BOOK REVIEWS

The Elusive Mr. Pond: greater paper record. Sir Alexander The Soldier, Fur Trader and Mackenzie, the most notable example, Explorer Who Opened the wrote a definitive narrative and crafted maps of greater use to empire builders. Northwest Historians writing about Pond, then, Barry Gough have had to accept what contemporaries said of him, often disparagingly, or : Douglas & McIntyre, to contain Pond’s story within the 2014. 256 pp. $34.95 cloth. larger history of the and, with it, a Canadian George Colpitts University of Calgary transcontinental narrative. Gough works within the extant record and draws on his talents both n The Elusive Mr. Pond: The Soldier, as a superb writer and as an established Fur Trader and Explorer Who historian of empire to lay out what is IOpened the Northwest, Barry Gough and what is not known about Pond. masterfully grapples with the challenge He effectively describes Pond’s of interpreting an important figure in birthplace and youth in Milford, the Canadian . Peter Pond has , and the likely formative raised many obstacles to generations influences of colonial Congregationalist of biographers. Famous for having values, entrepreneurship, geographic expanded the Canadian fur trade from expansionism, and militia service. Montreal into the Athabasca district Pond’s engagement in the fur trade in 1778, Pond unfortunately left few after the Seven Years’ War, following written documents, a fragment of a in the steps of his father who traded fur, memoir, and unscientific maps of his provided him backwoods experience in discoveries. North West Company Michigan, , and . and Hudson’s Bay Company journals His Plains Sioux trade further joined his make only brief mention of him. strong personality with the individual Pond’s own marginal literacy and his autonomy offered by bourgeois trading. cartographic unorthodoxy, in turn, left Pond entered the British Northwest him overshadowed in his time by his trade from Montreal in 1775; in 1778, by more politically engaged peers and their then in partnership with the recently bc studies, no. 189, Spring 2016 151 152 bc studies formed North West Company, he used The Laird of Fort William: the to become the first William McGillivray and the trader in the Arctic drainage, an event North West Company of not only commercial but also imperial significance. Gough then returns with Irene Termier Gordon Pond to Montreal in 1784, examining Victoria: Heritage House, 2013. how the trader’s geographic discoveries 208 $19 95 reached Quebec and metropolitan pp. . paper. audiences keenly interested in unlocking an overland connection to the Pacific coast. Still aloof from the close social Forging a Fur Empire: and commercial networks of Montreal, Expeditions in the Snake River even though still partnered with the Country, 1809-1824 Nor’Westers, Pond’s next inland foray implicated him in a murder – the second John Phillip Reid in his career – making his place in Norman, OK: Arthur H. Clarke Montreal increasingly untenable while 2011 208 $29 95 his own discoveries and maps were being Company, . pp. . paper. eclipsed by Alexander Mackenzie’s. Pond retired from trading and, in 1790, returned to his former Connecticut birthplace to Jedediah Smith: No Ordinary live out the rest of his life. Mountain Man Gough does a good job of establishing Pond as “an outlier, an extraordinary Barton H. Barbour person standing apart from others” Norman, OK: University of (6); indeed, throughout his life, Oklahoma Press, 2011. 304 pp. Pond’s personal inclinations, fierce $19 95 independence, and strong temperament . paper. seem to have made him, at best, “respected, but unloved” among his peers (119). His outlier status is key in Obstinate Hope: The Western understanding Pond’s place both within Expeditions of Nathaniel J. Wyeth and beyond Montreal society. Gough superbly situates this Connecticut Jim Hardee Yankee’s enterprising personality in Pinedale, WY: Sublette County the distant Athabasca district, while Historical Society and Museum of explaining how his discoveries, in turn, the Mountain Man, 2013. 500 pp. were critically appraised and sifted by $24.95 cloth. British and American geographers and strategists who were in the business of Robert Foxcurran and building empires. Gough’s biographical John Jackson treatment of Pond, then, offers valuable Bellevue and Olympia insights into an individual who, through his “Athabasca odyssey,” changed n The Laird of Fort William: William fur trade and imperial history in the McGillivray and the North West northwestern portions of the North Company, American continent. I Irene Gordon, a true daughter of the Saskatchewan prairies, provides Book Reviews 153 an informative outline of the western insufficient to support its faulty business operations of the North West Company plan. (nwc) as historical background to this The first one hundred pages of Reid’s long overdue biography of William book contain seventy-eight citations McGillivray, a major figure in the of Alexander Ross’s Fur Hunters of the nwc’s long battle with the Hudson’s Far West as a source. This brands him Bay Company (hbc) for the “Indian” as an admiring and uncritical admirer trade of Rupert’s Land. A casual reader of Ross’s data. Reid fails to grasp that or interested scholar will not find a Ross’s descriptions of Donald McKenzie, better description of the demands of or even of Ross’s own adventures, are the trade upon McGillivray and his an untrustworthy source upon which to brothers, Duncan and Simon, who build an accurate version of the oft-told acted as downstream agents defending tale of the early Snake River fur trade. the nwc’s business in Rupert’s Land Reid, like other fur trade historians and extending the fur trade to the lacking collaborative data, takes Ross’s largely unexplored and undeveloped opinions, written thirty years after the Pacific Northwest. Hampered by what events described, as unchallenged fact. turned out to be a faulty business plan After Ross served as a clerk for the for shipping Columbia River and Snake Astorians, the Nor’westers, and the River beaver skins to the China market, newly amalgamated hbc, the London the Montreal agents of the nwc could directorate sent a new overseas governor not stem an inevitable downward (George Simpson) west in 1824/25. The profit spiral. Unfortunately, the author astute Simpson saw through Ross without devotes a scant seven and a half pages actually meeting him. The self-inflated to a major factor – the nwc’s ill-fated former clerk was then sent east to return China trade – in the company’s decline to the relatively unchallenging role of and its 1821 amalgamation with the hbc. schoolmaster. Ross tried to salvage his Modestly documented with a reasonable reputation through the publication, bibliography and a few samples of new decades later, of two memoirs based on writing, the “Laird of Fort William” his experiences in the fur trade, but he has found his amanuensis in Gordon’s was not the man he portrayed himself lively and homely treatment. to be. Reid’s uncritical reliance on a Thenwc ’s expansion to the Pacific questionable source diminishes his book, slope is also the subject of John Phillip which is published by a respectable and Reid’s Forging a Fur Empire: Expeditions long-established press. in the Snake River Country, 1809- With these two books filling in some 1824. Reid has published other books gaps in our understanding of the nwc and dealing with this period of the early hbc eras and operations, we can turn to Pacific Northwest, includingPatterns slightly later – and American – characters of Vengeance: Crosscultural Homicide in in western history. Readers may have to the North American Fur Trade (1999) and decide whether Barton H. Barbour in Contested Empire: Peter Skene Ogden and Jedediah Smith: No Ordinary Mountain the Snake River Expeditions (2002). Reid’s Man has succeeded in producing a fascination with empires has now led to balanced new treatment of this far from another study of the only two expeditions neglected western hero. Smith was the nwc managed to put into the field indeed an overlooked mountain man before it realized that the price paid of the 1820s until a few documents were for beaver on the Chinese market was rediscovered in 1902, which, together with 154 bc studies some uncritically examined data, inflated , Wyeth had already him into the popular symbol of the iconic (1834) established his experimental Fort mountaineer. It is curious that Barbour Hall in the declining garden of the starts this book with Smith’s fatal western beaver hunt. But the hbc’s John encounter with a band of opportunistic McLoughlin refused to cut a cooperative young Comanche on the Santa Fe Trail deal with Wyeth, who sold Fort Hall to in May 1831, before retracing his steps the hbc in 1837. Canadian readers who through a generally unfortunate fur trade are firmly convinced that the sun rose career – a career that cost the lives of and set on the semi-imperial ambitions many of his followers. In the electronic of the hbc may be enlightened by this world of hand-held gadgets and limited engrossing volume. twitters, it is disappointing that the author of a book intended to refresh the facts chose to provide neither citations The Bastard of Fort Stikine: of documentary evidence nor even a The Hudson’s Bay Company bibliography of the published studies consulted. In our opinion, Smith’s and the Murder of admirers, rather like the self-serving John McLoughlin, Jr. Alexander Ross, tend to rewrite the record on the sly. Debra Komar Of a morning Jim Hardee sits on the Fredericton, NB: Goose Lane porch of his excellent library at Tetonia, Editions, 2015. 288 pp. $19.95 paper. Idaho, with a cup of coffee, watching the sun break over the snowy peaks of the Corey Larson Teton Mountains. As an adopted and Simon Fraser University dedicated son of the Rocky Mountain beaver hunt and fur trade, Hardee has devoted himself to keeping that uring his round-the-world voyage sometimes over-romanticized era alive in 1842, Hudson’s Bay Company while working to better document and (Dhbc) governor George Simpson arrived clarify its literature. As comfortable at Fort Stikine and discovered that in greasy buckskins as in an editor’s chief trader John McLoughlin Jr. had sometimes uneasy chair, Jim Hardee’s been killed. Two recent books discuss Obstinate Hope: The Western Expeditions this event. In Empires, Nations, and of Nathaniel J. Wyeth is the first of a Families, Anne Hyde tells us that two-volume study of this New England the killer was Urbain Heroux but business-oriented ice merchant’s venture acknowledges that much about the into the highly competitive skin games incident remains shrouded in mystery. of the American west in the 1830s. Rather than attempting to unravel this Wyeth carried only a few beaver pelts mystery, she focuses on how the murder back over the Rockies, but his attempt affected the father and chief factor of to reorganize the trade encouraged a Fort Vancouver, John McLoughlin Sr. passel of adventurers, missionaries, Similarly, in Emperor of the North, James and immigrants to move west. These Raffan names the shooter and then people, by their presence, influenced segues to the ensuing dispute between the outcome of the Anglo-American Simpson and McLoughlin Sr. It seems claim to the disputed Oregon Country. we have consensus on who pulled the Before the hbc began withdrawing to trigger, with little attention paid to why Book Reviews 155 or to who else may have been involved. and important components, but they In Bastard of Fort Stikine, Debra Komar sometimes eclipse the murder as the recentres the narrative on the murder central focus. However, when Komar itself by using forensic science to gets to the biohistorical investigation, address lingering questions. Her big she presents a solid and convincing point is that “biohistory” can move us argument. Chapter 11, appropriately beyond merely identifying remains to entitled “Putting Flesh to Bone,” tackling complex historical problems meticulously scrutinizes the testimonies by using the methods of contemporary of three independent investigations, homicide investigators (10). This effort triangulating eyewitness accounts for not only yields new details but also consistency, consensus, and alignment prompts new and important questions. with physical evidence (167). Her methods Part 1 consists of seven chapters, compellingly reconstruct the events prior each beginning with a brief text box to the murder, the crime scene, and even a detailing some aspect of the murder. virtual autopsy, demonstrating along the Komar provides context to allow way that forensic science holds significant readers to put the case together as they potential in historical inquiry, especially progress. Using secondary histories concerning questions of spatial relations and biographies along with primary and anatomy. The upshot is the strongest documents, the early chapters build argument yet for who murdered John essential background on the McLoughlin McLoughlin Jr., but Komar also makes family, George Simpson, the hbc, Fort a persuasive case for an oft-overlooked Stikine’s employees, and the physical conspirator and provides, for historians setting. Part 2 examines Simpson’s in particular, the motives behind the treatment of the incident and his conflict crime. with McLoughlin Sr. Revisiting these issues from the perspective of a murder REFERENCES investigation reveals how certain facts were obscured. Simpson overlooked Hyde, Anne F. 2011. Empires, Nations, and vital evidence in his hasty rush to Families: A History of the North American judgment, and his vicious clash with West, 1800-1860. Lincoln: University of the grieving father deflected attention Nebraska Press. Raffan, James.2007 . Emperor of the North: Sir from key elements of the case. Komar’s George Simpson and the Remarkable Story background in forensic anthropology and of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Toronto: the depositions taken after the murder HarperCollins. allow her to recreate the crime and the roles of those involved. The result helps clarify the events surrounding McLoughlin Jr.’s death while offering important insights into the ensuing feud. The book concludes with the impact of the murder on the legacy of the hbc, Simpson, and McLoughlin. While Bastard of Fort Stikine is well written and engaging, the narrative occasionally loses the forest for the trees. Individual biographies and the Simpson- McLoughlin rivalry are interesting 156 bc studies

Men in Eden: William is a tad instrumentalist in her analysis Drummond Stewart and of how elite identities were fashioned Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky on the western frontier. The West might have served as “therapeutic space” Mountain Fur Trade (84) for stressed-out wealthy men, but William Benemann surely the therapy was not always as anticipated. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Benemann’s Men in Eden is the first Press, 2012. 384 pp. $29.95 paper. biography in many years of William Drummond Stewart, a Scottish big- game hunter and adventurer best Nature’s Noblemen: known for taking painter Alfred J. Transatlantic Masculinities Miller to the in the late 1830s. Exhaustive archival research and the Nineteenth-Century grounds Benemann’s central argument, American West which is that Stewart was gay and involved in a lasting sexual relationship Monica Rico with Métis hunter Antoine Clement. New Haven: Yale University Press, I find his reading of and around the 2013. 305 pp. $45.00 cloth. documentary evidence on Stewart (including Stewart’s problematic novels) Elizabeth Vibert convincing. The study moves onto thinner University of Victoria ice, though, when Benemann tries to generalize more broadly. His theory that the Rocky Mountain fur trade eading these two books in tandem held special attraction for men seeking is a reminder, if one were needed, licence for heterodox sexualities seems thatR all is relational. Considered in a stretch, not least in light of extensive isolation, each work offers illuminating scholarship on fur trade intimacies and insights into imperial hunting culture marriage practices. In the regions where in the American West. Read in light of Drummond travelled, many traders one another, the authors’ political and would have had wives and partners analytic investments come into sharp of Indigenous, African, or Mexican relief. William Benemann’s lively work heritage. Some of the 16 or 17 percent is a tale of same-sex desire in a libertine (we get both figures) who performed wild west. Monica Rico’s engaging as “lifelong bachelors” (7, 74), who volume places in transnational context Benemann implies may have been gay, the efforts of elite big-game hunters to would have been men who chose to keep secure or rejuvenate their masculine their interracial intimacies under wraps. identities (while giving short shrift to No doubt a proportion were keeping colonial domains to the north, about same-sex intimacies quiet, but there is which more shortly). Benemann’s prism not enough evidence here to convince the is sexuality, while Rico’s is elite white reader that the Rocky Mountain fur trade male anxieties seeking resolution in the was a hotbed. Nonetheless, Benemann’s West. Benemann is a little too dogged in book is an important reminder that there pursuit of same-sex love: Stewart, we’re was more opportunity for same-sex erotic told, had scant interest in “anything he love in the past than many present-day could not shoot or embrace” (69). Rico commentators are willing to accept. Book Reviews 157

Rico’s Nature’s Noblemen guides readers hunting men that traversed the Atlantic through five fascinating case studies of and, in Roosevelt’s case, drew in India imperial and metropolitan players in the and Africa as well – but the eminently nineteenth-century West. Many are well relevant Canadian northwest is hardly known – Buffalo Bill Cody, Theodore to be found. Rico briefly mentions the Roosevelt (the comparison with his less work of Tina Loo (103) but would have illustrious brother is instructive), and benefited, for instance, from engagement Isabella Bird, the sole woman in the field with Adele Perry’s work (influential well – and others new to most readers. I found beyond ) on the ways imperial Rico’s analysis of William Drummond identities might be profoundly unsettled, Stewart intriguing on first read, although and ultimately reworked, in challenging her account of the “friendship” (25) colonial settings. There seems a little between Clement and Stewart is undone too much unfettered self-discovery, at by Benemann’s revelations. Rico’s times a too tidy “resolving” of tensions graceful, lucid prose is turned to excellent in the texts of Stewart, Dunraven, effect in cultural historical analyses of Bird, and Roosevelt. Benemann’s study, her subjects’ preoccupations along axes meanwhile, would be enriched by of gender, race, and class. Training in exposure to more than two decades of British history allows her to delve usefully fur trade scholarship attentive to gender into the context of elite culture there and and sexuality. His discussion of fur trader on the east coast of the liaisons with Indigenous women (e.g., and to put her finger on the class and 7-8, 73-74) cries out for a reading of Sylvia racial anxieties of men who found their Van Kirk and Jennifer Brown (and, more privilege under increasing threat at home. recently, Ann Laura Stoler). All being relational, though, I couldn’t Beyond Canadian scholarship, both help thinking how Rico’s analysis might books would benefit from engagement be sharpened by bringing subaltern with the rich ethnohistorical literature masculinities – and femininities – into about the American West. Rico’s study, the frame. The most satisfying chapter, albeit focused on elite self-fashioning, in my view, is the one that looks at the tends to portray western landscapes as Earl of Dunraven alongside Isabella Bird, empty. Indigenous peoples are mentioned both of whom sought “western solutions” but usually as undifferentiated “Indians” (85) for the maladies and marginalization and mostly for the way they are “elided” they experienced at home. in her subjects’ narratives. Limited Reading these works brought to mind attention is paid to the way Indigenous my first journal article, over which a performances of masculinity may have US reviewer took me to task for having influenced elite men seeking to devise overlooked a particular American their own frontier variant. Similarly, title relevant to my work. These two studies of racialization of the peoples books remind us – again, if we needed of the West might help to nuance reminding – that American authors do Benemann’s representation of Clement as not labour under the reverse expectation. a man with “a wild, mischievous streak, No one drew the authors’ attention to the an irreverence in the face of authority, wide field of Canadian scholarship on the and a pernicious addiction to alcohol” fur trade, imperial gender fashioning, (89). Not to say he didn’t have those or manly sport. Rico’s study is usefully qualities, but the language is loaded in transnational in a number of ways – ways that bear unpacking. These books we learn about networks of privileged make important contributions to the 158 bc studies historiography of the American West as of interpretation. McKegney’s intention site for sexual discovery and as a node in in editing the transcripts is to preserve transnational webs of manly enterprise. the casual wisdom that emerges Both would be enriched by casting an spontaneously from each conversation. eye northward. These conversations are the product of semi-structured interviews, a method instantly recognizable to social scientists, Masculindians: Conversations and they concern the themes of manhood about Indigenous Manhood and meaning. Thus, we veer through an array of male relationships, including Sam McKegney, editor the obligatory bromance, the elder’s voice, and many a vented spleen. From Winnipeg: University of Manitoba 2014 248 $29 95 this cacophony we learn that Indigenous Press, . pp. . paper. men, whether two-spirited or just plain spirited, live the spectrum of masculinity. Eldon Yellowhorn Simon Fraser University I recommend reading first the chapters authored by women because they illuminate some worrisome insights. udging a book by the cover, we are Modern times have eroded the value of told, is never a good idea. In this case the brotherhood because contemporary theJ artwork by Dana Claxton implies male lifestyles have morphed beyond an ironic, wind-in-his-hair-style the vocations of hunting, warring, and cruise down a testosterone highway. politicking that once filled male lives. Twenty-three authors, including Exacerbating this theme of “warrior- eight women, offer their words and made-redundant” is the cognitive perspectives about manifestations of dissonance rising from a warpath the Y-chromosome and the gender overgrown due to lack of footfalls. Janice that dares to speak its name. Within Hill Kanonhsyonni recognizes what the these pages, Sam McKegney distils absence of the male implies in practical the acumen of the scholars, journalists, terms. As the mother of boys, she sees a playwrights, authors, poets, mothers, sample of a generation of boys who will fathers, and sons who sat with him and be raised by women who cannot teach identified, and commiserated on, the them how to be men. Indeed, the absence paradigms of maleness and manliness. of men from families and communities, He shoehorns twenty-one dialogues and especially from the lives of sons and into three subthemes of wisdom, daughters, is a trope visited here by Lee knowledge, and imagination, each of Maracle, Kim Anderson, Louise Bernice which has seven chapters devoted to it. Halfe, Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm, This is not a treatise weighed down by and Joanne Arnott. Their lamentable extensive research. The thirty-five works observations bring to mind the old adage cited are mostly those of McKegney’s that Soviet women told each other back colleagues plus a few classics in the genre in heyday of the ussr: “A man is like a of Native studies. The bibliography is suitcase without a handle. It is of no use more a suggested reading list. There to anyone – but what a shame to leave is no overarching narrative to upset, it behind.” Finding cause for this male so reading the book sequentially is malaise in the culpability of colonialism, not necessary, and randomly selecting residential schools, and traumatic stress chapters does not disturb the cadence may ultimately satisfy the desire for Book Reviews 159 explanation, but finding the cure will period explores Morison’s adulthood, take many more conversations. when she most demonstratively came into her own as a cultural intermediary during a time of tremendous political, Recollecting: Lives of Aboriginal social, and economic upheaval. Highly Women of the Canadian proficient in languages, Morison was regularly called upon to translate and Northwest and Borderlands interpret for her family, community, Sarah Carter and church officials (she identified her most significant achievement as translating Patricia McCormack, editors religious texts into Sm’álgyax [Coast Edmonton: Athabasca University Tsimshian]), government representatives, Press, 2011. 432 pp. $29.95 paper. visiting dignitaries, and scholars. She also acted as ethnographic consultant Susan Neylan and collector for anthropologist Franz Wilfrid Laurier University Boas. By emphasizing two moments in one woman’s life, Atkinson shows readers his multiple award-winning how hybridity, while a fluid identity, was collection takes a regional approach also affected deeply by the choices and toT the consideration of Aboriginal skills of the individual. women. Its chapters contribute to several Jean Barman explores the extraordinary intersecting historiographies: women’s Sophie Morigeau, another woman of and gender histories, Aboriginal mixed heritage whose hybridity defies women’s history, and biography. Beyond simplistic categorization. Barman gives these, the chapters are unified through readers a preview of a socio-economic their methodologies, which apply the world that she fleshes out in her recent best practices of feminist scholarship French Canadians, Furs, and Indigenous to understand, among other things, the Women in the Making of the Pacific female side of the “contact zones” of Northwest (ubc Press, 2014), set in the Indigenous-settler relationships. borderlands of southeastern British Two works directly address BC history Columbia and Washington, Idaho, and through women of mixed heritage in Montana. As a freight-operator, free the late nineteenth and early twentieth trader, entrepreneur, and rancher, “few centuries. Maureen Atkinson studies women whose life stories have survived,” North Coast cultural mediator Odille writes Barman, “succeeded with such Quintal Morison. Atkinson calls her a aplomb, living as Sophie did, between bicultural woman (Tsimshian/French countries, races, and among men” (176). Canadian) who drew upon her Tsimshian Barman evaluates Morigeau’s identity upbringing, marriage to an Englishman, formation through familial fluidity, and life-long commitment to the occupational flexibility, and racial Anglican Church “to move between stereotyping – structures that infused cultures, with varying degrees of fluidity fur trade families such as hers. Yet and grace” (135). Atkinson focuses on Morigeau was in every sense a strong- two formative periods in Morison’s life. willed, free woman whose colourful The first, through fragmentary source personality and determination set the material, contemplates her youth as she course of her own history. Born into entered the orbit of missionary William the itinerant world of free traders in the Duncan at Metlakatla. The second Kootenay region and raised on a farm 160 bc studies near a Roman Catholic mission and the Those Island People Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Colville at the Columbia River’s Kettle Falls Lynne Bowen some four hundred kilometres to the : Nanaimo and District south, Morigeau rejected the dominant Museum Society and Rocky Point society’s gender expectations for marriage Books, 2013. 118 pp. $17.95 paper. and motherhood and, instead, charted a course of self-sufficiency. A shrewd trader and savvy businesswoman, she supplied Scoundrels, miners and railway crews, homesteaded (something rare for a woman at this Eccentrics and Originals: Tales time), and owned her own trading post. from the Library Vault Well into old age, and on both sides of the forty-ninth parallel, she utilized Stephen Ruttan familial networks (Indigenous and Victoria: Greater Victoria Public non-Indigenous) to facilitate favourable Library and TouchWood Editions, economic and social opportunities. 2014. 184 pp. $19.95 paper. More than emphasizing an active role for Aboriginal women in history, Atkinson, Barman, and their fellow : contributors offer highly readable biographies showcasing hybridity, More Than Just a Mill Town resiliency, contradictory historical Jan Peterson experiences, and, above all, the diversity of Aboriginal women’s identities. Victoria: Heritage House, 2014. 280 pp. $19.95 paper. The Gold Will Speak for Itself: Peter Leech and Leechtown Tofino and Clayoquot Sound: A History Patrick Perry Lydon Victoria: Lydon Shore Publishing, Margaret Horsfield and Ian 2013. 110 pp. $22.00 paper. Kennedy Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2014. 640 pp. $36.95 paper. The History of Leechtown Part Patrick A. Dunae I: The viee and the Discovery Vancouver Island University of Gold on the Sooke and Leech Rivers ancouver Island has a distinctive personality among the regions of Bart van den Berk, editor BritishV Columbia, one that has been Sooke: Van Den Berk Books, 2014. shaped in complex ways by geography 279 pp. $22.00 paper. and history. The books reviewed here vary in their candlepower, but all of them illuminate people, places, and events that have contributed Book Reviews 161 to Vancouver Island’s multifaceted a timetable from the late 1920s, when character. Leechtown was a stop on the Victoria- Two of the books deal with Youbou branch line of the Canadian Leechtown, the site of a gold rush in National Railways. In addition, there 1864. Located near Sooke, not far from are colour photographs from the 2012 Victoria, it was named for Peter Leech, unveiling of new gravestones for Peter deputy leader of the Vancouver Island and Mary Leech in Victoria’s Ross Bay Exploring Expedition (viee). Theviee Cemetery. This publication, the author was organized by Victoria business says, “is more of a scrapbook than a book” interests to identify and promote the (5). It was compiled in anticipation of the mineral resources of the region. The 150th anniversary of the Leechtown gold Dublin-born Leech had earlier served rush, which was celebrated at Sooke in as a corporal in the British Columbia July 2014. detachment of the Royal Engineers. The Bart van den Berk succeeds in viee leader, Robert Brown, had come to establishing the central place of John Vancouver Island under the auspices of Foley in the Leechtown saga. His the Edinburgh Natural History Society commendable self-published book is to collect botanical specimens. The based on primary sources, notably the twelve-man expedition included the Robert Brown Papers in the British English artist, Frederick Whymper, and Columbia Archives. The author has John Foley, an American miner. It was examined letters from Whymper Foley who found gold on a tributary of and other viee members, as well as the Sooke River. He generously named contemporary newspaper reports about the location for Leech, whom history the Leechtown “El Dorado.” He has has credited with the discovery. Posterity consulted many secondary sources and has likewise been good to Brown, who scholarly works to place events and reported the find and included a sample participants in their historical context. of nuggets in a dispatch to the governor The book comes with endnotes (which of Vancouver Island, Arthur Kennedy. provide additional information on the “The whole value of the diggings cannot text) and a substantial bibliography. be easily underestimated,” Brown wrote. In 2015, The History of Leechtown Part “The gold will speak for itself” 14( ). I was deservedly nominated for the Patrick Lydon’s book takes its title BC Historical Federation’s prize, from that dispatch. The author, who was the Lieutenant-Governor’s Medal born in Ireland and trained as a doctor in for Historical Writing (it received Dublin, practised medicine in Victoria Honourable Mention). We look forward for many years. He is active in several to Part II. local history organizations, including Both authors are active historians Victoria’s Old Cemeteries Society. In who bring first-hand knowledge to this attractive, self-published book, he their research. Lydon is a director of extols Leech’s Dublin roots, valorizes the Vancouver Island Placer Miners’ his work with the viee, and celebrates Association. He has a placer claim on his marriage to Mary MacDonald, a creek near the Leech River. Bart van who came to Victoria on the “bride den Berk, who emigrated from the ship” Tynemouth. The book contains Netherlands a few years ago with a degree some archival images, reprints of recent in engineering, is also a member of the articles about the Leech family, and association. In the preface of his book, a potpourri of other items, including he evocatively describes the allure of 162 bc studies panning for gold and the contemplation in Chemainus for many years – have not of history: been profiled before. It is a pleasure to meet them. Many of the people presented Some go fishing, some like hunting, I love sitting in the here were involved in labour unions, middle of nowhere, quietly sur- socialist political parties, and kindred rounded by nature on a river or organizations; they contributed to a creek, playing with water, rocks, leftist, progressive character that remains gravel and sand, hoping to find evident in some parts of Vancouver Island that little shiny nugget which today. The vignettes inThose Island People makes the day even more special. are finely crafted, as we might expect And while I’m sitting there from this award-winning author who, for panning, armed with a modern many years. taught creative non-fiction survival kit, gps, bear spray and at the University of British Columbia. satellite emergency beacon, I always try to imagine how it Bowen’s book is published in must have been in the early partnership with the Nanaimo and days. No modern equipment, no District Museum Society, which supports beaten trails, logging roads or one of the best regional museums in bridges, no detailed maps. the province. Stephen Ruttan’s book, Vancouver Island Scoundrels, Eccentrics and “This fascination and respect for those Originals, is co-published by the Greater early pioneers,” van den Berk writes, Victoria Public Library (gvpl). The main “brought me to my interest in Leechtown’s branch of the gvpl in downtown Victoria history” (xii-xiii). houses one of the best local history Lynne Bowen’s book, Those Island collections on the Island. Ruttan, the People, was inspired by a different gvpl’s local history librarian, was born situation. Visiting a remote village in and raised in Victoria; he studied history the Italian Alps, she and her husband and library science at ubc. As its subtitle were surprised to see familiar surnames – Tales from the Library Vault – suggests, on the village cenotaph. “We recognized this book was intended to publicize the many of the names because their relatives gvpl’s resources. Some of these tales first had emigrated [from Italy] to Nanaimo, appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist our home town” (vii). She was struck by and were recounted for listeners of cbc the legacy of immigration. “This book is Radio’s On the Island. In this edition, about those [Vancouver] Island people: which consists of twenty brief chapters, those who came from Europe, Asia, Ruttan describes colourful figures like Africa or the Americas, those who caused Amor de Cosmos, the irascible Victoria trouble and those who became hometown newspaper editor and politician; events legends, those who died tragically, and such as the so-called Pig War on nearby those who had the courage to come from San Juan Island; and phenomena – very far away and whose descendants live notably the Cadborosaurus sea monster here still” (ix). She offers sketches of about (a.k.a. “Caddy”) and the April Ghost of thirty Islanders – single men, women, Doris Glavin (d. 1936) that haunts the and married couples. Some of them were Victoria Golf Club’s fifth hole fairway. introduced in Bowen’s earlier books about While all of the tales are well told, it’s Vancouver Island coal miners and Lake not always evident how some of the Cowichan residents. But other subjects subjects should be remembered. Brother – such as the affable Kim Lee Jung, who XII, who founded a cult colony near operated the Green Lantern restaurant Cedar in the late 1920s, was undoubtedly Book Reviews 163 a scoundrel. Should we say the same of had a front seat to the developing history Joseph Trutch, the colonial official who of the town” (10). She also saw how the refused to acknowledge the legitimate city struggled in the 1980s as a result claims of Native people to lands and of labour disputes, a severe economic resources? What about Stella Carroll, a recession, and the near collapse of the flamboyant brothel-keeper in Victoria, forest industry; and how it adjusted to or the celebrated architect Francis new conditions in the 1990s, with the Rattenbury? Were they “eccentrics” or rise of the environmental movement “originals”? Readers can form their own and the assertion of Aboriginal land opinions by following up on the sources claims. Peterson describes these recent for further reading that are included at developments objectively and sensitively. the end of this entertaining collection of Port Alberni does not have an index, tales. but it does have endnotes and a useful Jan Peterson has written a love letter bibliography. The cover image, a photo to Port Alberni. The prolific Nanaimo- by Martin Pederson, is striking. Instead based historian is the author of several of a conventional view looking down earlier works on this central Vancouver towards the harbour and Alberni Inlet, Island community, but Port Alberni: the cover photo looks up Argyle Street More Than Just a Mill Town is the most towards Mount Arrowsmith. Peterson personal. It describes “Port” in the early has provided a good, modern history 1970s, when the author moved there of a vibrant community; the publisher, with her husband, who had been hired Heritage House, has added another as plant engineer at the MacMillan popular title to its growing catalogue of Bloedel plywood mill. The community Vancouver Island chronicles. had recently (1967) been enlarged with Recent social, political, and economic the voluntary amalgamation of the twin developments on the west coast of cities of Alberni (now called North Vancouver Island are examined closely Port by locals) and Port Alberni (South by another Nanaimo-based historian, Port). The 1970s was a boom time for Margaret Horsfield, and Ian Kennedy, the coastal forest industry as production who lives in Comox. Their new book, levels, corporate profits, and workers’ Tofino and Clayoquot Sound: A History, wages rose steadily each year. The boom comes from Harbour Publishing, was evident in the construction of new arguably the leading regional book houses, apartment buildings, and a large publisher in the province. This is an shopping mall. For those who supported outstanding publication in all respects. the New Democratic Party – as most The aesthetics and design elements of voters in the Alberni Valley did – it was an the book are impressive. The authors’ exhilarating time. The city’s MLA, Bob scholarship and critical analysis of Skelly, first elected in1972 , would later historical and contemporary events are become leader of the party. Culturally, it profound. The authority of their work was a golden age, with the opening of the is conveyed assuredly but lightly in an Echo Community Centre, creation of the engaging prose style. Although the Rollin Art Centre, and expansion of the main focus is Tofino and environs, the Alberni Valley Museum and Archives. narrative ranges over the entire west Throughout this period, Peterson was coast of the Island. It comprises over a reporter for the Alberni Valley Times twenty chapters and runs to nearly and member of the city’s Parks and six hundred pages. It opens with a Recreation Commission: “I felt like I description of geological events that 164 bc studies formed the land millions of years ago and communities, and in various economic seismological threats that are pervasive activities that, over the years, have been today. Readers are conducted on a conducted on land and sea. As these fascinating journey that travels across writers indicate, the region’s multifaceted mountains and seas, along beaches and character has also been shaped by the through forests, over a time span of ambitions and achievements, foibles and more than three centuries. The book follies of people – Aboriginal and non- includes informative, clearly presented Aboriginal – who resided, settled, and maps, plus historical photographs and sojourned there. The social history of drawings. The timeline is an excellent Vancouver Island sparkles in these works. feature. There are no footnotes, but the To borrow a phrase from the intrepid selective bibliography is extensive. As Mr. Brown, readers who delve into these well as printed books, monographs, and books will discover rich diggings and periodicals, the authors include references gold that will speak for itself. to archival material. (Archival records from Ottawa and Oregon help to inform their penetrating analysis of missionary New Perspectives on the Gold activities and Indian residential schools Rush at Ahousat and Alberni.) The authors indicate that a “complete bibliography Kathryn Bridge, editor and notes on sources are available on the 582 Victoria: Royal British Columbia Harbour Publishing website” ( ). And 2015 192 $24 95 so it is. The online bibliography, which Museum, . pp. . paper. includes private documents, scholarly Mica Jorgenson dissertations, and documentary films, McMaster University is definitive. This magisterial book concludes on an optimistic note, with observations on a growing spirit of nder editor Kathryn Bridge, New reconciliation between Aboriginal and Perspectives on the Gold Rush teams non-Aboriginal residents and, among upU academic historians, archaeologists, the latter, a growing respect for the and museum professionals in an effort environment. The authors sound a chord to add previously marginalized voices of resilience as well as anticipation: to traditional histories of British “Residents of Tofino and Clayoquot Columbia’s gold rush. Despite good Sound are keenly aware that challenges intentions and a few fine chapters, the and surprises lie ahead. They expect collection’s inability to fully do away nothing less. After all, this is an area with the old perspectives and associated where people live with the knowledge celebratory clichés of progress limits that a tsunami could easily engulf them its impact. ... Meanwhile, they ready themselves New Perspectives was released to catch the next wave of change, not to coincide with the Royal British knowing where it will take them. Here Columbia Museum’s (rbcm) Gold Rush! on the west coast, another wave is always El Dorado in BC exhibition. Bridge about to break” (567). asked authors to “pick a topic that Each of the books reviewed here interest[ed] them,” and the resulting work highlights the diversity of Vancouver includes examinations of painters and Island. This diversity is evident photographers, immigrating Chinese, in Aboriginal cultures and settler women, , old timers, Book Reviews 165 government employees, and politicians First Nations participation in British (23-24). The chapters focus on British Columbia’s gold rush. Columbia and proceed in roughly Unfortunately, old perspectives such chronological order, following Bridge’s as those of white, male prospectors take introduction, to immigration, mining, centre stage at crucial moments in the conflict with Indigenous peoples, book. For example, Bridge opens her infrastructure development, and historic introduction with a discussion of white preservation. There are two anomalies in miners’ experiences on British Columbia’s this basic structure. The first chapter, by gold frontier and a poem by an American Colombian scholars María Alicia Uribe miner longing for home – hardly a “new Villegas, Juan Pablo Quintero Guzmán, perspective” on the gold rush (18-19). In and Hector García Botero, examines pre- Lily Chow’s chapter, an image of a white Hispanic metalworking in Colombia, man with a rocker illustrates a section on reflecting the companion exhibition Chinese gold-mining technology: clearly, Allure of Gold on loan at the rbcm from an image of a Chinese miner would have Bogotá’s Museo del Oro. This connection been more appropriate (82). At the end of is not explained in the text and precludes the collection, Hammond’s piece gives any discussion of British Columbia’s own credit to Barkerville resident Dr. Robert prehistory. The second anomaly comes in W.W. Carrall for his underappreciated Lorne Foster Hammond’s chapter, “The role in Confederation negotiations but Gold Rush and Confederation,” which leaves out any mention of this event’s breaks the book’s chronology by coming implications for First Nations, Chinese, after Barkerville CEO Judy Campbell’s black, or female residents. Many of the account of creating Barkerville Historic chapters, particularly Marshall’s “The Park in the 1970s. British Columbia Commonwealth,” The chapters that stand out include Lily portray British Columbia as a haven Chow’s “Chinese Footprints in the Fraser of unrivalled colonial opportunity and Gold Rush,” which features reproduced equality. These tired tropes fit awkwardly census records and other primary with Bridge’s claim that New Perspectives documents that allow the reader to get a aims to “explore new ground” and valuable glimpse of the hard data used to “rethink some of the clichés about the piece together marginalized pasts. Also gold rush” (24). of note is Tzu-I Chung’s “Trans-Pacific Ultimately, New Perspectives is a Gold Mountain Trade,” which locates product of the tension in BC history the gold rush’s Chinese participants caused by historians’ attempts to elevate within the context of a burgeoning alternative voices without disturbing transnational Pacific exchange. The cherished celebratory narratives. Doing piece expertly weaves rbcm artefacts justice to truly “new” perspectives of with a gold rush historical narrative. the gold rush means admitting to the Finally, Daniel Marshall’s “Conflict in existence of racism, discrimination, the New El Dorado” links the Fraser colonialism, and other unpalatable River War to its American precedents and themes sidelined in this collection. acknowledges informational exchange Nevertheless, the authors’ interest in between Nlaka’pamux and Indigenous untold stories, the self-consciousness contacts south of the border (129). of their history, and their thorough Marshall’s chapter is an impressive footnoting are welcome additions to amalgamation of scattered sources and the popular literature. Hopefully, New a welcome addition to the literature on Perspectives is only the first step in a 166 bc studies growing effort to deal openly with the of histories of gender, race, class, and skeletons in British Columbia’s historical settler colonialism across the mid- closet. nineteenth-century Pacific world. This book has much to offer to readers of BC Studies. Hogg’s rich attention to men’s lived experiences not Men and Manliness on the only makes this an eminently readable Frontier: Queensland and book but also helps to deepen existing British Columbia in the understandings of mid-nineteenth- century British Columbia. Thanks to Mid-nineteenth Century the work of scholars such as Adele Perry, Robert Hogg the general parameters of Hogg’s British Columbian historical context should be Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Mac- familiar: a nascent and tenuous settler millan, 2012. 232 pp. $115.00 cloth. colony in which British men’s daily lives deviated from metropolitan gendered Laura Ishiguro University of British Columbia expectations. Hogg’s generous use of men’s writing – especially letters and journals – enables him to flesh out a n Men and Manliness on the Frontier: discussion of personal perspectives and Queensland and British Columbia experiences that both shaped and were Iin the Mid-nineteenth Century, shaped by broader discourse, policy, and Robert Hogg examines the gendered regulation. In so doing, he illustrates the expectations, manly identities, and complexity and diversity of British men’s lived experiences of British men in colonial experiences, underscoring that it mid-nineteenth-century Queensland is not enough to talk about “settler” as a and British Columbia. Specifically, singular experience or stable identity. This Hogg asks: How were mid-Victorian is a critical point that deserves further ideas of manliness reconfigured on the attention in the field. transformative colonial “frontiers” of Hogg’s comparative approach should Queensland and British Columbia? In also be intriguing for readers interested seven chapters (including introduction in colonial British Columbia. Throughout and conclusion), he unpicks the knotted the book, he draws connections between answers to this question in order to men’s experiences in the two colonies, argue that British men both produced ultimately justifying the book’s multi- and navigated new expectations of sited framing by suggesting that manliness in relation to changing these were very similar places in the meanings of class, race, and violence in mid-nineteenth century. Although these colonial sites. Weaving together comparative colonial work on Canada broad conceptual framing and the rich and Australia is not unusual, the pairing detail of individual lives, the book of British Columbia and Queensland reveals both (1) significant similarities is much more rare. Given this – and between Queensland and British the probability that many readers will Columbia and (2) the diversity of be unfamiliar with one or both of the men’s lived experiences in each place. colonies in question – it is unfortunate In so doing, Men and Manliness on the that the only maps in the book are Frontier demonstrates both the deep historical reproductions that are very complexity and the deep connectedness difficult to read. That point aside, Hogg’s Book Reviews 167 treatment of the two sites is impressively Legacy in Time: balanced for a comparative study and Three Generations of raises important questions for further Mountain Photography in the research and analysis. What do we make of such similarities? How and Canadian West why might differences have mattered Henry Vaux between colonial sites? And what do we gain by such comparisons? Although Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, his comparison is thought-provoking, 2014. 128 pp. $30.00 cloth. I would have liked to see Hogg explore Mary Sanseverino its implications further, especially by University of Victoria engaging with such critical questions. While further work could be done to this end, this is an accessible and ritish Columbia and are engaging book overall. Through his home to the most iconic mountain attention to individual lives and his landscapesB in Canada. To many of us, comparative framing, Hogg effectively visitors and Canadians alike, these demonstrates both the diversity and landscapes are the embodiment of the striking similarities of manliness in Canada. They tempt us to stop, explore, British Columbia and Queensland and, and discover the forces that give shape in so doing, decisively rejects the value to the beauty and grandeur of the of simplified or romanticized “frontier Canadian mountain west. And so it was myths” in either place. Ultimately, with a Quaker family from Philadelphia Men and Manliness on the Frontier is a named Vaux. In 1887, George Vaux compelling reminder that we cannot and family travelled from Vancouver understand the pivotal mid-nineteenth- to Montreal on the new Canadian century years in British Columbia or Pacific Railway. Stopping at Glacier Queensland without taking seriously House Hotel in Rogers Pass, at the histories of gender, the complexities of far eastern edge of British Columbia, settler power, and the possibilities of the family fell under the spell of the trans-imperial comparison. Selkirk peaks and were captivated by the Great Glacier, today known as the Illecillewaet Glacier. Keen photographers, the Vaux family made stunning images of the mountains in Glacier, Yoho, and Banff national parks. They returned frequently to the region, passing on their passion for the “Canadian Alps” to their children. In Legacy in Time, Henry Vaux – the third generation of his family to photograph in the Canadian Cordillera – gives us a peek into his family’s substantial photographic collection. He selects thirty-seven photos taken by the first Vaux generation, all in the years around the turn of the twentieth century, and returns to the precise spot that the 168 bc studies original photographs were taken to feel for glacial extension in this image, create his own (modern) version of each we see the thickness of the ice. image. With only a whisper of structure It is often said that a picture is worth to set the scene, and with every image a thousand words, but that only begins displayed unadorned on its own white- to describe the fascinating nature of bordered page, he allows the photographs change displayed in the Legacy in Time to speak. Each tells a compelling story. landscapes. This compelling book makes Taken together, these pairs of historic it easy to fall under the spell of the Vaux and modern views put the landscape on images and the family that made them. a continuum of transformation. Some An outstanding legacy indeed – and long places, especially with glacial features, may it continue. have changed drastically, while others seem timelessly similar. The historic images, captured with exceptional clarity The Railway Beat: A Century of and detail on glass plate negatives, are Canadian Pacific Police Service particularly stunning. Edward Cavell, former curator of the David Laurence Jones Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies in Banff, provides a foreword that places Markham, ON: Fifth House Pub- lishers, Fitzhenry and Whiteside, the Vaux family and their photographic 2014 312 $24 95 collection firmly in the recreational and . pp. . paper. artistic milieu of North America at the Heather Longworth Sjoblom turn of the twentieth century. Vaux Fort St. John North Peace Museum himself provides insights into why three generations of this American family have returned again and again to the Canadian he Canadian Pacific Railway Alps to research, photograph, write, and Company (cpr) experimented reflect on these mountain environments. withT many different forms of policing Only one absence in the book is throughout its long history. How do notable: it has no map to the photos. you protect a thirty-two hundred Those familiar with Glacier, Yoho, and kilometre transportation network that Banff parks will recognize many of the keeps growing? David Laurence Jones’s places captured in Legacy in Time, but a The Railway Beat looks at the cpr’s map would situate the pairs of images law enforcement from the company’s within a broader landscape context. initial use of the North-West Mounted That said, the lack of geographic Police during railway construction reference, apart from what is revealed in the 1880s to the development of its topographically by the photographs own police force in 1913 to the present. themselves, keeps our interest focused Jones examines the challenges and directly on the images. For example, responsibilities undertaken by the Figure 10, taken in 1898, features an Canadian Pacific Police Service cpps( ) image of the Illecillewaet Glacier from and how the role and structure of this Avalanche Crest Trail in which the law enforcement body changed with the enormity of the Great Glacier fills the life of the company. horizon. The play of light and contrast As the cpr expanded its rail lines on a sea of ice illuminates massive and diversified into other modes of crevasses, providing an almost three- transportation, such as steamships, dimensional look. Not only do we get a the company moved from an ad hoc Book Reviews 169 system of policing to its own private British Columbia for the light it sheds professional police force, which enabled on the cpps’s role in policing steamships it, Jones argues, to minimize losses out of Vancouver, dealing with gentleman from theft and strikes and to run an bandits like Bill Miner, investigating efficient and safe transportation network. Doukhobor (Sons of Freedom) bombings Using correspondence, photographs, in the Kootenays, and tracing the role and newspaper clippings from the cpr of a package flown by CP Air through Archives along with personal testimony Vancouver in 1985 and then used in the from police officers and cpps chiefs, Jones Air India Flight 301 bombing. shows that this police force grew with The Railway Beat is a much needed the company to gain worldwide respect. addition to the history of one of Canada’s The cpps adapted in the face of new largest transportation companies. security challenges (such as gentleman Without the reach and efficiency of the bandits and bombs) and took preventative cpps, the cpr would have been vulnerable measures by promoting public safety to greater losses from theft, terrorism, through educational initiatives. The and vandalism, and might never have cpps changed with the times, accepting styled itself “The World’s Greatest women into the force in 1987 and dealing Transportation System.” with cutbacks and restructuring. Throughout, Jones highlights the personalities of police chiefs and the role Names on a Cenotaph: Kootenay of other railway police forces, including Lake Men in World War I those on American branch lines later cpr acquired by the . Though he does Sylvia Crooks mention that the Canadian National cnp Vancouver: Granville Island Pub- Police ( ) worked in conjunction 2014 249 $19 95 with the cpps on certain cases, Jones lishing, . pp. . paper. never explains how the cnp came Duff Sutherland about or how changes in its structure Selkirk College and responsibilities compared to those associated with the cpps. Since Canadian National was the cpr’s biggest ylvia Crooks’s Homefront and competitor, this information would Battlefront: Nelson BC in World War have been useful. Jones discusses the SII (2005) brought to life the lives of relationship between the North-West all the men honoured on the Nelson Mounted Police and First Nations during cenotaph and the impact of the war the cpr’s construction, but we need on their families and hometown. In further research into how the cpps and this new book, Names on a Cenotaph: First Nations interacted throughout the Kootenay Lake Men in World War I, railway’s operations. Crooks does the same for the Great The Railway Beat is the first book War of 1914–18. In Homefront and to focus on the history of cpr law Battlefront, we learned of the lives of enforcement. Most cpr histories say seventy West Kootenay men who went little about policing, especially after the to war and never came back. In Names railway’s initial construction. Jones’s work on a Cenotaph, Crooks introduces us also fills a significant gap in the history to over two hundred of the 280 men of policing in Canada. The Railway Beat listed on the Nelson cenotaph and on will be especially useful to scholars of community cenotaphs around Kootenay 170 bc studies

Lake. The much higher Great War West Kootenay men, along with other losses reflect that conflict’s very high Canadians, fought in some of the war’s rate of military casualties – something bloodiest battles: they were gassed at that is noticeable on most community St. Julien near Ypres, experienced heavy cenotaphs across Canada. Names on a casualties on the Somme, participated Cenotaph is a token of remembrance, in the victory at Vimy Ridge, suffered an offering of respect for men, families, “the horrors” of Passchendaele, and were and communities prepared to sacrifice involved in Canada’s “Hundred Days so much for what they believed to be Offensive” on the road to Cambrai in the a righteous cause. As the portraits last months of the war. A sniper killed accumulate through chapters dedicated twenty-one-year-old Private Percival to each year of the war, the reader can Frederick Coles on 6 November 1918 also share in Crooks’s anger at so many beside the Grand Honnelle River in ghastly deaths “in a futile war” (xiii). northern France. He was the last of the Crooks’s work, now stretching over Kootenay soldiers commemorated on the two impressively researched books, cenotaphs to die in battle. Crooks found began with a desire to know more about that, before the war, Coles had worked Maurice Latornell, who taught her how with his widowed father on a fruit ranch to skate as a three-year-old growing up at Proctor on Kootenay Lake. As was in Nelson. He died in a bombing raid common for Kootenay Lake families over Berlin in 1944. Historians and that suffered losses, his father gave up researchers of British Columbia have the ranch and returned to England soon benefited from Crooks’s work, which after the war. has its origins in her memory of this Crooks’s painstaking research on the young man. lives and deaths of these men who came In 1914, Nelson was a city of five from all walks of life in the region shows thousand, the hub of a West Kootenay how well local history can illuminate a region transformed since the 1880s wider experience such as the Great War. by mining, fruit farming, railway On the one hand, we are reminded of construction, and large-scale British the incredible violence and suffering that immigration. As in other parts of the soldiers experienced during the war. The province, the outbreak of war led many portraits reveal over and over again how men to enlist for patriotic and personal death came from guns fired at close range, reasons, especially the recent arrivals from shrapnel shells, and from explosions from Britain. The members of the first during intense artillery bombardments. contingent left Nelson at the end of In 1916, an officer let Lance Corporal August; by the spring of 1915, they were George Roe’s mother know that her son’s fighting in Belgium as part of the First death was “instant and painless” when a British Columbia Regiment. Over the shell destroyed his dugout (64). Crooks’s course of the war a substantial number of evidence shows that, in many other cases, the region’s men would sign up for British wounded men suffered terribly before Columbian, Canadian, and British they died on the battlefield or in field battalions, including over a thousand for hospitals. In September 1918, Captain the 54th Kootenay Battalion established in Garland Foster, a former editor of the 1915 with headquarters in Nelson. Crooks Nelson Daily News, suffered a gunshot calculates that one-third of the first six wound to the chest at Bourlon Wood. hundred who joined the 54th Kootenay Foster’s nurse wrote to his widow that he Battalion did not survive the war. suffered “untold agonies” and that “one Book Reviews 171 felt [in] the last few days [that] it would women served as nurses, filled jobs be a blessing to see him go” (163). vacated by enlisted men, and pledged On the other hand, Crooks’s research in large numbers to support at home and photographs bring the war dead the government’s efforts to increase the back to life. Her evidence and images export of foodstuffs. Yet, by1918 , the document many young men like Corporal government’s perceived need for more Alfred Killough of Castlegar who censorship and the increasing numbers enlisted as an eighteen-year-old and died of arrests for speaking out against the two years later on the Somme. Older war suggests a growing weariness. men also fought and died: Private Frank In September 1918, police charged Laberge, a lumberjack from the Slocan the secretary of the Miners’ Union in Valley, was fifty years old when he died Silverton for sedition after he stated in the battle for Hill 70 in 1917. Fathers “that the soldiers in France were not and sons fought together. Brothers fought fighting his battles” 131( ). We do not learn together. Close friends fought together. what happened to him. More broadly, Bert Herridge of Nakusp reported that we wonder, at the end of Names on the a shell killed his friend Private Frederick Cenotaph, how Nelson and Kootenay “Freddie” Day as he was singing him Lake families coped with their grief, and a song. And, in many cases, men died how the city and resource economy of the courageously in horrendous battles and region recovered from so many losses. while rescuing wounded comrades. Many These sorts of questions arise from Sylvia know of Nelson’s Lieutenant Hampton Crooks’s excellent research and writing. “Hammy” Gray, who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for heroism during the Second World War. Crooks Witness: Canadian Art of the tells the less well-known story of the first First World War Nelson man to win the VC – Lieutenant Commander Rowland Bourke – who Amber Lloydlangston and daringly rescued drowning sailors at Laura Brandon Ostend Harbour, Belgium. Bourke survived the war, but, on every page Ottawa: Canadian Museum of 2014 118 $9 95 of her book, Crooks reminds us of the History, . pp. . paper. appalling human cost of the war. Crooks shows that, to the very end, the people of Nelson, like people in Art at the Service of War: most communities across the province, Canada, Art, and the Great War strongly supported the war. Along with high enlistment rates, citizens provided Maria Tippett financial support to families of men serving overseas, raised money to send Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013 [1984]. 136 pp. “comforts and supplies” to the men of the $29 95 54th Kootenay Battalion, attended “win . paper. the war” rallies in support of conscription 1917 Sarah Glassford in , and contributed heavily to Victory University of New Brunswick Loan campaigns. Individual women and women’s organizations in Nelson also he centenary offered strong support for new recruits, of the First men on leave, and men overseas. Local TWorld War currently being 172 bc studies commemorated has only further Brandon hope Witness will “encourage sparked our perpetual fascination with Canadians to reflect on the personal and that conflict. With the eyewitnesses national reach” (9) of the First World now gone, we are left to ponder the War, and the catalogue seems likely records and reflections they bequeathed to inspire that reflection. The authors to us. The two books reviewed here maintain a light touch throughout, largely focus on their evocative and still potent leaving it to the viewer to draw meaning artistic legacies. from each image. Amber Lloydlangston and Laura Witness is a testament to the Brandon’s Witness: Canadian Art of the present-day influence of two earlier First World War is the souvenir catalogue projects that grappled with the legacies of the Canadian War Museum’s (cwm’s) of the First World War: (1) the official 2014 centenary exhibition of the same war art commissioned by the Canadian name, but readers need not have attended War Memorials Fund (cwmf) beginning the exhibition to appreciate the catalogue. in 1916 and (2) Maria Tippett’s study The book includes fifty-six high-quality of the cwmf’s war art program, Art at full-colour reproductions of paintings, the Service of War: Canada, Art, and the prints, and sketches by official war artists Great War. Originally published in 1984, and ordinary soldiers. The artists came Tippett’s book has been reissued with a from across Canada and Britain, but new introduction for the war’s centenary. readers of BC Studies may particularly When historian Robert Craig Brown note “The Author at Work,” an amusing reviewed the original volume in 1985, sketch by George Sharp, the architect he called it “a handsome and valuable who designed Vancouver’s Burrard book” in which careful research and clear Bridge and a number of buildings at ubc writing complemented fifty-one black- (18), and Charles Simpson’s “Lumbering and-white illustrations of cwmf war art. Aeroplane Spruce in BC” (44-45). The This assessment holds true three decades chosen works are not the most iconic later: Tippett (a frequent reviewer for Canadian First World War paintings BC Studies) uses political, artistic, and (such as Frederick Varley’s “For What?” military archival sources to trace the story or Richard Jack’s “The Second Battle of of Max Aitken’s (Lord Beaverbrook’s) Ypres”), which allows viewers to approach personal crusade to create, promote, them with fresh eyes: we see their subjects and sustain the cwmf; the political rather than simply icons. machinations, institutional agendas, and Lloydlangston and Brandon group the artistic currents with which the cwmf images into four sections: “Canadians became embroiled; and the remarkable at War,” “Tools of War,” “Landscapes collection of First World War art it of War,” and “Ruins of War.” Each produced. Yet one senses Brown was not section and image is accompanied by a entirely sure what to make of Tippett’s brief text passage in which the authors self-described “study in cultural history” highlight themes and describe the artists’ (xvii): political and economic history were experiences of, or attitudes towards, the still ascendant in 1985. Cultural history war. We learn that Canadian troops were has subsequently gained traction and the never portrayed as fearful, women appear book’s true importance has become clear. only in depictions of munitions work, Art at the Service of War helped pioneer ruined landscapes symbolize the human the Canadian study of “public memory” – costs of war, and military technologies how the past is used in the public sphere often dwarf humans. Lloydlangston and – and influenced (among others) Jonathan Book Reviews 173

Vance’s award-winning 1997 monograph Bootleggers and Borders: The Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning and the Paradox of Prohibition on a First World War. Its influence on Witness Canada-US Borderland is also obvious. Tippett’s book concludes with a look Stephen T. Moore at the reception and legacies of the cwmf’s war art program. She argues that, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. 239 pp. although the art itself soon lost favour $59 95 (languishing in obscurity from the 1920s . cloth. to the end of the century), the program Daniel Francis had a positive impact on Canadian art Vancouver and artists themselves. The collection 1962 went uncatalogued until , and the iven how National Gallery (citing insufficient contentious relations artistic merit) foisted it onto the cwmf between Canada and the United 1971 2014 GStates became during the American in . The new introduction 1917 33 disappointingly covers much the same Prohibition era ( - ), it is surprising ground as the original text, but Tippett how little scholarly work has been done does extend her survey of the collection’s on the subject. There are many popular afterlife, noting that Vance and others books about the swashbuckling exploits have brought war art into the mainstream of the rum-runners, but very little has of Canadian history, while cwmf war art been written specifically about how exhibitions in 2000 and 2009 (and 2014, the border was a zone of conflict – and we might add) suggest a new recognition cooperation – during the period. Which of its value. is to say that this new book by Stephen First World War art by eyewitnesses Moore, a professor of history at Central has obvious historical value, but, as Washington University, is a welcome Tippett writes, it also has the ability addition to a small bookshelf. Moore begins his account in September to move viewers today. This makes the 1921 works explored in these two centenary with a crowd gathering south of books “not just memorials” but also “art Vancouver to dedicate the Peace Arch, a works of extraordinary power” (xvi). newly constructed monument straddling the Canada-US boundary. Built to commemorate one hundred years of REFERENCES amicable relations, the Peace Arch is a dazzling white gate over twenty metres Brown, Robert Craig. 1985. Review of Art at the Service of War, by Maria Tippett. Canadian in height. The monument, in its location Historical Review 66 (3): 421-22. and its message, is a testament to the Vance, Jonathan. 1997. Death So Noble: Memory, special relationship existing between Meaning and the First World War Vancouver: the two countries. Odd, therefore, that ubc Press. it was built at the beginning of American Prohibition, when that friendship would be tested more than at any time since the War of 1812. This is just one “paradox of prohibition” that Moore mentions in his title. British Columbia had its own version of prohibition, of course, lasting from 174 bc studies

1917 to 1921, and Moore is subtle in their American neighbours, were more his explanations of why the province concerned about maintaining friendly abandoned the experiment so much relations and concluded much earlier earlier than did the Americans. The than did other Canadians that a lawless reasons were partly demographic: border was harmful to this objective. British Columbia’s population had a Bootleggers and Borders is a very readable large proportion of single, male wage study of prohibition in the BC-US workers, who were unsympathetic to borderlands, combining discussions the dry crusade, and a large proportion of political culture and ideology with of Anglicans and Roman Catholics accounts of the clandestine activities who did not endorse the zealotry of of the liquor smugglers. It will appeal the more evangelical Methodists and to anyone with an interest in Jazz Age Baptists. British Columbians were also British Columbia and/or Canadian- intolerant of the corruption and hypocrisy American relations. associated with the enforcement of the liquor ban. But underlying other explanations, Moore argues, was a Negotiations in a Vacant Lot: fundamental difference of opinion Studying the Visual in Canada about the role that government should play in enforcing moral standards. Lynda Jessup, Erin Morton, and “Canadian political culture has been Kirsty Robertson, editors much less utopian than its American counterpart,” writes Moore, “and without Montreal and Kingston: McGill- 2014 any expectation that its politicians would Queen’s University Press, . legislate the millennium”(40). 312 pp. $39.95 paper. One of the most interesting chapters John O’Brian in Bootleggers and Borders deals with University of British Columbia the Vancouver hearings of the Royal Commission on Customs and Excise. Smuggling led to a federal customs scandal his book changes how we should that almost toppled the Mackenzie King think about visual culture and art government in 1923. To keep himself in historyT in Canada. By focusing on how power King had to create a commission, the visual has been shaped by liberal and and Moore provides a good account of neoliberal ideologies of individualism, its West Coast hearings, which were, he property rights, and progress from argues, a “turning point” in local attitudes the nineteenth century to the present, towards smuggling. Appalled at what the it demonstrates that the discipline commission revealed about the extent of art history in Canada has been a of the corruption, the BC public, which state narrative. The formation of the formerly had tolerated rum-running as field, however, has been obscured and harmless hijinks, now condemned it. unacknowledged. If alternative futures In Moore’s view, while prohibition for visual culture and art history in revealed “fundamentally different Canada are to be imagined, their liberal outlooks and beliefs” (169) on the two underpinnings need to be recognized sides of the border, it also revealed the and unpacked. This is precisely what durability of the special relationship. this book sets out to do. British Columbians, he argues, with The book’s editors, Lynda Jessup, Erin their long history of cooperation with Morton, and Kirsty Robertson, contend Book Reviews 175 that the economic logic of liberalism local experience, cultural difference, and has turned Canada into a “vacant lot,” notions of ethnicity and cultural heritage a phrase borrowed (and used in the without ‘nationalizing’ them into rigid title of the volume) from historian Ian identity politics. What we absolutely need McKay. “Why have a field of Canadian to stop doing is imagining ourselves as history,” McKay asks rhetorically in an agents of the state” (171). More than this, article written in 2000, “if even the most historians, curators, and others working powerful and far-reaching methodologies with the visual need to stop thinking often treat Canada as a stage on which of nationalism as a defence against universal processes and formations globalism or other nationalisms, notably interact?” (3). In other words, why bother the patriotic version of nationalism in to have a discipline at all if the real action the United States. It is not a defence, is always conceived as being elsewhere? Hill asserts, because it puts art history at The economic logic of liberalism the service of a dominant narrative that and its impact on visual culture and excludes other narratives. Canadian art art history are addressed by all fifteen will continue to be talked about as an contributors to this volume, sometimes entity, of course, because the nation- directly, more often obliquely. Barbara state will continue to exist in the face Jenkins, in a chapter entitled “National of globalization, but cultural theorists Cultural Policy and the International and historians must guard against Liberal Order,” observes that order and internalizing its ideologies and identity stability need to be widespread among formations. the nations of the world if global order Alice Ming Wai Jim, in a chapter is to exist. She points to intellectuals like that relates to Hill’s, asks what it means Vincent Massey and Lawren Harris, to teach ethnocultural and global art who trained as an artist in Germany and histories in Canada and Quebec. What later moved from Toronto to Vancouver she and Hill say adds up, as does the by way of the United States, as dyed- collection as a whole. For this the editors, in-the-wool internationalist liberals. who contribute valuable chapters of their They understood that, for Canada to own to the book, must be congratulated. participate in the transnational project Visual culture and art history in Canada of liberalism, it had to fall in step with will never look the same again. international economic and cultural expectations. This required falling in step REFERENCES with the codes of liberalism, including dominant codes of artistic practice. Like McKay, Ian. 2000. “The Liberal Order others who were part of the ruling order Framework: A Prospectus for a Recon- of liberalism, Jenkins concludes, they had naissance of Canadian History.” Canadian Historical Review 81 3) 617 45 a “cosmopolitan world view that was a ( : - . central component of Canada’s perception of itself nationally” (124). If art history in Canada is to depart from the liberal and neoliberal conditioning that has shaped the field for so long, it has a lot of work ahead of it. In a chapter entitled “The Vacant Lot: Who’s Buying It?,” Richard William Hill writes: “We need to be able to articulate 176 bc studies

Traffic: Conceptual Art in that stretched across the country and Canada, 1965-1980 facilitated debates that were vital to the development of conceptual art in Canada Grant Arnold and Karen and to the many artist-run spaces that Henry, editors it spawned. Traffic explores numerous instances of artist exchanges across Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre 2012 geographies, such as Bill Vazan’s Canada and Vancouver Art Gallery, . 1969 70 196 $55 95 Line ( - ) project, a collaboration pp. . cloth. between Vazan (in Montreal) and Ian Vytas Narusevicius Wallace (in Vancouver). University of British Columbia Freed from the burden of making and transporting large canvases, conceptual artists made art wherever they happened raffic: Conceptual Art in Canada, to be or, since ideas travelled faster than T 1965-1980 is the catalogue of objects, by merely sending instructions to arguably one of the most important complete a work. The catalogue chapters exhibitions of Canadian art in recent by Jayne Wark, Vincent Bonin, William history, which, in turn, deals with Wood, Catherine Crowston, and Grant one of the most transformative art Arnold all provide thorough overviews movements of the twentieth century. of the kind of work produced across the Conceived by Catherine Crowston and country and the importance of these Barbara Fischer, the exhibition and contributions not only to the regional and catalogue resulted from a collaboration Canadian art scene but also to the global with the Art Gallery of Alberta, conceptual art movement as a whole. the Justin M. Barnicke Gallery at While the catalogue chapters provide the University of Toronto, and the excellent accounts of the artworks, Vancouver Art Gallery. First shown there is little analysis of why conceptual at the University of Toronto and then art happened to appear at this time in in Halifax, Montreal, Edmonton, and the first place. Luckily, in the back of Vancouver, the cross-country tour was the volume is a transcript of a panel fitting since the exhibition explored discussion that included Lucy Lippard, the works of some lesser-known artists an important curator of some of the as well as regional features, both first conceptual art exhibitions and a of which are often excluded from historian of the subject, who identifies the better documented histories of a particular socio-political zeitgeist Vancouver’s and Halifax’s contributions as the crucial factor. This zeitgeist to conceptual art. included opposition to the Vietnam War, The non-commercial aspects of capitalism, authority, and patriarchy – an conceptual art, which made it so radical opposition that motivated artists to get in the 1960s and early 1970s with its out of the confines of their studios and focus on text and photography rather step into the world. The repudiation of than on painting and sculpture, resulted frames and pedestals was in sync with in a circulation that was often found the rejection of the repressive social and only in alternative artist publications or political climate of the time. Despite the exhibitions at university and art school fact that conceptual art practices rarely galleries. This catalogue effectively displayed explicit or radical political recounts how these publications and content, the catalogue makes it clear spaces formed an important network that the ideas and experimentation of Book Reviews 177 conceptual artists were often informed The case studies included here show how by the same need to throw off dominant residents, researchers, and community traditions and norms. Conceptual art’s development practitioners have used ability to offer an alternative to the world arts and culture to reflect on what makes in its then current form remains a lesson their communities unique and how arts well worth revisiting. and culture can be leveraged to achieve broader community development goals. Whose Culture Is It, Anyway? emphasizes the importance of developing Whose Culture Is It, Anyway? cultural programming that reflects Community Engagement in the local community. By embedding Small Cities programming in the community, we can avoid transposing mainstream W.F. Garrett-Petts, James culture onto that which is local. Artistic Hoffman, and Ginny Ratsoy, endeavours should challenge the status editors quo, but they should be firmly rooted in the local reality of the place. Consequently, Vancouver: New Star Books, 2014. this book places art and artists at the 320 pp. $35.00 paper. centre of the community development process. The role of artists, it is argued, Eric Brown is to reflect society back on itself and Simon Fraser University imbue the physical and social landscape with meaning. In small communities, hose Culture Is It, Anyway? which may lack the social infrastructure W addresses important questions to resist the forces of surrounding urban about the contribution of arts and cores, it is especially important to focus culture in small- and medium-sized on local history and geography in artistic cities, and the ethos and ethics of and cultural endeavours to push back supporting cultural development against the homogeneity emanating from in these environments. Small- and larger urban centres. The local character medium-sized cities tend to be of culture deepens sense of place and, in overlooked in urban studies literature, turn, generates community pride and and this book brings much needed encourages local economic development. attention to the role of arts and culture Thoroughly researched and eclectic in in these underexamined settings. its intellectual approach, and featuring Through an exploration of broader a contribution from the poet bill bissett, urban studies theory and the specific this book reveals the important role that documentation of practice, Whose Culture arts and culture can play in sustainable Is It, Anyway? makes a compelling case community development in small towns for the importance of arts and culture on the rural-urban fringe. in community development initiatives in small cities such as Kamloops. Arts and culture serve to engage local residents while contributing to quality of life. In diverse ways, the eighteen authors contextualize arts and cultural development in small BC towns within broader societal and intellectual trends. 178 bc studies

Resettling the Range: culture and daily life. However, in the Animals, Ecologies, and Human eyes of ranchers with paid-up grazing Communities in rights, they were worthless marauders in competition with their cattle for pasture British Columbia and prime candidates for extermination. John Thistle Thistle argues that this eradication of wild horses was carried out without any ubc 2015 244 Vancouver: Press, . pp. consideration of the Indigenous people $95.00 cloth. who depended on them. Dispossessed by government policies that allowed a few Max Foran University of Calgary individuals and corporate interests to control leases containing the best grazing land, Aboriginal people were left with his is a thought-provoking book. small parcels of inferior, waterless land Focusing on the rangelands of unsuitable for commercial ranching, and interiorT British Columbia, John Thistle their ranching prospects were further describes how commercial ranching diminished by their horses being confined begot inequities, dispossessions, on their meagre reserves. Thistle shows and ecological degradation. All of how government officials heeded those which, according to his analysis, were who could pay for grazing rights while avoidable. ignoring the pleas of Aboriginal ranchers Resettling the Range is clearly written, and undermining their willingness to and its argument is convincingly based in compete. Had they been given half a archival sources and relevant secondary chance, they might have kept a foothold material. In addition to the researched in their traditional ranges. narrative, this book is enhanced by Thistle’s focus on grasshopper an insightful foreword by renowned irruptions enables a fascinating environmental historian Graeme Wynn discussion. The fact that the irruptions and by Thistle’s own excellent conclusion, are little understood, that they might which reaches beyond his central have been overestimated in terms of historical argument. damage caused, and that, in a natural Thistle takes a unique approach, environment, they might actually have setting his narrative within two broad been ecologically beneficial will come non-human signifiers. Wild horses and as a surprise to many. Thistle refers grasshoppers were synergies that resulted to the uneven impact of grasshopper in the emergence and development of irruptions. Since the state of the range human conflicts. In reacting to these and economic status were determining two biological threats, ranchers and factors, Aboriginal people were the government sought immediate rather most severely affected, followed by the than longer-range solutions. In these smaller ranchers. The big operators with decisions, the wishes of the dominant more grass and surplus hay were the group prevailed. Those without voice or least affected. Some even profited by economic resources were disadvantaged, buying out ruined ranchers or selling as were the grasslands environments upon their surplus hay. Thistle discusses the which they all depended. irruptions’ link to overgrazing and The wild horses that grazed freely notes that range restoration was never on the bunchgrass that belonged to no considered as a solution; rather, lethal one were situated firmly in Aboriginal poison programs were implemented and, Book Reviews 179 in fact, mandated since opponents had A Natural Selection: Building a no choice but to participate. Conservation Community The land was the main casualty in these on Sidney Island discourses. Haphazard land-use practices resulted in long-term overgrazing Peter Pearse and ecological degradation. Lethal North Vancouver: Walhachin Press, poisons indiscriminately destroyed 2014 89 $15 00 much more than grasshopper eggs. . pp. . paper. Thistle underscores the complexity of range management and its scientific applications. He also discusses the place Big Trees Saved and Other of fire in the ecological paradigm. The Feats: The Story of the Shuswap difficulties faced by smaller livestock Environmental Action Society operations in a semi-arid climate more suitable to large units employing Deanna Kawatski economies of scale, though not a Salmon Arm: Shuswap Press, 2014. central argument, comes through in the 119 $20 00 narrative. Additionally, in Thistle’s pp. . paper. telling, Aboriginal ranchers virtually lost Erika Bland a way of life as well as their occupation University of Victoria and stewardship of the land. Given the number and type of non- n many human creatures that inhabited the BC communities diverse grasslands pre-empted by ranching, I actors have long fought to protect their was surprised that Thistle did not give ecologicalI treasures. Their struggles them more attention. Wild horses and have played a part in preventing the grasshoppers might have made his main degradation of vast expanses of land: 14 14 4 argument, but they did not do justice about million hectares ( . percent) to the ecology of a land transformed of the land base in British Columbia 1911 by ranching. Also, in my opinion, the have been protected since (BC 2015 book’s wide range and frequent mention Parks ). Two recent publications tell of individual ranches calls for chapter of this continuing struggle in the forests summaries and detailed explanatory of British Columbia. maps. In A Natural Selection: Building a Thistle is to be commended for Conservation Community on Sidney Island, bringing this BC example to our economist and forester Peter Pearse attention. I thoroughly enjoyed Resettling outlines how the residents of Sidney the Range, with its penetrating insights Island, in the Salish Sea opposite the into the capitalist view of land as Saanich Peninsula, created a community- commodity. Sadly, Thistle’s lesson about based strata corporation to found and the human readiness to use lethal options manage the island’s Sallas Forest. The to combat non-human threats has far too aim, largely achieved, was to balance many parallels elsewhere. resource use and ecological conservation; but, over forty years, there have been significant ups and downs. Pearse’s personal account of the creation of a community forest sheds light on some of the issues and challenges faced in 180 bc studies the early stages of community forestry actors in environmental governance. work in British Columbia, in the process This has resulted, in stark contrast to providing lessons that apply more broadly. forest policy in the United States, in In Big Trees Saved and Other Feats: The progressive changes in land tenures in Story of the Shuswap Environmental Action British Columbia. Pearse and Kawatski Society, author and environmentalist support the work of McCarthy and Deanna Kawatski, whose roots in others writing of these shifts. Readers the Shuswap bioregion go back a could enrich their reading of these two century, sketches the history of the texts in conjunction with critical texts Shuswap Environmental Action Society written about the Community Forest (seas) and outlines its challenges Agreement Program, inaugurated in and successes over more than two British Columbia in 1998 (e.g., Duinker decades. Kawatski documents efforts to et al. 1994; Bradshaw 2003). protect large stretches of the Shuswap Though their approaches differ, both region, which is within the traditional Pearse and Kawatski demonstrate the territory of the Secwepemc people, interconnections between environmental and relies on a number of sources, work and activism, both of which including newsletters, photos, figures, involve a collective and collaborative cartoons, posters, and activists’ fervent effort among a range of ngos, all levels speeches. British Columbia’s “War in of government, First Nations, industry, the Woods” saw community groups schools, children, artists, musicians, challenging the state and corporate and many exceptionally hard-working stakeholders to bring about reforms in individuals. These books offer accessible forest management (Salazar and Alper and practical insights into the ways 2000), and Kawatski traces how political in which struggles to protect natural shifts and economic fluctuations have environments in British Columbia affected the environmental movement have intersected with a myriad of other and groups like seas since then, especially initiatives. given recent funding cuts for scientific Regrettably, neither book delves programs in Canada (e.g., Sisler 2014). By into how decolonization efforts may identifying key challenges and successes, soon affect land use and governance in this socio-ecological and political history their respective regions. Understanding of the Shuswap will serve as a roadmap this will be essential as government- for future environmental activism, both to-government and treaty negotiations in the region and more widely. unfold in practice and as new legal Pearse and Kawatski explain how precedents arise surrounding Aboriginal changing principles and practices rights and title (e.g., Tsilhqot’in Nation of forest governance, management, v. British Columbia, Supreme Court and conservation have been applied judgments, 26 June 2014). With the in these coastal and interior settings, large-scale implementation of ecosystem- and together they offer an overview based management in the Great Bear of key issues surrounding community Rainforest, historical accounts of the involvement in forest conservation. integration of conservation and resource British Columbia has been a global leader management efforts will be helpful to all in community forestry initiatives as an those trying to make sense of this new alternative to state control, a move that, political-economic territory. as McCarthy (2006) argues, represents These works also reveal a disappointing a wider shift in the role of non-state subtext of anthropocentrism, in that the Book Reviews 181 preservation of wilderness spaces is seen References as largely for the benefit and enjoyment BC Parks. 2015. http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/ of people, the purpose being to maintain bcparks/aboutBCParks/prk_desig.html. “viewscapes” or to preserve wildlife areas Bradshaw, Ben. 2003. “Questioning the for human provisioning, recreation, or Credibility and Capacity of Community- Based Resource Management.” Canadian hunting. This reflects a common tendency Geographer 47 2 137 50 in environmental literature to overlook ( ): - . Duinker, Peter N., Patrick W. Matakala, the agency and importance of more-than- Florence Chege, and Luc Bouthillier. human actors and communities. Pearse’s 1994. “Community Forests in Canada: An and Kawatski’s anecdotal histories might Overview.” Forestry Chronicle 70 (6): 711-20. fruitfully be read alongside the work McCarthy, James. 2006. “Neoliberalism and of scholars who explore this aspect the Politics of Alternatives: Community Forestry in British Columbia and the of environmentalism – for instance, Annals of the Association of Bruce Braun, Sarah Whatmore, Steve United States.” American Geographers 96 (1): 84-104. Hinchliffe, and John Cianchi. Salazar, Debra, and Donald K. Alper, eds. Overall, Kawatski and Pearse use 2000. Sustaining the Forests of the Pacific vastly different approaches to present Coast: Forging Truces in the War in the Woods. their narratives. Having sifted through Vancouver: ubc Press. 2014 twenty-five years of files and records, Sisler, Julia. . “Research Cutbacks by Kawatski presents an incredible amount Government Alarm Scientists: Federal Government Has Dismissed More Than of detail chronologically in just over a 2,000 Scientists in Past 5 Years.” cbc hundred pages. Pearse, while offering News (online), 10 January. Available at a tantalizing account of conserving and http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/ developing (sometimes in tandem) Sidney research-cutbacks-by-government-alarm- 1 2490081. Island’s lands, left me wishing for more scientists- . detail about the lived reality of that undertaking – information I might be able to transfer to the context of similar efforts in my own community of Denman Island. Nonetheless, Pearse and Kawatski make visible the diversity of actors involved in British Columbia’s environmental movement and, in their accounts of community conservation, celebrate the names and faces behind some critical moments and campaigns. Together, they reveal the richness of this history and the personal commitment of impassioned people to protect the places they love. They are to be commended for their success in balancing factual reporting with specific and engaging stories. We need more books like these to build a locally and deeply rooted anthology of the socio-ecological history of British Columbia. 182 bc studies

Drawn to Sea: Paintbrush to fulfilment. Leaving the southern tourist Chainsaw – Carving Out a Life town of White Rock to be with Albert, on BC’s Rugged Raincoast lover and prawn fisher, Maximchuk soon discovers the pleasures and pitfalls of Yvonne Maximchuk living in the tiny community of Echo Bay. There are first encounters with their Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2013. 272 $24 95 new neighbours (including the finned pp. . paper. and feathered varieties), wild storms, fishing adventures with neighbour Billy Procter, family turmoil, and, of course, Born Out of This what no West Coast memoir could be considered complete without: agonizing Christine Lowther descriptions of homestead construction Halfmoon Bay: Caitlin Press, 2014. projects. Photographs of labouring family 208 pp. $21.95 paper. and friends, piles of slimy fish, ragtag houseboats, and the occasional glimpse Molly Clarkson of stunning north coast scenery set the University of British Columbia scene. A painter and potter by trade, ver since Muriel Wylie Blanchet’s Maximchuk depicts her world with the The Curve of Time (1961), memoirs practised eye of an established landscape ofE some of the West Coast’s most tough artist. The colours are bright and, at and toothsome women have enjoyed a times, the renditions can seem overly prominent position on BC Ferries’ gift effusive (though I am unclear whether shop bookshelves. Recent publications to attribute this to jealousy or literary such as Sylvia Taylor’s The Fisher snobbery). The intricacies of waterline Queen (2012), the collection Gumboot construction, tiling techniques, and Girls: Adventure, Love and Survival on septic field systems are, at times, explored British Columbia’s North Coast (2012), in a detail unsuitable for vacationing and the stories of Nikki van Schyndel minds. But there is a refreshing lack of in Becoming Wild: Living the Primitive inhibition to Maximchuk’s account and Life on a West Coast Island (2014) nestle an unpretentiousness that is thoroughly in among cookbooks trading in seafood enjoyable. or kale-centric cuisine. But these aren’t Christine Lowther’s autobiographical just stories for tourists. Even we West collection of short stories, Born Out of Coasters need some escapism from This – a reference to the Roman goddess time to time (after all, not all of us can of passion, Venus, who emerged from live on houseboats or forage for our the ocean in a seashell – works within evening’s supper), and the two most the West Coast memoir genre but recent additions to the genre offer up offers up something quite different the ultimate literary staycation for those from that of the generations of writers who like it wet, tough, and woolly. who preceded her. In contrast with Maximchuk’s memoir Drawn to Sea, Maximchuk’s wild palette, Lowther’s set in the Broughton Archipelago, is an writing has the slick, cool texture of a exemplary archetype of the genre: woman river boulder. The restraint to her prose sets out into the coastal wilds (with two can, perhaps, be attributed to her long young children in tow) to begin a new life career as a poet. An undercurrent of grief marked by toil, adversity, and (eventual) runs through the book, which opens Book Reviews 183 with her and her family’s memories of Unarrested Archives: Case the events surrounding the murder of Studies in Twentieth-Century her mother, the poet Pat Lowther, and Canadian Women’s Authorship fragments of her experiences growing up in foster and group homes around Linda M. Morra North Vancouver. As a young woman 1980 Toronto: University of Toronto in the s, Lowther threw herself – 2014 244 $29 95 Doc Martens first – into the burgeoning Press, . pp. . paper. punk scene of Vancouver, then headed Patricia Demers to the west coast of Vancouver Island to University of Alberta protest the logging of old-growth forest at Clayoquot Sound. his precisely Born Out of This is as much about punk researched and and politics as it is a meditation on wild engaging study enlarges our places. The excellent chapter entitled understandingT of the archive by focusing “Generally Giving a Damn” chronicles on the decisions taken by or imposed Lowther’s work as a young zine creator upon five Canadian women writers and punk activist in Canada and the regarding the disposition of their papers United Kingdom, while “We Tremble in or literary record. Invoking and then Response” reflects on growing up during challenging the foundational theories of Foucault and Derrida, Unarrested the Cold War and the author’s early Archives activism against nuclear armament. The deftly grounds its analyses in politics of Clayoquot Sound also infuse an expanded theoretical field, including these stories. Lowther’s houseboat is the work of Ann Cvetkovich on trauma, anchored at Meares Island, site of the 1984 Antoinette Burton on the omnipresence protests by members of the Nuu-chah- of archive stories, and Anjali Arondekar nulth nation to stop proposed logging on the colonial archive. Through the of the island by MacMillan Bloedel. In lens of gender trained on distinct socio- one memorable chapter, Lowther climbs political and cultural traces of women an eight-hundred-year-old western red writers as citizens, Morra explores cedar to save it from the ragged teeth of what was allowed, disallowed, and kept the developer’s chainsaw. away from material institutions. Using Born Out of This is a deeply place-based “unarrested” in the sense of being freed account of one woman’s life on the edge. or mobilized, she asks the important Unlike other contributors to the genre, question: By whom and for whom are however, Lowther embraces the fluidity archives? between urban and wilder places in a way The case studies present both troubling that is wholly her own, and she includes features of erasure and condescension meditations on urban wildlife and calls and positive instances of fastidious for the “mingling” of writers across the preservation, according to the writer’s coast’s social landscape. Daring to criss- own conditions. For the subject of the cross activist stereotypes and literary first case study, Pauline Johnson, Morra argues forcefully for public performances genres, Lowther’s passion lives up to her 24 title. May I offer a home-brewed toast as “a form of the unarrested archive” ( ), to the wild west coast women’s memoir complicated by the fact that archival – and to these two excellent additions to records related to these performances the collection. have mysteriously disappeared (from the University of Reading and subsequently 184 bc studies from the Harry Ransom Center at unapproved editorial changes to her work the University of Texas). Noting that are among the examples of fully informed “orality and embodied performances artistic integrity contained in the Rule are key to the production of knowledge archive, now housed – after considerable in Indigenous cultures” (19), Morra negotiation – at the University of British underscores Johnson’s British and Columbia. Philip’s protracted court case, Mohawk heritage as a performer who bringing libel action against reporter embodied both her Indigenous presence Michael Coren and Toronto radio station and proud participation in imperial cfrb, constitutes a minor archive that Canada. She uncovers the power of effects something major. As Morra Johnson’s performance of “A Cry from comments on this archive, which refuses an Indian Wife,” offering insight into the erasure of the African Canadian the predicament of an Indigenous community, Philip “is social activist woman at the same time as it asserts rather than social outcast, legitimate Johnson’s authorship and challenges “the protestor rather than public parasite” (175). restrictive national imaginary espoused Through its range of genres and in the period” (42). Morra’s treatment cultural periods, meticulous scholarship, of the second case study, Emily Carr, and respect for the public life of women concentrates on the strong, shaping, writers’ documents, Unarrested Archives revising role played by Professor Ira recalibrates perspectives on what might Dilworth in the publication of her be uncovered and what must be preserved. writing, especially the posthumously published Growing Pains. Since Carr actually allowed Dilworth to make these decisions, Morra manages quite adroitly Vancouver Blue: to present his collaboration as Carr’s A Life against Crime acquiring “greater ontological weight” and “securing the very self-agency that Wayne Cope would have been threatened or denied Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 54 altogether” ( ). Her case study of Sheila 2015. 224 pp. $24.95 paper. Watson is a related but distinct instance of an imminent narrative of a writer’s Bonnie Reilly Schmidt withheld personal story and another Langley example of the significance of male endorsement, this time by F.M. Salter, leading to the approbation of Watson’s ayne Cope joined the Vancouver The Double Hook. Police Department (vpd) in 1975, The remaining two case studies, theW fulfilment of a childhood dream Jane Rule and M. NourbeSe Philip, to be a police officer. Like most police change the tone from appropriation, memoirs, Cope’s is filled with anecdotal marginality, and reluctant disclosure stories, some humorous and some sad, to activist involvement and attention acquired during his thirty years in to the materiality of racial exclusion. the force. Stories about filling traffic Rule’s interventions in the raid of the ticket quotas (44), playing “Jailhouse Little Sister’s bookstore, her refusal Jeopardy” (127), and buying the best dog to abide by the heteronormative food available for his canine partner conditions of a contest in Chatelaine, Wolfe (91), make for entertaining and her uncompromising opposition to reading for a popular audience. Book Reviews 185

Cope’s personality dominates the communities because of their federal narrative and the events he describes. policing model (215-17). His self-proclaimed “signature move” as The more interesting part of the book a police officer was to bring his personal comes at the end, with Cope’s description weapons to work, where he could “play of his work with the vpd’s Historical with them.” During one shift, Cope, Homicide Unit, particularly his work an avid hunter, decided to bring his in successfully solving Vancouver’s 1980 compound bow to the office, where he “Centrefold Murders” (174-98). Cope’s fired it in the hallway leading to the detailed discussion of the case provides kitchen jail. The arrow narrowly missed insight into how the police investigate him as it rebounded off the target wall and solve serious crimes. It is here that and back towards him (126-27). While readers gain a real sense of Cope’s skills foolhardy, this example demonstrates as an investigator. The importance of Cope’s gunslinger approach to police preserving physical evidence and the use work and the lasting influence of of modern scientific tools such asdna watching Gunsmoke on television as a testing to solve decades-old crimes make child (14-15). for the most engaging reading (206, 212). In the narrative, Cope relies on Interestingly, Cope does not discuss generalizations that dehumanize others. in any detail the vpd’s handling of While a distraction in the text, this Vancouver’s murdered and missing practice is a coping mechanism that Aboriginal women file. This may be many police officers adopt to relieve because his involvement was limited stress. Those who break the law are to interviewing the suspect’s friends in called “scrotes” (short for scrotum) (19, 2002 (185-86). Nevertheless, Cope avoids 127), “worthless scum” (19), and “jailhouse any discussion surrounding the politics rats” (39), while members of the public behind the case, the vpd’s handling of are referred to as “idiots” (80). Cope is the investigation, or the public outcry unapologetic for these characterizations, that ensued. Readers hoping to gain explaining that, when writing tickets, he insight into one of Canada’s most horrific left “the humans [i.e., regular taxpayers] mass murder investigations will be alone.” It was the drunks, criminals, and disappointed by this omission. gangsters who received tickets, a personal Cope ends his book with “Enigmatic,” “rule” he followed for “more than thirty- a challenge to readers to solve a code he four years of policing” (45). has devised. Budding cryptographers are Further, some of Cope’s fellow police encouraged to e-mail their answers to officers are referred to as “peasants” Cope, who will reward the first person (149); “lazy, stupid, incompetent” (77); to break the code with a five-dollar silver and, in the case of one competitor for maple leaf coin. It is an unusual close to the same promotion, a “drunken little a memoir about law enforcement in the malingerer” (118). Indeed, Cope devotes City of Vancouver. one section of Chapter 7 to what he terms “The Idiot Factor” in thevpd (77- 79), a critique that does little to instill confidence in Vancouver’s police force. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are also singled out for criticism. They are described as “incapable” of municipal policing and of no benefit to local 186 bc studies

A Better Place on Earth: The he particularizes things to British Search for Fairness in Super Columbia in a way that will be genuinely Unequal British Columbia useful. He writes well, illustrates his account with the sort of human-interest Andrew MacLeod stories that journalists do so well, Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, canvasses a wide range of opinion, 2015. 246 pp. $22.95 paper. marshals a mass of statistical evidence in easily digestible form, and draws Warren Magnusson attention to a wide range of problems. University of Victoria He well knows that British Columbia is not unique and that it would be wrong to lay every problem at the feet of the his is a journalist’s book about one provincial government. Nevertheless, of the crucial issues of our time: he shows quite convincingly that British growingT inequality. As Thomas Piketty Columbia is often at the bottom of shows in his careful study entitled the league tables in interprovincial Capital in the Twenty-First Century comparisons, for reasons connected to (2014), the tendency for inequality to provincial policy. increase over time in market societies is All that said, the book is a bit not just a possibility: it is a demonstrable frustrating for an academic reader – or fact. Andrew MacLeod explores this indeed for anyone who is looking for a trend in British Columbia, focusing tight analysis of the problem of inequality on the years since the Liberals came in British Columbia. MacLeod suggests to power in 1991. If one of the aims of a thirty-six different ways of reducing good government is to reduce poverty, inequality, some of which are relatively our current government has been a easily achievable (like raising the failure. Its policies have increased minimum wage or enhancing pensions), inequality, and this has exacerbated others of which are doable but would many ills that MacLeod explores, produce stiff opposition (like taxing not just poverty. Of course, the BC capital gains the same as other income government has had a lot of help in or imposing inheritance or wealth taxes), this regard: from a federal government and still others – like creating more “well- with a similar ideology, international paying jobs,” his No. 1 recommendation – organizations and foreign governments that are more like dreams than programs that push in the same direction, think of action. It is hard to develop a plan of tanks and commentators who keep action without a more careful analysis of telling us that less is more in terms the sources of the problem or the obstacles of regulation and taxation, and an to solving it. MacLeod canvasses various economics profession entranced by views, but he lacks the means to do market models and isolated from the the analysis himself, so the reader is other social and historical sciences. As left wondering how to think about the Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin explain many facts he presents and is liable to in The Making of Global Capitalism choose whatever solutions seem easiest, (2012), the current order of things was which are not likely to be the ones that established politically and will not actually work. As many commentators be undone easily. MacLeod does not besides Piketty have made clear, the do as much as Piketty to prick the technical difficulties involved in reducing bubble of neoliberal pretensions, but inequality are by no means as great as the Book Reviews 187 political ones. No doubt, inequality is most prominent voices in opposition to bad for all of us, as Richard Wilson and the heedless development of industrial Kate Pickett show in their brilliant The and extractive economies in northwest Spirit Level (2009). Wealthy people are British Columbia. The interviews not much convinced of that, however. collected here expose the tensions Unless the disfavoured are mobilized, within and between these groups, but, there is not likely to be much change, more important, they highlight the and the change is unlikely to be in the political, strategic, and material threads right direction if there is no coherent and that unite these actors into a powerful easily understandable analysis of what force advocating for the democratic the problems are and how they might control of resources and development. be addressed. Scholars have to do the The Answer Is Still No is remarkable analysis. MacLeod has reminded us of for its many expressions of solidarity, the many tasks before us in that respect. particularly among the diverse collection of Indigenous peoples acting against the pipelines and also across the broad cross- The Answer Is Still No: section of coalition interests described Voices of Pipeline Resistance above. Some of this solidarity can be attributed to the missteps of pipeline Paul Bowles and Henry proponents. It is clear that the voices Veltmeyer, editors here from the environmental advocacy sector are not the “foreign radicals” Black Point, NS: Fernwood Pub- of former federal finance minister Joe 2014 144 $22 95 lishing, . pp. . paper. Oliver’s fevered imagination but, rather, a thoughtful, committed, well informed Jonathan Peyton University of Manitoba group of active and concerned citizens who were given a sense of mission, and were motivated to act for a common anti- he Answer Is Still No is a disparate pipeline purpose, by Oliver’s strange T collection of voices united in characterization of those who disagreed opposition to Enbridge’s Northern with the Conservative Party’s position Gateway Pipelines: First Nations on development. Equally, the diverse activists and hereditary chiefs, Indigenous groups of British Columbia, members of the environmental especially those that face the material movement establishment and those burdens and opportunities of industrial self-consciously on its fringes, youthful development, have been emboldened activists ushering in new strategies by the strategic ineptitude of Enbridge, of dissent, and seasoned campaigners especially its lack of consultation and offering the experience of years in the engagement. Nikki Skuce of ForestEthics proverbial trenches. Fishers and world- suggests that “opposition to Enbridge renowned carvers appear in these pages created a lot more solidarity, a lot more alongside stalwart metropolitan veterans people working together, a lot more and incidental environmentalists – understanding” (82). for example, Shannon McPhail of Most interviewees condemn the Hazelton, whose questions about company for its failure to acquire the effects of drilling for gas in the “social licence,” defined by McPhail headwaters of salmon-bearing rivers as “the blessing of the community” made her, very unexpectedly, one of the (100). The absence of social licence – 188 bc studies which might also be called “corporate Salmon: A Scientific Memoir social responsibility” – reflects the company’s allergy to consultation with Jude Isabella local communities and First Nations Victoria: Rocky Mountain Books, governance structures. Interviewees also 2014. 240 pp. $20.00 paper. exhibit sophisticated understandings of complex social, political, and ecological Stephen Bocking phenomena. Dene youth leader Trent University Jasmine Thomas brings an awareness of the cumulative impacts of multiple nspired by John Steinbeck, journalist developments to her discussion of the lack Jude Isabella combines narrative of consent obtained by Enbridge, while andI knowledge in a well crafted and the interviewers themselves often coax informative ode to the Pacific coast. reflections on the inequities that manifest Her account of salmon, science, and locally from interactions with colonialism history is drawn from her studies and and modern industrial capitalism, which from experience, especially time spent are expressed variously in terms of travelling along the coast, working with neoliberalism and extractivism. scientists and others who know it well. The material threads are equally One significant theme is the practical, powerful. In particular, multiple voices often hard work involved in doing mention the discursive power of water science in the field. For John Reynolds, and salmon. For John Ridsdale, a an ecologist at Simon Fraser University, Wet’suwet’en hereditary chief, water is it means dragging bags of dead salmon a metaphor for the solidarity evident in through the woods, mimicking wolves the struggle against Enbridge. It is the and bears so as to understand their role element that ties everyone together. And in moving nutrients from ocean to forest. for long-time environmental campaigner Out at sea with Marc Trudel of the Pat Moss, salmon is everything, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans, keystone species at the heart of regional it is about studying water chemistry ecologies and economies. and picking through plankton to piece For those with an interest in the future together evidence of what salmon do of northwest British Columbia, and for in the “black box” of the Pacific. And others who share concerns about the with ecologist Anne Salomon and her trajectories of development elsewhere students, Isabella plants bags of clams in the Canadian north and beyond, The on beaches to understand how they Answer Is Still No offers a compelling grow when cultivated. Along the way indictment of the state of contemporary she observes how scientists reason and resource politics while also providing produce knowledge, how they struggle a case for being optimistic that the to gather funding during an era of most hubristic projects will remain constrained research budgets, and how, unsuccessful development dreams. on the coast, science is not just a job but a way of life. Isabella also learns, as does the reader, about the ecology of salmon and other coastal species: how they relate to each other, change over time, and experience threats such as climate change and pathogens. Reynolds explains to her why Book Reviews 189 salmon can also be considered creatures of the forest. From Trudel she learns about the uncertain survival of salmon in the Pacific. Salomon shows how clams cultivated by coastal First Nations communities were essential food. These lessons have practical implications, such as the need to be aware of and to protect salmon-spawning streams, even the small “ghost” creeks that scientific surveys often miss. Striking observations also emerge along the way, such as the lovely notion that salmon, through their influence on forests, also affect the diversity of birds and, therefore, their songs: salmon thus keep the forest in tune. Many of her most intriguing passages relate to the history of coastal First Nations as deduced from middens, the ancient remains of fish traps and clam gardens, the memories of elders, and the reports of early anthropologists. This history also provides a necessary corrective to the common view of British Columbia as the “salmon coast.” While salmon have always been important, so have other foods, including herring, eulachon, clams, and waterfowl. This diversity speaks to what life was like for those who depended on what the coast could provide. It has never been an easy paradise but, rather, a place on the edge of an often chaotic ocean, marked by unpredictable cycles of abundance and scarcity that demanded caution, adaptation, and the cultivation of diverse options. Understanding this has required scientists and First Nations, and archaeologists and ecologists, to cooperate – a model, Isabella suggests, of the conduct required if life on the coast is to be guided by knowledge and wisdom.