbia? ficance remains obscured within a The problems of interpretation context that seems to be exclusivley created by poorly articulated historical defined by, and relevant to, over­ contexts are exacerbated by the simplified personalities. 94 BC STUDIES

Cheap Wage Labour: Race and Gender in the Fisheries of British Columbia Alicja Muszynski Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1996. Maps. 314 pp. $44.95 cloth.

BY JOHN LUTZ, University of Victoria

HIS BOOK WILL be of interest of these, Marx himself raises the ques­ to scholars of BC's political tion of whether the LTV can be usefully Teconomy, and not just for applied in a cross-cultural situation. what it reveals about the province and According to Marx, labour value is its fishery. Muszynski uses the shore unique to "a given society." BC's fishery as a starting point to revise shore-fishery existed, as Muszynski Karl Marx's labour theory of value shows, at the intersection of (LTV) SO that it better explains why Aboriginal, Asian, and European workforces have been segmented societies. The components of labour along lines of race and gender. value — skill, intensity, and The lack of accomodation of race organization of labour — vary from and gender are two weak points in society to society, so it becomes Marx's LTV which argues that the impossible to talk about a consistent value of any commodity depends only value of labour when goods and labour on the amount of labour time needed are exchanged between societies. Even to produce it "under the conditions of Marx himself would have admitted production normal for a given society that many of his as-sumptions are and with the average degree of skill problematic in an intercultural and intensity of labour prevalent in context. that society" (Capital, vol. 1, p. 129). Unfortunately, Muszynski s thoughtful Muszynski points out that Marx examination of the interaction of race largely ignored women's unpaid "re­ and gender in the workplace is saddled productive labour" and that the labour with theoretical assumptions that are of women, children, and non-Whites at odds with her case study. To make was already devalued before it was the case fit the theory, key historical drawn into capitalist work relations. details have been either assumed Both capitalists and White male rather than investigated or shoe- workers used these pre-capitalist horned to fit. For example, Muszynski forms of exploitation to try to improve assumes, as did Marx, that "labourers their respective positions in workplace will not voluntarily approach capitalist bargaining. employers, but must be forced by This point is a contribution to the having their means of production LTV, but there is something pyrrhic wrested from their control" (p. 32). But about it. The LTV has numerous other a close look at BC history shows that problems in addition to its failure to Aboriginal peoples, a key element of acknowledge the role of race and Muszynski's cheap wage labour force, gender —problems that have caused sought wage labour in the fisheries many Marxists to abandon this part long before Europeans undermined of Marx's theorizing. Taking only one their resource base. Although cap- Book Reviews 95

italists were buying Aboriginal labour analysis itself. Her theory and her evi­ as a part of their economy, Native dence hardly engage each other. The peoples were selling their labour as an theoretical analysis, in two chapters, adjunct to their own prestige, or one at the beginning and one at the potlatch, economy. The non-capitalist end of the book, is isolated from an reasons Aboriginal peoples had for essentially narrative account of going to work do not fit within the historical events in the middle Marx/Muszynski framework. chapters. Since it is its theoretical There are other important gaps be­ framework that sets this book apart tween theory and evidence. To make from other accounts of the industry, her point about the conjunction of the narrative chapters themselves offer capitalism and patriarchy Muszynski few new insights. The exception is assumes that, before the arrival of Chapter 5, which examines the union­ Europeans, West Coast Aboriginal ization of the shore workers after 1931 cultures were largely cooperative (pp. — an important topic neglected in 25-26,92) and non-patriarchal (pp. 38- other works. Here, the author gets 9). Neither assumption is born out by away from the government reports and a close examination of these slave- secondary sources that inform the holding societies, where males held other narrative chapters and asks ques­ the economic and political power. To tions about how workers themselves make the point that the industry thought of, and used, categories of needed cheap wage labour and so race and gender. This chapter is built looked to Aboriginal and Asian on primary research in the United cannery workers, she states that the Fishermen and Allied Worker's wages paid to this racialized cannery papers; their organ The Fishermen; and labour were lower than were wages the business papers of a prominent paid to the British labourers who company, J. Todd and Sons. bought the canned salmon (p. 47). In By the time she reaches the end of fact, the monthly rates paid to the book, Muszynski appears to be Aboriginal workers, $40 to 60 per reassessing her original problematic. month in the early 1880s, far exceeded What began as an attempt to refine the $14 average monthly wages of Marx's LTV concludes: "What we need ordinary labourers in Britain. By is not more grand theory but analysis important standards of comparison that takes into account the diversity this was not cheap wage labour, and and complexity of lives as people live this fact undermines Muszynski's them from day to day. This is the explanation as to why fishery labour feminist project — not to discover the was gendered and racialized. one theory that will explain every­ The book has structural weaknesses thing" (p. 257). Had she begun with as well. Muszynski's main critique of diversity and complexity and re­ Marx is that he was not dialectical examined, rather than refined, the enough in his analysis and so did not grand theory known as Marx's LTV, the see the effects of race and gender (p. author would have contributed a great 255). While Muszynski's book offers deal more to our understanding of a remedy to this important shortfall, race, gender, and capitalist relations in it is strangely lacking in dialectical the BC fishing industry. ç6 BC STUDIES

Working the Tides: A Portrait of Canada's West Coast Fishery Peter A. Robson and Michael Skog, eds. Madeira Park: Harbour, 1996. 216 pp. Illus., maps. $34.95 cloth.

The Fraser River Alan Haig-Brown Madeira Park: Harbour, 1996. 200 pp. Illus., maps. $49.95 cloth. By SUSAN STACEY, Richmond, British Columbia

E'VE ALL HEARD the time storytelling. Most are personal laments of expatriate anecdotes, some are creative non- W British Columbians, long­ fiction. The writers/storytellers (some ing to return to life as it's lived no­ accounts are retold by professional where else in Canada. When pressed writers) are of both genders and to specify just what they miss so represent many ethnic and age groups. keenly, they often wistfully identify The book is divided into sections some aspect of the province's aquatic based on the type of fishing technique landscape. British Columbia's ocean- used by the subject of the article: front and its rivers and lakes have a gillnetting, salmon seining, herring huge influence on its citizens' working seining, groundline fishing, trawl lives, leisure plans, and spirituality. fishing, jigging and trolling, and dive Two recent offerings from Harbour fishing. While this type of organ­ Publishing explore how this wild ization is a great aid to readers water defines our provincial psyche. unfamiliar with the fishing industry, Working the Tides: A Portrait of there is a sense that this is a book by Canadas West Coast Fishery is a col­ fishers for fishers. Trade terminology lection of forty-seven slice-of-life is not explained, there is no glossary, narratives depicting BC fishers and and descriptions of machinery assume their work. Editors Peter Robson and that the reader recognizes the business Michael Skog are both fishers who end of a bevel gear. Despite this write about the fishery and former insider feel, the articles centre on the editors of Westcoast Fisherman, a pop­ human side of the fishery and all ular trade journal serving BC's readers could easily come away spell­ commercial fishing industry. For the bound by stories such as Maxine past decade, Westcoast Fisherman has Matilpi's account (as told by Vickie created a forum for "inside-the-skin" Jensen) of being trapped underwater writing to balance the business and for two and a half hours in a capsized political angles that dominate re­ seiner. porting on this sector. Robson and While there is no profound analysis Skog gleaned all but three of the of the fishing industry, readers can gain book's selections from the magazine's a perspective on the day-to-day, season- archives. to-season concerns of fishers and a sense The articles, which average three of what it is like living as pawns of pages each, are fine examples of mari­ nature and the minister of fisheries. Book Reviews çj

Researchers a generation from now Haig-Brown, assuming the role of could use this as an instructive text for advocate, has melded history, anthro­ social history and as a data source for pology, archaeology, geology, geo­ trade jargon, technology, and local graphy, fish biology, and modern-day names for landmarks and fishing ter­ travel writing into a passionate argu­ ritories. It is also a good source of ment for attentive stewardship of one information about some of the low of the continent's great rivers. profile fisheries (like jigging and Full of anthropomorphic language, trolling), thus balancing the media's the book would have readers revere emphasis on the salmon industry. the river as a living entity. Haig- Helpful maps at the beginning of most Çrown suggests requiring every young articles pinpoint the story's setting, person in British Columbia to make and a generous selection of black-and- a trip down the river before letting her white photos, many from family or him vote in a provincial election. scrapbooks, add a personal element to However, reading this book would these accounts of life and labour on probably be the next best thing. While BC's coast. some readers may find his fervour a If Working the Tides has the feel of bit over the top, the book is excep­ a home video at a family reunion, then tionally well written and engaging — The Fraser River, by Alan Haig- a worthy recipient of the Roderick Brown, could be likened to a Holly­ Haig-Brown Regional Prize it took wood extravaganza. A beautifully home from the 1997 BC Book Prizes. produced book, most readers will Although seeing the Gulf of probably first be drawn to its visual Georgia National Historic Site iden­ element. Rick Blacklaws' photographs tified in the photo captions as the of the Fraser River, from its head­ Britannia Heritage Shipyards complex waters to its delta, are stunning. The was a disappointment, there is little else book's designer has taken full ad­ to mar the pleasure of poring over this vantage of his material, creating a book. In addition to learning a great visual effect that, with the captions, deal about the Fraser River and how appears to tell the story by itself. It it has shaped BC's land and peoples, would be a shame to consider the text the reader can enjoy a fine example of as a secondary element, however, as environmental advocacy writing.

How "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, For Example Marshall Sahlins Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. 318 pp. US$14.95

By KEITH THOR CARLSON, University of British Columbia

IVE YEARS AGO Marshall revisionist study The Apotheosis of Sahlins's reputation as one of Captain Cook: European Mythmaking F the most respected and influ­ in the Pacific threatened to destroy ential figures in ethnohistory seemed Sahlins's professional reputation. In secure. However, the professional ac­ The Apotheosis, Obeyesekere went colades given Gananath Obeyesekere's beyond challenging Sahlins's inter- ç8 BC STUDIES

pretations and methodologies to ac­ scholars have not "slavishly repeated cusing the old sage of perpetuating an the irrational beliefs of their ethnocentric, self-serving, historical ancestors" (e.g., Cook as god). Rather, untruth (that late eighteenth-century Obeyesekere's "anthropology has more Hawaiians considered Captain James in common with Cook's voyage than Cook to be their god Lono). In level­ his uncompromising criticism of it ling this charge, Obeyesekere ex­ suggests." pressed his conviction that only Sahlins believes that an under­ Natives can write Native history — standing of the "other" is achievable, that Sahlins is ideologically/racially but, contrary to Obeyesekere's "com- incapable of understanding how monsense suppositions," it is not Aboriginal people think. How ascribed. For, as Sahlin's makes clear, "Natives" Think: About Captain Cook, the shared experience of having been For Example is Sahlins's no-holds- "discovered" by Europeans is an barred work of revenge and refutation. insufficient basis for claiming a Sahlins argue? that Obeyesekere's universally shared Native world view. writing is "an example of how one To truly understand how Natives makes a pidgin anthropology — think one must first become which is at the same time a pseudo- intimately familiar with their local history — by substituting a folkloric ethnographic and historical context. sense of'native' beliefs for the relevant Objectivity is culturally biased, and Hawaiian ethnography." He shows careful ethnography is crucial to ap­ that Obeyesekere's greatest flaw stems preciating other cultures. In the wake from his assumption that as a Native of Sahlins's considered and logically Sri Lankan he is somehow endowed tight argument Obeyesekere's appro­ with insights into the way other priation of eighteenth-century Natives think — insights Sahlins and Hawaiian voice crumbles like a house other Europeans allegedly cannot of cards. hope to achieve. Sahlins finds this Sahlins exposes not only Obeyesekere's concept of exclusive shared world views sloppy ethnography, but also his among all "native" people not only twisted method of assessing the legiti­ offensive but, given that Obeyesekere macy of historical sources: Obeyesekere creates the impression that eighteenth- assumes that "the absence of a European century Hawaiians interpreted the mention that Cook = [the god] Lono world with a Western "bourgeois sense means that for Hawaiians Cook was of practical rationality," ironic. For not Lono ... while the presence of a Sahlins, such an obviously presentist Hawaiian mention that Cook = Lono agenda illustrates Obeyesekere's is an indication of the European myth propensity for reinterpreting the past to that effect. In other words, the in order to serve perceived contem­ European non-assertion is evidence of porary needs. That other scholars failed Hawaiian realities, while the Hawaiian to raise objections to Obeyesekere's assertion is evidence of European views is indicative of the sorry state beliefs." Sahlins does not stop here, of critical thought and peer review, however. In meticulous detail, he and the excesses of what some have documents how Obeyesekere's discus­ defined as the age of apology. Sahlins sions of archival documents is re- demonstrates that, contrary to proachably selective at best, and Obeyesekere's assertions, Western blatantly deceptive at worst. Many of Book Reviews pp

Cook's European contemporaries did, in common with current Northwest in fact, report that the Hawaiians Coast ethnohistorical debate, the regarded Cook as their god Lono. issues addressed in the Sahlins- In writing How "Natives" Think, Obeyesekere exchange are central to rather than How Hawaiians Thought^ ethnohistory. As ethnohistorians we Sahlins broadens not only the appeal must be cautious and reflective in our of his book, but the scope of his application of interpretive models, and critique. Northwest Coast historians we must be honest with regard to our tend to regard their field as a sub- archival and oral sources. We must not discipline of Canadian or American allow modern sensibilities and/or historiography — that is, we look east perceived contemporary political for our intellectual identity. Yet, the objectives to taint our research. In history of early contact here was as light of this publication, and despite much, if not more, a part of a broader the fact that Sahlins's depiction of Pacific experience than it was an eighteenth-century Hawaiians might extension of historical processes stem­ not coincide with modern Western ming from the St. Lawrence Seaway understandings of "practical ration­ or the Great Plains. If for no other ality" (and might, therefore, be reason than the temporal parallels politically unpopular in the short linking contact on this coast with term), Sahlins's place in history as a other parts of Pacific Oceania, we leading twentieth-century thinker and would be well advised to pay greater scholar appears secure. So too, one attention to the academic discussions hopes, are the exhaustive ethno­ emanating from our west. For while historical research techniques, the the particulars and even the subject cautious yet honest methodologies, matter of a controversy over Cook's and the critical processes of peer Hawaiian apotheosis may have little review Sahlins propounds.

Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools J.R. Miller Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. xii, 582 pp. Illus., maps. $29.95 paper,

By CELIA HAIG-BROWN, York University

HE GLOBE AND MJIL'S cover people] won't disappear unless their story on the Minister of issues are addressed." The Minister, TIndian Affairs' response to the and by implication too many Canadian Report of the Royal Commission on people, remain caught in "liberal assimi- Aboriginal Peoples (23 November lationist ideology" — expecting 1996) reaffirms James Miller's assess­ Aboriginal people to disappear. Miller ment of residential schools across concludes his study with the recog­ Canada and their persisting intent. nition that such ideology is impeding The Minister says: "There has to be any progress in bringing to reality an understanding that they [Aboriginal Aboriginal people's vision(s?) "of ioo BC STUDIES healthy and effective education for former staff and students. There are their children and the development of maps showing the locations of schools their communities." It is satisfying to across the country and extensive photo­ see a historian using his work to make graphs. He further embellishes his such a strong political statement, with work with poetry and excerpts from implications for current policy and recent news articles and short stories. practices. Miller builds his comprehensive Shingwauk's Vision: A History of explanation of the phenomenon of Native Residential Schools is a useful residential schools by using specific book, a timely and comprehensive examples from widely varying times look at a variety of schools across and contexts. While such a presentation Canada. It is one Euro-Canadian bridges geography and cultural man's attempt to "make sense" of a difference, it also homogenizes and horror of Canadian history — one in minimizes distinctions. The simple which, he argues convincingly, all statement that there are differences, Euro-Canadians are complicit. followed by examples that draw pri­ Beginning in 1620 in New France, marily on (and ultimately emphasize) with the Recollets taking a number of similarities, leaves one with an irre­ generic "Indian" boys into "the concilable contradiction. For example, seminary," Miller guides the reader the section that deals with traditional through the earliest sporadic efforts education refers to "the educational to create Christians of the savages and system of the Aboriginal peoples of into the golden age of the residential the northern portion of North America" schools — from the late 1800s to the (p. 35, emphasis mine). In cultures in 1960s. He appears to have two major which education was integral to and goals: (1) to show that the people in inseparable from daily life from birth the schools — students, teachers, and to death, to write of a "system" per se administrators — participated in is to assume an ethnocentric stance; much the same activity across the to write of a singular system is to deny country and (2) to shift the focus of the distinctions between nations and blame from the churches to the gov­ the cultures therein. A similar tension ernment and, ultimately, to all Euro- operates throughout this book. What Canadian people. These items is à reader to make of the two undergird the selection, ordering, and paragraphs on page 174, which leap presentation of this study. thousands of miles — from 1960s As Miller himself comments, his is Carcross, to Saskatchewan's St. not a new analysis but builds upon ear­ Philip's in 1955-62, to Shubenacadie lier works, many of which concentrate in Nova Scotia in 1949-50 — to show on specific schools. Its strength (and us that teachers in the schools, with perhaps its weakness) lies in its sheer two noted exceptions (one from 1895 size and its effort to generalize about and one from the 1950s), were less than the schools, the staff, and the children "well-versed in pedagogy"? What and parents from many First Nations does it mean that two of the five across the country. Miller has taken schools each had a gifted and his usual painstaking care with exten­ dedicated teacher? As an ethno­ sive notes from a range of sources based grapher, I am left with very real ques­ in archival work, other people's inter­ tions as I skip with the author across views, and some new interviews with the country and over the decades. This Book Reviews 101 is a book about Canada: while it stops take it up in any systematic way. It is in many First Nations and in every a relief when, in the third section, he province and territory, it is not a book frees himself to write what he really about any one province or any one thinks in the form of strong state­ First Nation. ments of condemnation, referring to Apparently coming from a school "a special place in perdition" reserved of thought that suggests that it is for the sexual abusers. He writes of the possible to escape ideology when responsibility of a "Eurocanadian presenting the "truth," Miller strives majority" to help, facilitate, and for what he might call a balanced support First Nations visions for the account of residential schools by pro­ future instead of continuing their viding examples of people who feel historical hindrance, oppression, and they benefitted both from them and tyranny. While contributing signifi­ from missionaries with positive cantly to the literature through his motivations. The book is divided into presentation of extensive detail three major sections: Establishing the concerning a range of schools, Miller Residential School, Experiencing ultimately disappoints the reader in Residential Schools, and Ending and search of an analysis that might Assessing Residential Schools. In the contribute to a deeper understanding first section, relying primarily on of the schools and their implications. archival documents, Miller presents In some senses, this book exemplifies available information somewhat un- a postmodern angst that influences problematically and, on occasion, does even those academics who prefer not not restrain himself from making to acknowledge the possibility of post­ value-laden comments. In something modernism. The nostalgic search for of an apologist mode, he writes: "The the master narrative continues to good sisters understandably were haunt — with good reason. How long struck by grooming and other matters can one live with, and, more important, of external appearance" (p. 50). This work with, fragmentation? Perhaps, in reader asks, "Understandably to an effort to combat the Belleville whom?" and "How are we to know housemaid's knee syndrome, Miller that these are 'good' sisters?" On page has tried to over-ride fragmentation 69, he writes understatedly of a by presenting enough specific details "noticeable tendency towards discour­ for a complete picture of sorts. agement of Native ways." Later he In the final analysis, what makes alludes to the "oppressive lunacy" of this work particularly appealing is its attendance policies as part of an cross-disciplinary flavour: making organized attempt "to educate and comments "as a historian and a colonize a people against their will" citizen," Miller provides something (p.169). In Chapter 12, in the second of a sociological gloss. He introduces section (and in other spots throughout the reader to the study with the story the book), Miller relies on an un- of his attendance at a gathering of problematic notion of resistance — a former residential school students at notion central to my own work in 1988 Ontario's Shingwauk. Similarly, he — and, while presenting some ends with a present-day assessment of interesting examples of staff resis­ the schools and an unusual epilogue, tance to the schools, he does not push juxtaposing a book excerpt, a des­ this dimension of resistance or even cription based on a news article, and I02 BC STUDIES an anonymous letter (which has been call for Euro-Canadian account- circulating around First Nations ability: his work is a valuable resource education for the past twenty years) for those who seek a comprehensive purportedly written by "the mother of overview of Canadian residential an Indian child." Miller's conclusions schools,

Aboriginal and Treaty Rights in Canada: Essays on Law, Equality, and Respect for Difference Michael Asch, ed. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1997, in collaboration with the Center for Con­ stitutional Studies, University of Alberta. 284 pp. $65 cloth.

Treaty Talks in British Columbia: Negotiating a Mutually Beneficial Future Christopher McKee Vancouver: UBC Press, 1996.126 pp. Map. $65 cloth, $24.95 paper.

By MARLENE R. ATLEO, University of British Columbia and Ahousaht First Nation, Nuu-chah-nulth

IRST NATIONS PEOPLE of to undergo internal de-colonization in British Columbia talk about order to match its mythological inter­ F negotiating their way into national stature as a champion of de­ Canada/British Columbia. How can mocracy and equality. The nation state First Nations people say this when of Canada, evolved from British co­ they have been living "in" Canada/ lonial administrations, legitimizes the British Columbia since these legal rights of non-Aboriginal Canadians. entities were formed? It is precisely To dissect the nation state and scrutinize because the institutions and socio­ its nascence may seem dangerous to political memory of First Nations the average person, yet such scrutiny peoples pre-date these legal entities is necessary — particularly in the light that they challenge the "facts" of their of the unravelling of nation states that relationships with the federal and pro­ have not come to terms with their own vincial governments. For First Nations colonial histories. peoples treaties are living documents Revisiting the historical treaty rather than unilateral, immutable his­ process and proceeding with a modern torical positions. First Nations leader­ treaty process may be seen as one ship is honour bound to safeguard the aspect of Canada's coming to terms common good of their people — past, with its colonial history. The two present, and future — in a manner books reviewed here focus directly on consistent with the norms and values the implications of understanding of First Nations through the prin­ First Nations as subjects of their own ciples and terms of treaty agreements. history rather than merely as objects In a postcolonial world, Canada needs of the history of colonial governments Book Reviews IOJ and, through treaty negotiations, on is precisely the point at which Asch government engagement with First begins. Asch presents the multi­ Nations as agents of their own socio- dimensional nature of the law by historical process. exploring the social/political/anthro- The first book, edited by Michael pological/scientific/historical Asch, provides a plethora of chal­ implications of Justice Hall's decision lenges, from a historical and inter­ in Calder. The law is about the national perspective, to the legitimacy application and enforcement of do­ of the Canadian vis-à-vis Aboriginal minant norms and values, but it is in rights and title. The second book, by the substance of an actual decision, in Christopher McKee, analyzes con­ the space between the letters of the flicting points of regarding the nego­ law, that the principles of law emerge. tiations of modern treaties in British It is in this space of interpretation and Columbia, These two volumes pro­ emergence that Asch sets the col­ voke counter-intuitive thinking that lection of essays that bring the law, can be disturbing because it challenges equality, and respect for difference the common-sense assumptions upon together in three broad areas: (1) which Canadians depend for their actualizing Justice Hall's recom­ civic and social identities. The Asch mendations in Calder, (2) clarifying collection of essays provides a legal particular aspects of contested con­ and constitutional background for ceptual issues, and (3) realigning polit­ McKee's treatment of treaty nego­ ical relationships based on equality tiations in British Columbia. and respect within a socio-historical In the beginning there was the frame of reference. legacy of British colonial law. And The first three essays, promote then in 1973 the Supreme Court of principles by which we may articulate Canada found against a hereditary the ideals recommended by Justice Nisga'a chief in Calder. In the Calder Hall in the Calder case. Chamberlin decision the court ruled that the challenges the mainstream reading of Canadian state was required to the treaty process, maintaining that formally recognize that, prior to the this process must be historically arrival of Europeans, Aboriginal contextualized before it will be pos­ peoples had their own societies sible to continue it in a mutually complete with institutions, types of respectful fashion. Bell and Asch land tenure, and governments that argue that historical treaties can only may well have remained functioning be understood by turning away from despite the evolution of the state of ethnocentric historical precedents and Canada. The court asserted this interpreting historical facts in the position "notwithstanding" precedents light of contemporary social science arising from British colonial law or the and law. LaRocque cautions against understanding of the colonists, (re)inventing traditions rather than immigrants, settlers, and their des­ choosing to develop a justice system cendants. Constitutional experts such that eschews ethnocentrism and as Mel Smith maintain that, since the promotes cultural equality. courts found against Calder, the case The second three essays investigate was lost and, therefore, Aboriginal particular aspects of legal issues and title does not exist/Where such a treaty rights in the light of Justice narrow, technical view of the law ends Hall's recommendations. Macklem IQ>4 BC STUDIES

maintains that a close reading of court the legal institutions of the nation decisions reveals that Aboriginal views state both from without and from must be incorporated into treaty within. analyses because treaties were entered The space that Asch holds up as a into in order to protect traditional life place for the emergence of Aboriginal from further incursion by govern­ life seems to be defined and managed ments and third parties. McNeil ar­ by non-Aboriginal experts. Equality gues that the true value of Aboriginal of cultural status is only possible if the title is reduced in the legal context means exists to articulate it: in the case when it is not applied according to of First Nations, such means do not common law principles to provide exist. The culturally different "other" Aboriginal peoples the support who lacks resources, the development needed to meet their contemporary of whose justice system is tied to needs. Borrows provides compelling government funding requirements evidence that the Royal Proclamation that demand a historical justification of 1763 should be viewed through the for self-management, cannot choose, lens of the Treaty of Niagara of 1764 as LaRocque suggests, to ignore the — which promoted peace, friendship, ways in which their traditions have mutual non-interference, and respect been stereotyped in the eyes of the — as evidence of the British Crown's Western legal system. Law, as an commitment to ensure that Aboriginal artefact of history, needs to be more rights would not be undermined by closely examined for its lack of cultural colonial power. equality. The third section consists of two For non-Aboriginal Canadians essays that explore the implications of born in Canada the very concept of a new relationship between Aboriginal negotiating one's way into a country people and the Canadian state based is conceptually challenging. These on principles of equality and respect people take the socio-historical con­ for difference. A multidimensional ditions of their citizenship for Indigenous perspective is provided by granted. Dominant norms and values, Venne, who, with regard to Treaty 6, upheld by the rule of law, are the demonstrates that treaty-making can context into which non-Aboriginal only be understood in the context of Canadians are socialized. In British oral history, collective memory, Columbia, many First Nations are cultural values, and the legacies of currently negotiating their way into living reciprocities. Asch and Zlotkin Canada. Christopher McKee, a pick up the theme of living political scientist at the University of reciprocities and structure it within a British Columbia, analyzes treaty new constitutional arrangement that negotiations in British Columbia. provides legitimacy for the post­ This book is funded in part by a grant modern, postcolonial nation state of from the Treaty Commission of Canada, with Aboriginal title as its British Columbia, whose role in constitutional bedrock. Asch, the educating the public is partially anthropologist, and Zlotkin, the fulfilled by it. professor of law, provide a vision of a This book is the first to open up Canadian constitution that could treaty-making in British Columbia. withstand contemporary challenges to McKee does a credible job of pro- Book Reviews 105 viding information concerning the layperson to read while referring back treaty-making process without trying to spécifie chapters for more detail. to convince the reader of the cor­ Most useful are the appendices, rectness of any one approach. He consisting of the 1991 recommen­ tackles his subject in a straightforward dations of the British Columbia Task manner, beginning with background Force, a listing of First Nations and issues to be negotiated, and then organizations participating in treaty going on to consider the process of negotiations as of April 1996, and a treaty-making itself, speculate on its chronology of events that have future, and to provide conclusions in contributed to creating and pacing the a positive, albeit cautious, tone. The treaty-making process in British issues to be negotiated are represented Columbia. by specific examples (e.g., with regard McKee does not provide a to the Sechelt and the Nuu'chah'nulth) framework that renders his evidence of some of the main issues: forms of compelling in the face of constitu­ self-government, acknowledgment of tional experts who maintain that alienated lands and resources, Aboriginal title does not exist. As he economic development initiatives, and merely cites the "heavyweight" greater role for Aboriginal partici­ authors who write in support of First pation in natural resource manage­ Nations treaty issues rather than the ment. In his discussion of the treaty- facts behind their positions, McKee making process McKee deals with cannot adequately challenge the as­ such problems as secrecy, third-party sumptions that underpin legal judg­ representation, costs, and government ments and common-sense knowledge. protection of public interest as well as Asch's and McKee's books provide Mel Smith's position that there should timely and important discussions be a 5 per cent limit on negotiated land about historical treaties and modern and a blanket extinguishment of treaty-making. The need to understand Aboriginal rights. He enables both economic relationships in the context Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals to of legal contracts that are (re)- have confidence that the process can negotiated from time to time is a fact produce treaties that are legitimate. of capitalist society. Understanding McKee raises questions concerning social relations as contracts rather how to address issues that emerge than as institutional structures is a from the treaty process and the new relatively new phenomenon. Asch and institutions created by it: who will McKee provide insight into why and evaluate treaty outcomes? will the how this is happening with respect to benefits be equally distributed within the relationship between Aboriginal the Aboriginal community? how will peoples and the federal and provincial the political climate help or hinder the governments of Canada. These two process? will Aboriginal frustrations books are recommended reading in an with the treaty process and outcomes era in which legal relationships be reduced enough to ward off between Indigenous peoples and protests? The conclusion provides a states are de/reconstructing at a rapid nice summary and could stand by pace, both internationally and next itself. It is accessible enough for a door. io6 BC STUDIES

High Slack: Waddingtons Gold Road and the Massacre 0/1864 Judith Williams Vancouver: New Star, 1996.119 pp. Illus., map. $16 paper. By KEN G. BREALEY, University of British Columbia

' I *HE ONLY SUSTAINED military This takes Williams, both literally I resistance to colonial auth- and figuratively, into the entangled JL ority west of the Rocky events and places that constituted the Mountains and north of the forty- Chilcotin War itself. Ordering the ninth parallel, the so-called ChUcotin encounter into a series of spatial War of 1864, remains as palpable a vignettes, Williams creates a kind of memory for the Tsîlhqot'in people as geographical mise en scène that evokes it is an almost incidental sidebar in the something of the performative drama annals of most BC historical writing. that, in a certain sense, the conflict This short, but engaging and attractive, actually was. She concludes with an book is a follow-up to the "High account of the surrender, trial, and Slack" exhibition and symposium, The execution of the five Tsîlhqot'in Tsîlhqot'in War 0/1864 and the 1993 chiefs, and although most of this is Cariboo-ChUcotin Justice Inquiry, held at excavated from Matthew Begbie's trial the University of British Columbia in notes and other colonial correspondence, November 1994, and is an attempt to, the voices of the Tsîlhqot'in still come as the author phrases it, "peel back the through. It is only fitting, then, that many layers of truth" that surrounded, the author punctuates the narrative by and are still being contextualized by recalling some of the eloquent, and this significant, if somewhat shadowy, curative, testimonials on the war event. delivered by contemporary Tsîlhqot'in Beginning with her own 1991 chiefs and elders at the symposium explorations of Toba and Bute Inlets, that inspired the book. Judith Williams juxtaposes her im­ Williams writes sensitively and pressions of the landscape with those with a minimum of academic jargon, recorded by Robert Homfray, who, in and, while I was puzzled with the 1861 on behalf of the Hudson's Bay choice of certain archival photographs Company, first probed Bute Inlet as a that, on the face of it, have nothing to possible brigade route to the Cariboo do with the subject matter of the book, goldfields. Fast forwarding back to she has about the right touch of 1991, and supported, in large part, graphic support. By tacking back and through interviews with elders of the forth between the Euro-Canadian and Klahoose Band, she then attempts to Tsîlhqot'in worlds, and between past encapsulate something of the other­ and present, the author successfully wise undocumented Kwakwaka'wakw' reveals some of the anxieties of the version of Homfray's journey before colonial project in British Columbia returning once again to a rather more without losing sight of the fact that nuanced recollection of her own retracing the war, far from being a mere of Alfred Waddington's ill-fated pack anecdote on the colonial stage, was the road up the canyon. "thin edge of the wedge" of the latent Book Reviews ioj violence that has always simmered just author does properly acknowledge underneath the surface of the colonial that the asymmetries in emphasis that enterprise more generally. I still still permeate this contrapuntal story cringe, however, at the use of the term must be left for the Tsîlhqot'in to "massacre" (especially in the title) to redress themselves. Until that time, refer to Lha tse'sin's offensive against this book will stand nicely in its own Brewster's road crew, and I thought right as a welcome complement to that the map of the events of the war, Terry Glavin's Nemiah: The Unconquered which seems to be (whether Country and, perhaps most important, accidentally or deliberately is not as a desperately needed antidote to clear) a translation of Waddington's (and replacement of) Mel Rothenburger s original 1864 Sketch Map of the one-sided, and ultimately racist, Chilcotin War, would have benefitted polemic The Chilcotin War, which, as from a little more attention to the Tsîlhqot'in have noted, still stocks Tsîlhqot'in geography, some of which far too many public school book­ has already been mapped out by the shelves throughout the BC Interior. Tsîlhqot'in people. That said, the I recommend High Slack.

Reading Beyond Words: Contexts for Native History Jennifer S.H. Brown and Elizabeth Vibert, eds. Peterborough: Broadview, 1996. 519 pp. Illus. $29.95 paper. By ROBIN RIDINGTON, University of British Columbia

EADING BEYOND WORDS is a rich these essays tend to business rather collection of twenty-one than to the arcana of postmodern essays that explore how First literary theory. They and the reader Nations experience has been rep­ are better off for it. resented as well as misplaced in the Following genre conventions similar texts that make up the substance of to those of First Nations discourse, conventional history and ethnography. each of these essays tells a story. What unites the essays, Brown and Together, the stories bring into focus Vibert explain in their introduction, a coherent whole that reflects a world "is that texts are not transparent."The of experience beyond the words facts they present "are socially captured in print. I found the book constructed, moulded by the social hard to put down once I had begun and cultural forces in place when the reading it, but I also took the liberty texts were created, and by the later of initially sampling essays from each contexts in which they have been of the seven headings rather than reread and reinterpreted" (pp. x-xi). A reading it from cover to cover. Frieda realistic understanding of texts about Esay Klippenstein's reading of written First Nations history thus requires an and oral accounts documenting an act of authorship on the part of the encounter between reader — a reading beyond the words and Carrier Chief Kwah reads almost themselves. While acknowledging a like a mystery story. Frederic W. debt to postmodern discourse analysis, Gleach makes a convincing case for io8 BC STUDIES

"controlled speculation" to unravel the different authors. While the ethno­ story of what the encounter between graphic and historical particulars Captain John Smith and Pocahontas range widely in time and place, the may have meant in the language of stories work well together because of Pohatan ceremony. Bunny McBride a devotion to text and context shared reflects on her experience writing the by all the authors. Taken together, the biography of Penobscot dancer and essays make a kind of implicit meta- entertainer Molly Spotted Elk. Daniel theoretical statement to the effect that Clayton takes a close look at multiple any theoretical insight into how to versions of Cook's encounter with the interpret the past must arise from a Nuu-Chah-Nulth at Nootka Sound. close and critical reading of all Erica Smith describes an 1863 trial that available texts in relation to whatever turns on the linguistic contrast between else can be learned about how and woman as prostitute and woman as when they were produced. As Brown "the angel in the house" (p. 372). and Vibert conclude their intro­ The essays in this collection are rich duction: because of their vivid content and they We hope that these writings will are stimulating because of the creative build some new frameworks for and intelligent ways the authors have doing Native history, and perhaps gone about discovering how doc­ undermine a few older ones. In uments and multiple narrative voices reading the essays ourselves, we combine to create stories. Maureen were repeatedly reminded that we Matthews and Roger Roulette review all share not only some common Halloweirs account of the dream understandings and premises, but dance led by Ojibwe elder Naamiwan also some major concerns about (Fair Wind) in relation to accounts by how best to steer a course among contemporary Gjibwe people in their the cross-currents, rocks, and own language. Their story is satisfying whirlpools that beset travellers on as history, as philosophy, and as litera­ this rapidly flowing river, (p. xxvii) ture. Winona Stevenson describes her This book is an unusually good read very personal quest for reconciling oral and should become known to readers tradition and written documents relevant beyond the disciplines of ethnohistory to the life of her great-great grandfather, and anthropology. I have mentioned Askenootow (Charles Pratt).Through only a few of the stories it tells; the her and him we have a window into others are equally interesting and how Native people subject to the engaging. The book should be re­ pressures of colonization were able to quired reading for courses dealing maintain heteroglossic identities. with First Nations history, culture, The joy of this book is that it is literature, and philosophy and belongs beautifully written. This is particularly in the library of anyone interested in wonderful in a collection by so many a wider reading of First Nations history.