Salmonopolis: The Steveston Story

John Van West is a policy analyst at the Ontario Native Affairs
Secretariat.

This lavishly illustrated, oversize book—“the first ever history of
one of BC’s most fascinating waterfront communities”—focuses more
on Steveston’s commercial fishery and farming industry than on its
vibrant multiethnic community. For example, a significant portion of the
book describes the involvement of Native, Japanese, European, and
Chinese people in Steveston’s fishery, but there is little about their
involvement in farming or in the community. Indeed, while the authors
provide an accumulation of interesting and important oral and
documentary information relating to Steveston, their material remains
unfocused as a community study. Moreover, Steveston’s geopolitical and
geosocial boundaries are extremely difficult to extrapolate and
visualize from the text, mainly because the community’s roads, cannery
sites, homesteads, and other important landmarks are left off the map.

Nevertheless, Salmonopolis is an easy read, and its many
black-and-white photographs and oral accounts add a colorful dimension
to the hustle and bustle of a B.C. waterfront community in a bygone era.