The Nature of Borders: Salmon, Boundaries, and Bandits on the Salish Sea by Lissa K. Wadewitz

Abstract

 OHQ vol. 114, no. 3 thorough treatment of the events that led to the Bear River Massacre in January 1863 would benefit readers as well.The Bear River incident was a massacre, not a battle, as described here; it resulted in the greatest loss of lives — current estimates suggest perhaps as many as four hundred , possibly more, Northwestern Shoshone Indians were killed — and it set a precedent for later massacres, in that it was conducted in the dead of winter. Etulain writes in a lively, interesting style that flows beautifully. Readers with extensive knowledge of the literature on Lincoln, however ,might be frustrated with parts of the book, because it includes material widely available elsewhere. Nonetheless, readers will find the sections on Lincoln’s friends and colleagues in Oregon and the dynamics of territorial politics in the 1860s valuable new contributions to existing literature. Robert K. Sutton National Park Service The Nature of Borders: Salmon, Boundaries, and Bandits on the Salish Sea by Lissa K. Wadewitz University of Washington Press, Seattle and London, 2012. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 328 pages. $24.95 paper. In 2009, the Washington State Board of Geographic Names joined the British Columbia Geographical Names Office in approving the use of the term“Salish Sea”to denote the body of water encompassing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Georgia Strait, and Puget Sound. The change was intended to recognize the region’s indigenous inhabitants and ecological interconnectedness , and many residents hailed it as step toward better stewardship of a shared environment. At the same time, however, the new name belied the persistence of political boundaries that have had deep and often damaging effects on both people and nature. Lissa K.Wadewitz’s transnational study explores the shifting character and ecological consequences of borders on the Salish Sea from the aboriginal period to the 1920s. Weaving environmental, immigration, and labor history in the style of Thomas Andrews’s Killing for Coal (Harvard University Press,2008),Wadewitz deftly shows how various constituencies in Canada and the United States tried to enforce or evade the property regimes that the borders purported to fix on a fluid environment. The migratory habits of salmon, the mobility of commercial fishers, and the mercenary interests of capital all conspired to undermine fitful state efforts at conservation — leading ultimately to the collapse of the industrial fishery. We can learn from these mistakes, Wadewitz suggests, as well as from the management techniques of the region’s first inhabitants. In the first of six chapters, she outlines the aboriginal practicesthat demarcated thefishery and governed human relationships to salmon before European contact. Like historian Joseph Taylor,WadewitzcontendsthatNorthwestIndians effectively controlled their fishing through spiritual practices, spatial arrangements, and kinshipsystemsthatmoderatedharvestsdespite highlyefficienttechnology.Sheiscarefultopresent Native customs as dynamic, however, and she does not depict Indians as blind to the lure of commercial opportunity. Salmon became a valuabletradeitemduringthefur-tradeera,but the fishery remained in Native hands until the end of the nineteenth century.With the advent of industrial fishing and processing techniques, Euro-American canneries and fishers gradually forced Indians away from their traditional sites,while the U.S.and Canadian governments constructed an international boundary disconnected from both Native priorities and the realities of salmon migration.“Instead,”Wadewitz notes,“this new border created a spatially, politically, and economically bifurcated fishery that defied easy regulation” (p. 90).  Reviews The second half of the book details the conflict that erupted as diverse interests attempted to turn the border to their advantage. Wadewitz ’s sweeping narrative encompasses a labor force divided along multiple lines of race and ethnicity as well as competing capitalists and corporations on both sides of the boundary. While fishers fought among themselves over questions of access and acceptable gear, they also tangled with packers over fish prices and trans-border sales to rival companies. Cannery employees also crossed the border in pursuit of higher wages and better working conditions; Asian immigrants faced the greatest risk in doing so. Cannery owners tried to restrict worker mobility but often undercut each other’s efforts, especially by purchasing salmon from “fish pirates” who pilfered traps and easily slipped across the border to evade capture. In the mold of Karl Jacoby and Louis Mann...