observe the maturation ofdull, obese children. He writes movingly of his shortcomings as a husband and his anxieties as a father, even as he hopes that the ghosts of theOregon Trail will somehow deliver him fromhis fears. Approaching thepast to escape the modern condition, rather than trying to understand history on itsown terms, inevitably leads to at least a littlenostalgia and romanticizing, shortcomings that Ghosts of thePioneers is not immune from.But thiswell written and engaging book often eschews simple answers to the dilemmas of the past and, especially, the present. David Peterson del Mar Portland, Oregon 4). InspiredbyhistorianRichardWhite, Arnold has explored the deep connections between salmon and humans ? an intimacy fostered largely throughwork? asking the question, is there anything intrinsicallyvaluable in the continued existence of local, small-boat fishing cultures? In answering the question, Arnold has untangled some of the social and environ mental relationships between humans and fish along the Alaska Panhandle and discussed how these relationships have shiftedand evolved in response to outside forces. Arnold's is a thoughtful and insightful examination. Take the example of the fish trap: theearlyNative people used weirs to trap salmon on rivers; the early fishery canneries used trapsforthe same purpose, until they were outlawed in 1959.But now, biologists are con sidering bringing fish traps back as amethod for sortinghatchery fish fromwild fish,using a harvest tool to perpetuate the runs. The most detailed section ofArnold's book deals with the early aboriginal fishery and the threewaves of colonization in Southeast Alaska: maritime fur traders, exploitation by Russia, and exploitation by Americans after 1867. Early settlement emerged where the salmon were most easily exploited. Because the runs have often been as concentrated as they have been variable, Native peoples developed efficientsystems for capturing fish.They also developed a system of property rights that acted to limitfishing intensity. The goals were not ecological but social and cultural, since abundant resources guaranteed the prosperity of the clan and prestige of the clan leader. Itwas Euro-Americans who, vested in the ideas of property and ownership, created an open access fishery that allowed industrial scale development and the near-destruction ofmany runs. The European fur traders and theRussians did not have themanpower or technology to fully exploit the fisheries, but theAmericans did. Local salmon fisheries became global as theypassed from Indian to THE FISHERMEN'SFRONTIER: PEOPLE AND SALMON INSOUTHEAST ALASKA by David RArnold University ofWashington Press, Seattle, 2008. Illustrations, photographs, charts,maps, notes, bibliography, index. 296 pages. $35.00 cloth. Books about fish tend to be tales of decline. This is especially true of the large literature about Pacific salmon, chronicling thedestruc tion of the resource at the hands of people who have not understood, or have refused to accept,what thefishneed to survive. A welcome exception isDavid F.Arnold's portrait of the small-boat fisheryand fishermen of Southeast Alaska. It isa fisherythat isecologically healthy, ifnot necessarily economically sound, and if that seems tobe a paradox, that isbecause it is a fishing culture as varied and changeable as thefish themselves. Arnold, a professor of history atColumbia Basin College who has spent time as a small boat fisherman, has written "a history of a living salmon fishery ? and salmon fisher men ? from pre-contact to the present" (p. 636 OHQ vol. 109, no. 4 American control, creating a bewilderingly contested terrain ? Alaskans versus outsid ers, corporations against independent small fishermen, trollers versus gillnetters, state versus the federal government. Itwas amessy mix, and Arnold devotes only one chapter to the eventsbetween 1950and 2000. That tightly compresses thepost-war transformationof the fishery,statehood inAlaska, the rise ofNative corporations, and the international develop ment offishfarmsfor Atlantic salmon?forces that continue to influence the survival of the Southeast Alaskan fishery. An additional chap ter would have been welcome. Arnold glides lightlyover the role of fish eries science and management, writing that managers were moving toward an ecological approach after 1903,which predates bymore than twodecades thefirstenunciation ofwhat would come tobe called ecology.While there were early scientists concerned that runswere being overharvested, a systematic investigation ofwhat was needed toperpetuate theAlaskan runsdid not begin until after1945, in thewake of overharvestby thefederal government dur ing the war. Still, the focus...
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Jan 1, 2012
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