Bridging Islands: The Impact of Fixed Links.

Randall White is the author of Voice of Region: On the Long Journey to
Senate Reform in Canada, Too Good to Be True: Toronto in the 1920s, and
Global Spin: Probing the Globalization Debate.

Perhaps this reviewer can be forgiven for having more local memories and Canadian preferences among the 16 well-researched articles, which range in subject matter from P.E.I.’s Fixed Link, the Canso Causeway, and other Canadian examples to those farther afield like “Bridging the Florida Keys” and “Central Singapore Island.”

Regardless of the locale, almost all, with the exception at the last on Singapore, reveal three broad results of fixed links of one kind or another: an increase in tourism, a general decline in the older economy (with an accompanying drop in island population), and an increase in land purchases by non-islanders, most of them retirees.

I was unaware that the western side of Ireland (itself the world’s 20th largest island) contains several hundred islands of varying sizes—so many, in fact, that “one cannot be sure how many … have been inhabited” either in the past or present. The author concludes that “having a fixed link has not proven to be an absolute guarantee of retaining an island’s population, nor is a link necessarily seen as the best access option.”

Then there’s the “Transformation of the Dutch Island Societies of Urk and Noord-Beveland” as the result of dikes and dams and the reclamation of many hectares of land from the North Sea. Urk is no longer an island, but thanks to its permanent residents’ determined and successful hold on their fishing economy (which continues to expand) they have seen their “remarkably young” population, grow from 6,000 in 1968 to 17,000 at present. This overwhelmingly Protestant society has no cinemas, Sunday rest is strictly obeyed, and consider this: “Surprisingly for a place that attracts more than 250,000 visitors a year, there are hardly any possibilities for visitors to stay overnight in Urk.”

General editor Baldacchino is to be congratulated for putting together this diverse and readable volume. He must be one of UPEI’s best-known and respected professors.