The Environmental Justice: William O. Douglas and American Conservation by Adam M. Sowards

Abstract

 Reviews the forty-ninth parallel. Both Sonny McHalsie (chapter 3) and David Schaepe (chapter 8) explore how important the regional landscape was and is to Stó:lō ways of understanding their identities,culture,and history.Citing his many talks with tribal elders, McHalsie unveils how he came to identify and articulate his people’s connections to their surrounding landscape. Imbedded in those lands and waters is information about the transformers who set out“to make the world right,” supernatural creatures and spirits, and other past occurrences critical to the history of the Stó:lō people. Be of Good Mind also demonstrates that scholars need to interrogate more rigorously the impact of contact on the Coast Salish and that indigenous oral traditions are critical to that endeavor. Rocky Wilson (chapter 4) relates how the colonial government rendered his tribe, the Lemalchi, non-existent due to strict rules surrounding tribal recognition. Ironically, the Lemalchi have only recently been able to counter this legal invisibility in thecontemporarycourtsystem.KeithCarlson’s (chapter 5) research shows how meshing Native oral traditions with other types of evidence can reveal critical events in Coast Salish early contact history that were not directed or controlled by colonial forces. Mining oral history interviews from the 1940s, Crisca Bierwert (chapter 6) likewise focuses on gleaning new information about the transitions Coast Salish communities underwent from contact to the twentieth century. Brent Galloway (chapter 7) adds to these analyses by tracing Coast Salish language loss and recent revival efforts. Nearly all of the authors in this volume include careful and insightful questions about how their disciplines have approached Coast Salish topics and the sometimes questionable consequences of these approaches for Native peoples, especially in the legal system. Daniel Boxberger (chapter 3) outlines how the field of anthropology has changed to be more responsive to the needs and desires of indigenous communities. By analyzing various anthropological sources,BillAngelbeck (chapter 9) highlights how an overreliance on ethnographic material can skew interpretations of the role of warfare in Coast Salish history. In a similar vein, Colin Grier (chapter 10) critiques the tendency of archaeologists to rely too heavily on ethnographic sources and suggests this may limit how scholars read their own archaeological evidence. Overall, this is a strong volume of which Suttles would no doubt be proud. The interdisciplinary focus of Be of Good Mind and its careful attention to both the academic and the Native sides of these issues set this book apart and speak to the huge strides made in the realm of Coast Salish scholarship in recent years. Lissa Wadewitz Linfield College The Environmental Justice: William O. Douglas and American Conservation by Adam M. Sowards Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, 2009. Photographs, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 208 pages. $24.95 paper. When I was asked to reviewAdam M.Sowards’s The Environmental Justice, I agreed immediately .Having read Wild Bill:The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas,I was intrigued with the idea of doing a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde piece. The latter book by BruceAllen Murphy tips off its tone with its title, Wild Bill. Sowards chronicles , with rich detail, many of Douglas’s most memorable actions to preserve our national landscape at a time when the environmental movement was barely in its infancy. I have been associated with public figures most of my eighty-eight years, starting with my godfather, Gutzon Borglum, sculptor of Mount Rushmore, who exposed me to many great figures of the day. I became fascinated  OHQ vol. 111, no. 1 with famous figures and the realization that the person the public saw and the real person were far from the same. Following World War I,when technology produced the New Media,I followed the path that led me to the University of Oregon School of Journalism. Even then, we were fascinated with celebrity, especially its dark side. We, the common herd, learned that there were better angels and dark devils lurking side-by-side in the high and mighty as well as in the underworld.Nobody quite fits this descriptionlikeWilliamOrvilleDouglas ,thedominant liberal Supreme Court justice from 1939 to 1975. Compared to him, the Pacific Northwest herovillains were small-time operators: Senators Bob Packwood and...