Finding Directions West: Readings that Locate and Dislocate Western Canada's Past ed. by George Colpitts and Heather Devine (review)

Based on a selection of research presentations at the Directions West: 3rd Biennial Conference on Western Canadian Studies at the University of Calgary in June 2012, this anthology showcases a range of contemporary scholarly approaches to the history of Western Canada. Its editors preface the volume with a brilliant, even inspired, reflection on the diversity and mutability of perceptions of the region while highlighting a central theme that binds the anthology into a coherent whole: the constancy of movement among Indigenous peoples and newcomers, and their attendant efforts to situate themselves physically, intellectually, socially, and spiritually in the West.

The first two articles cast a critical eye on museums and archives—institutions that have long been regarded, and that have long regarded themselves, as custodians of authoritative knowledge of the history of the region and its people. Kimberly Mair examines museological representations of first contact between Indigenous peoples and newcomers at the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton and the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria. Mair raises excellent points about the power of an exhibition space to privilege and reinforce a particular historical perspective, but offers little constructive insight into how museums (especially history museums) might better position themselves as places of public learning and engagement in an era of reconciliation. More salutary lessons can be gleaned from Cheryl Avery and Shelley Sweeney's exploration of archival practices surrounding LGBT+ history in Western Canada. On the basis of survey responses from fellow archivists, Avery and Sweeney identify numerous impediments to the creation of comprehensive records of LGBT+ lives and experiences. Their observations should resonate beyond the archival community and be heeded by practitioners of academic and public history more generally.

Equally instructive are three articles that use a biographical lens to unsettle deep-rooted narratives. Heather Devine's study of Joseph Zépherin LaRocque of Lebret, Saskatchewan, reveals the potential of vernacular histories—compiled by grassroots, non-professional historians—to illuminate long-marginalized Indigenous accounts and thus to complicate and enhance so-called official histories of the West. In his essay on Reverend John McDougall, Will Pratt challenges the postcolonial caricature of Christian missionaries as uncomplicated, one-dimensional bad guys. Pratt presents a complex portrait of a missionary whose objectives evolved dramatically over his ministry and who advocated safeguarding aspects of Stoney Nakoda culture and economy against the state's assimilationist policies. Sterling Evans analyzes the travel diary of Englishwoman Mary Rundle, who served as secretary to the Royal Commission on the Coal Industry in Alberta in 1935. Evans is particularly deft at treating silences in Rundle's diary—little mention is made of on-the-ground consequences of the Great Depression or the Dust Bowl—and so raises important questions about travellers' perceptions and representations of their surroundings.

In the two strongest contributions to the collection, Mallory Richard and Sarah Carter examine early suffrage and reform work on the Canadian Prairies. Drawing on articles, editorials, and cartoons in the Grain Growers' Guide, Richard delineates strategies of inclusion and exclusion employed by white women (especially British-Canadian women) in their campaign for enfranchisement. Her contention that these women adopted and affirmed the nativist views of the dominant society (especially as relating to race) in the 1910s provides a springboard for Carter's examination of a new articulation of Britishness that some women activists espoused in the 1920s. Carter sheds light on the relationship between two leading figures in the suffrage and reform movements, Britain's Emmeline Pankhurst and Western Canada's Emily Murphy, revealing how the two influenced each other's advocacy of eugenics in the service of "race betterment" within the British Empire. Her article is an important addition not only to Western Canadian historiography, but also to British imperial historiography.

Rounding out the volume are two articles on transformations of place. Max Foran presents a well-researched and nuanced assessment of...