BOOK REVIEWS Fish versus Power: An Environ­ works within which policies were mental History of the Fraser River formed, and the result is a narrative with a sort of tectonic quality about Matthew Evenden it. Steeped in primary documents Cambridge: Cambridge University produced by governments, quasi-gov- Press, 2004. 336 pp. Maps, illus. ernments, and corporations, Evenden produces a sort of Weberian morality US$65.00 cloth. play. Public and private organizations BY JOSEPH E. TAYLOR III rise, thrive, vie, and fall. Bureaucracies Simon Fraser University take on lives of their own, and original missions morph in distressing and bi­ zarre ways. Salmon often get lost in the N CIRCLES WHERE SALMON manage­ shuffle as entities maneuver for power ment gets debated, the Fraser River I or profit or fame or god-knows-what. looms large because it helps drive a neat In the end salmon survive, but this is syllogism, which goes something like not a success story. this: Columbia River runs imploded because American scientists supported Evenden draws out these lessons a massive dam-building program and* early with a sophisticated analysis of then failed to offset losses through the confusions surrounding efforts an equally massive hatchery system; to help salmon pass Hell's Gate. The Fraser River runs are vibrant because Gate, a notorious narrows on the science helped to rebuild degraded Fraser, was made far more turbulent habitat and then protected fish from after a series of railroad-induced land­ similar dam and hatchery programs; slides from 1911 to 1913. The river bed therefore Canadian salmon manage­ was so altered that adult salmon could ment was enlightened and US policies not pass, and lucrative sockeye runs were not. Unfortunately for people crashed. Nearly all understood that a who like this just-so story, Matthew catastrophe had occurred, but it took Evenden's Fish versus Power under­ years to comprehend the full impact, mines the separation of Canadian and decades to realize that problems were American in the history of salmon and festering, and nearly a half century to river management. No tidy boundaries muster the knowledge and will to fix remain but, rather, messy intellectual, things. Evenden's careful reading of material, and political relationships that the science and engineering behind this leave readers with abiding and, perhaps, project, however, reveals how tenuous a depressing respect for the contingencies solution it was. Good-intentioned sci­ of the past. entists descend into nasty, nationalistic spats, and, as Milo Bell later admitted, Although salmon frame the ques­ if anyone had understood how little was tions the author pursues, they have only known about Hell's Gate, they "might a marginal presence in this book. The not have given us authorization to build title says Fish, but the book's primary [a fish ladder]" (236). focus is "the institutional and political contexts of scientific knowledge" (12). The remainder of the book con­ Evenden's targets are the broad frame - centrates on efforts to develop hy- BC STUDIES, no. I42/143 2 Summer/Autumn 2004 2p# BC STUDIES droelectricity on the Fraser. Like its cracy which drove dam-building in the neighbours to the north and south, Pacific Northwest. British Columbia was blessed with Running through this book is an at­ vast latent hydraulic energy and cursed tention to transnational themes. Na­ by limited demand. This frustrating ture, ideas, and policies transgressed blend of contingencies vexed developers borders and made it impossible to during the early twentieth century, but understand events within a provin­ whereas American boosters had willing cial or national framework. Salmon and powerful allies in the federal gov­ migrations entangled fishers in messy ernment, in British Columbia federal treaties; floods triggered major changes and provincial forces were often at in dam politics on the Fraser and the odds over funding public projects, and Columbia. An international assemblage private utilities added capacity only of scientists and engineers at Hell's after demand emerged. Ironically, BC Gate engaged each other so intensively Electric was a saving grace for Fraser that calling their work "Canadian" salmon because it would not risk capital or "American" obscured the inherent on a mainstem dam without an obvious dynamism. The most significant energy market. implication of transnationalism was A conservative strategy served BC the formation of hydroelectric policy. Electric well in the Great Depression, Well-placed boosters lobbied to dam but a rush of industrial development the Fraser and even divert the Co­ during the Second World War resulted lumbia into the Thompson River, but in chronic brownouts and calls for a they were opposed by adamant salmon more anticipatory approach to power interests. Industrial forces were evenly development. The pressures that trans­ matched, but this only forestalled the formed the Pacific Northwest in the Fraser 's fate. Although General An­ 1920s and 1930s finally reshaped British drew McNaughton insisted that more Columbia in the postwar years. Un­ dams would enable BC to be "entirely like south of the 49 th parallel, however, masters of our own destiny" (223), he industry and government could never miscalculated the entangling alliances. align behind a dam-building program. Diplomacy and technology made the Politicians cajoled BC Electric to move Fraser irrelevant in 1961 when Canada forward on projects, but the company's and the US agreed to dam.the upper main goal was to deflect efforts to Columbia so that both American river make it a public utility. The Aluminum management and Canadian economic Company of Canada (ALCAN) diverted concerns were addressed. Meanwhile the Nechako River to power a smelter engineers perfected long-distance at Kitimat, in part by playing the power transmission, ensuring that dams Nechako off the Chilko River as the on the Columbia and Peace rivers could lesser of two evils, but ALCAN'S victory substitute for the Fraser. created a potent coalition of industry, In the end the Fraser, an almost management, and science concerned completely provincial river, remained about salmon habitat. Electric policy damless because of the transnational produced a Newtonian dynamic. nature of Columbia waters and Each new project inspired an equal electrical transmission. This is why and opposite reaction. The province's facile contrasts between Canadian and fractured industrial base prevented that American management fare poorly, and coalition of cities, industry, and bureau­ why the transnational focus is impera- Book Reviews <zpp tive. Evenden's arguments are deft, but Plants ofHatda Gwaii he could push them further. The floods Nancy J. Turner that were exploited by Fraser advocates were also seized upon by American Winlaw, BC: Sono Nis Press, 2004. boosters. A discussion of the different 264 pp. Illus. $38.95 cloth. contexts in which these visions played out would underscore the importance BY DOUGLAS DEUR of provincial political and economic University of Washington contexts. Conversely, Evenden's treat­ ment of the impact of the ALCAN project OR THOSE SCHOLARS conducting on the Cheslatta T'en is important, but Fresearch within First Nations this was anything but an isolated inci­ communities at this postcolonial mo­ dent. Attention to the regional impact ment in academic history, old rules of dams on Native peoples would do not apply. One must navigate a underscore how tales about salmon rearranged landscape made up of new expand our understanding of moder­ challenges and opportunities. First nity and colonialism. The bias toward Nations have both the desire and the the impact of dams on salmon habitat ability to restrict researchers' access: did deflect fish research from concerns they may actively seek to shape both about the ocean, but earlier research the methods by which research is to be had bared thorny regulatory issues no conducted and the manner and degree government wanted to address, and key to which their intellectual property will océanographie problems had to await be manifested in published form. More­ satellite technology. over, many First Nations seek a greater Fish versus Power is very good and co-equal role in the academic history, but it contains a chastening enterprise, with Aboriginal cultural conclusion. British Columbians spared specialists shaping research goals and Fraser salmon not because they had questions; unprecedented collab­ great empathy for nature, but because orative research opportunities emerge their electrical demands increased only that, when all runs smoothly, unite after technological innovations enabled indigenous cultural specialists with them to exploit the already-devastated outside researchers in the production Columbia and soon-to-be devastated of new and more culturally nuanced Peace. This is not the sort of tale that genres of academic discourse. Outside makes readers proud - the just-so stories researchers must devote unprecedented are much more effective on that score attention to developing relationships of - but this is why Matthew Evenden's mutual trust within the communities book is so important. It reminds us that they study. Research "for research's the frontiers more often constrain our sake" is seldom admissible, and one ability to understand and that novel must demonstrate convincingly, to an spatial constructs can create original audience jaded by decades of perceived and needed insights into the past and academic misrepresentation, that one's