Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway by J. David Wood (review)

Book Reviews 581 exclusively on international relations.) With so much attention paid to international issues, there is little room for more detailed discussions of domestic fisheries policies and management practices. The only policies that are discussed to any degree are those affecting Newfoundland and, even there, the details are scant. Without more background, it is difficult to accept the author's assertion that the problem of Newfoundland's fishery is that there were 'too many fishermen catching too few fish.' Such an assessment, without a fuller discussion ofthe conditions in the various fisheries, the actual policies and how they were implemented, the allocation ofresources among the different sectors, gear types and access to technology, seems rather trite. Indeed, any study offisheries policies and management in Canada would need to delve into a larger range of issues, including the history of licence limitation, unemployment insurance, gender issues, conflicts among different vessel and gear types, conflicts between different regions (and ethnic groups) over resources , ecological change and habitat destruction, and access and property rights, to name only the most obvious. Aboriginal issues, mentioned only in passing in this book, are particularly critical in Canadian fisheries and deserve more attention. The literature on these areas has grown considerably in the past fifteen years, but is not reflected in Blake's work. Examining the history of Canada's fisheries is a worthwhile project, and Blake does well to highlight the significance ofmarine resources in international relations. The overly broad scope of this book, however, limits its usefulness as an introduction to fisheries issues. MIRIAM WRIGHT University ofBritish Columbia Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Re-creation before the Railway. J. DAVID WOOD. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 2000. Pp. 258, illus. $55.00 Just before the construction of the first railway, Canada West's population had reached one million. At first, from 1784, a haven for Loyalists and other refugees, after 1815 Upper Canada attracted settlers primarily from the British Isles. As such, it was on the northern flank of the continental wave of westward movement of settlement after the American War of Independence. David Wood is primarily concerned about how government and settlers organized the expanding ecumene (occupied area); what they did to ensure a living, mostly from the land through agriculture and forestry; and, not least, how the occupation resulted in a remarkable alteration of the physical environment. His useful study 582 The Canadian Historical Review should be read in tandem with Douglas McCalla's Planting the Province: The Economic History of Upper Canada, 1784-1870 (1993), as the line between economic history and historical geography is by no means a clear one. Some ofthe ground they cover overlaps and, not surprisingly, given the dearth of sources especially in the early decades, neither book has answered all the questions it might have. Landscape transformation is up front and looms large in Wood's conclusion. He discusses 'progress' as seen through contemporary commentators. Phrases such as the 'desire to subdue wildlands' reverberated through the province. The drive of Europeans was in full flight. But in keeping with today's worries about environmental degradation, Wood mutes his praise for the settlers with a lament over how much was lost in the process. Draining many of the more extensive swamps and marshes (such as the extensive wet prairies in the southwest) had to await more efficient drainage projects later in the century. But by 1850 the settlers, led by government surveyors enjoined to lay out grids, had already dramatically altered the landscape, using waterpower, their own energies, and those of animals. Two chapters consider the people, their demographic characteristics, and their social structure, concluding with a map ofthe 'social landscape' about 1850. This map indicates the regional degree oforganizational intensity, though, interestingly, church congregations and schools are not included in the analysis. Agriculture, forestry, and manufacturing are also considered. Land clearance was a slow process, so that, in 1822, a critical Robert Gourlay could argue that settlers were 'imprisoned in the woods.' By the 1840s, however, most had neighbours in a much more open landscape. By 1850 regional agricultural specializations began to appear, thus shifting farmers away from a reliance on wheat...