Fishing Places, Fishing People: Traditions and Issues in Canadian Small-Scale Fisheries ed. by Dianne Newell and Rosemary E. Ommer (review)

718 The Canadian Historical Review knowledge. These phenomena deserve more sustained analysis than Losier provides. One is left wondering how the Sisters responded to changes in the marketplace ofhealth or negotiated the growing gap between scientific and folk medicine. Moreover, how did they tolerate the contradiction of acting out idealized public roles as 'glorious' heroines, while inhabiting a private reality that was not the stuffofromance? Other subtle shadings of this story merit closer attention. For example, an examination of Acadian notions of popular piety could have served as another point of entry for understanding Viger's mystique. Ifbiography is 'rescued life,' then Losier has 'rescued' Amanda Viger from obscurity. Losier breaks sharply from the traditional hagiographical approach that celebrated female religious as otherworldly abstractions. The story of Viger's fellow sisters, however, is overshadowed by her towering presence in this biography. The full complexity oftheir experience at Tracadie is still to be unveiled. LAURIE C.C. STANLEY-BLACKWELL St Francis Xavier University Fishing Places, Fishing People: Traditions and Issues in Canadian SmallScale Fisheries. Edited by DIANNE NEWELL AND ROSEMARY E. OMMER. Toronto: University ofToronto Press 1999· Pp. 374, illus. $60.00 cloth, $24.95 paper In Canadian political and historical writing, fish have often been the ones that got away, rarely noted. But they have always been important, and not only, like the northern cod or west coast salmon, when unexpectedly absent. Fishing Places, Fishing People makes this hidden history visible, and in doing so contributes to our understanding of neglected dimensions of the Canadian experience: life in small communities; the work ofmarginalized groups, including women and Aboriginal peoples; economic activities outside the market; and activities untraceable in the written record. Several historians in this collection explore fisheries across Canada. Rosemary Ommer writes of a Newfoundland outport, portraying a culture now 'dying before our eyes.' Barbara Neis considers the roles of women in the Newfoundland fishery, in the context of the shift in authority from the home to the state. Jean Manore and John Van West relate economic and ecological changes in the Great Lakes to the lived experience of Lake Huron fishers. In a fascinating series of chapters, Arthur Ray, Frank Tough, Dianne Newell, J. Michael Thomas, and Peter Usher examine the often devastating impact of colonization, markets, Book Reviews 719 and the state on Aboriginal fisheries in Ontario, Manitoba, and British Columbia. Sociologists, anthropologists, and scientists add contemporary perspectives on Canadian fisheries. Neis and several colleagues examine the significance offishers' ecological knowledge in relation to conventional science. Patricia Gallaugher and Kelly Vodden describe recent public forums in BC communities, finding that these communities have the knowledge and commitment needed to act as stewards of Pacific fisheries . Bonnie McCay describes Newfoundlanders' distrust ofthe privatization of fisheries through individual quotas, tracing this distrust to a cultural context that emphasizes egalitarianism and community resilience in the face ofhardship. But Peter Sinclair and his colleagues tell a different story: of Newfoundlanders responding as individuals, not as communities, to difficult choices imposed by the cod moratorium. Evelyn Pinkerton provides a more theoretical perspective, on the development by anthropologists, political scientists, economists, and others ofa collective understanding of how communities can act as stewards of common property. Scientists Daniel Pauly and Jeffrey Hutchings discuss in separate chapters the intellectual crisis created by the failure ofscience to ensure sustainability, and the challenge ofensuring that decisions are based on our best understanding offish and their ecology. Historians can note several themes in this collection. One is the impact of capitalism, technology, and state-based management, often . wrecking in only a few decades fisheries that had long been sustainable. Another is the importance of international links. Lake Huron and the New York fish market; British Columbia and the Japanese appetite for herring spawn-on-kelp; nineteenth-century Newfoundland and British views on the inexhaustibility ofthe fisheries: these examples testify to a global traffic in commodities and ideas reaching even the most remote community. Helpfully, many authors refer to other chapters, identifying commonalities across diverse cases. Less helpfully, the book lacks an index. This collection also illustrates the value of diverse forms of evidence in understanding the history ofplaces and people. Ommer found in the layout of an...