Book Review

States of Nature: Conserving Canada's Wildlife in the Twentieth Century. By Tina Loo. Vancouver and Toronto: UBC Press; Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006. xxiv + 280 pp. Illustrations, notes, bibliography, and index. Cloth $85, paper $29.95.
It would not be an exaggeration to state that Tina Loo has provided the field of Canadian environmental history with its most sophisticated and original interpretation of wildlife conservation to date. She draws from varied case studies that span from the dawn of the twentieth century to about the 1970s, and covers each of Canada's five regions. Loo demonstrates the often caustic intersection between state-sponsored wildlife conservation programs and the defense of the public commons as she uncovers the changing "states" of nature that existed between Canadians and animals.	1
Loo gazes critically upon the various forms that wildlife conservation took during the past century and reckons that conservation had as much to do with social policy as it did with wildlife protection. She is particularly interested in three types—or, apropos to the title, "states"—of nature conservation. The first version is that defined by the state (provincial and eventually federal), which strove to put efficiency into natural systems management and by the 1930s deferred to the expertise of its own scientists in framing programs. The second is that of Jack and Manly Miner, Grey Owl, Farley Mowat, and Bill Mason, all sorts of celebrity conservationists who often had divergent points of departure and conclusions on the best method for treating wildlife. Generally, however, all adapted an approach charged with anthropomorphism. The final view-point was advanced by organizations such as Ducks Unlimited Canada and two wilderness guide-outfitters, Tommy Walker in British Columbia and Andy Russell in Alberta, who argued that wildlife protection began with the protection of wild spaces.	2
The first two chapters lay out the principle features of the early twentieth-century view of nature, and include a discussion of the imposition of the state into matters of management. Science professionals and the advent of parks are part of the story, as are the rise of a tourist economy and the place of private game clubs. This milieu, one that valued the wild countryside, necessitated a "colonization" of the rural by the urban, she argues. Loo particularly shines in explaining how local knowledge was pushed aside in the quest to regulate behavior in the wilds, which often meant passing legislation and creating an apparatus of surveillance to monitor adherence to game codes. The middle chapters showcase Jack Miner and Grey Owl. Charles Elton's contributions to the Hudson's Bay Company's efforts at conservation and game preserves are also well described. The final three chapters address the post-Second World War scene and highlight the idea of northern expansion and the management of animal populations to promote productivity (in the case of bison) and extermination (of predators such as wolves). It is here that the contributions of writer Farley Mowat and the writer-filmmaker Bill Mason are also drawn upon as well-known personalities who put conservation issues into the public consciousness following the war. The protection of natural spaces for private and public use forms the content of the last chapter.	3
A real strength of Loo is her skill at folding Aboriginal conservation efforts into the narrative. This vehicle helps her to reveal Aboriginal solutions to problems, thus helping her to make a central point over and over: rural resource users (including First Peoples), drawing on local knowledge, often did more to advance conservation programs than did distant experts employed by the state. The book is a tour-de-force, first-rate environmental history and deserves a wide readership in North America and beyond.	4
Neil S. Forkey teaches in the Canadian Studies Program at St. Lawrence University and is the author of Shaping the Upper Canadian Frontier: Environment, Society, and Culture in the Trent Valley (Calgary, 2003). He is writing a survey textbook, to be published by the University of Toronto Press, on the subject of Canadian environmental history.

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