The Canadian Rangers: A Living History by P. Whitney Lackenbauer (review)

The history of government-aboriginal relations in Canada is fraught with tension and conflict. Protests over natural resource extraction, the legacy of residential schools and social and environmental disruptions caused by Cold War defence installations in the North are only some of the more recent issues that illustrate this troubled relationship. The Canadian Rangers, by contrast, are a remarkable exception to this history, as Whitney Lackenbauer explains in his examination of this unconventional citizen-soldier organisation and its evolution over the past seventy years. Published in the Canadian War Museum's Studies of Canadian Military History series, Lackenbauer traces the history of the Canadian Rangers from its origins in the World War II Pacific Coast Militia Rangers, through the Cold War with its cycles of rising and ebbing government interest in the organisation to the expansion and reorganisation years of the 1990s, and finally to present debates about the Rangers' structure and mandate. At the heart of his account rests the argument that contrary to rather disruptive government-aboriginal interactions, the Rangers are a 'success story' (p. 7). The Canadian Rangers, Lackenbauer explains, transcend national concerns over security, sovereignty and the development of peripheral regions with local expertise, traditional knowledge and aboriginal agency. Beyond their original mandate to serve as the military's 'eyes and ears' in remote and inaccessible areas, the Rangers and the military established a 'practical partnership' (p. 7) that allowed for a flexible adaption of military structures to local conditions and aboriginal traditions. More than conducting surveillance along Canada's peripheral regions, the Rangers took on leadership roles as patrol commanders and trainers for regular forces, sharing local expertise and traditional knowledge as well as unique skill-sets for sur vival in adverse environments. In doing so, the Rangers developed a mutually dependent relationship with the Canadian military and leveraged their unique place within it to strengthen community development and preser ve local knowledge and capacities. The creation of the Junior Canadian Rangers in 1996 epitomises this long-term shift from military to human security. Recognising the pressures of increasingly southern lifestyles on aboriginal youth and their communities, the Junior Ranger programme, under local leadership and instruction, combines training in Ranger skills with traditional and life skills. Throughout his study, Lackenbauer emphasises regional and demographic distinctions in the make-up of the Rangers. Mostly associated with the Inuit in Northern and Arctic Canada, Ranger patrols operate in all provinces and territories with aboriginal as well as non-aboriginal members. Lackenbauer cautions that without an appreciation of the Rangers' diverse regional histories, calls for greater national coherence and formalisation may, in fact, diminish those capabilities that distinguish the Rangers as an organisation.

The Canadian Rangers builds on a wealth of sources, including more than 80 oral history interviews, most of them with active or retired Rangers. As a participant in 14 Ranger patrols and military exercises, Lackenbauer, moreover, brings first-hand experience and interactions with Rangers in the field to his account. His book is an excellent resource for military and aboriginal historians. Lackenbauer also engages economic, social and cultural questions about the interplay of local, regional and national identities, aboriginal agency and community development in Canada's peripheral regions.