Seeking Refuge: Birds and Landscapes of the Pacific Flyway by Robert M. Wilson William Cronon

 OHQ vol. 112, no. 3 worlds. Friendly to fellow whites, and protective of missionaries (Catholic and Protestant alike,although not religious himself) as well as his extended Indian family, Craig also had the reputation of a violent side. That reputation dates to his origins in Virginia, where at age eighteen, he purportedly killed a man in selfdefense but fled, fearing retribution and ending up in St. Louis. During his fur-trade years (fromabout1828 to1840),Craigwasinvolvedin several frays,most notably the Battle of Pierre’s Hole in 1832 with the Blackfeet and their allies, which left seven friendly Nez Perces and six whites, as well as an undetermined number of opposing Indians, dead. By the time he had become “peacemaker” in the 1840s, his approach was more with the sword and threat of the noose than with the pipe, participating directly in the conflicts of 1856 and approving capital punishment by hanging at least one Palouse Indian during the conflicts following the Walla Walla Treaty Council of 1855. Craig was also an entrepreneur, securing land and special concessions for himself from the federal government and making money in enterprises ranging from farming on the Sweetwater to guiding surveyors along the Lolo Trail between Idaho and Montana to ferry-building across Idaho’s major rivers. This is not the final word on William Craig, but it goes far in filling gaps and documents Craig’s life with 863 consecutive endnotes and a useful appendix that provides a brief alphabetical list of individuals mentioned in the book. Readers need to know that there is neither an indexnormanyNezPercevoiceshere,although the author has used the standard printed sources,Craig Family archives,records of treaty negotiations, and annual agency reports, and she has consulted a leading scholar of the Nez Perce, Steve Evans. The final chapter, covering 1870 to 1886,is new material,providing context for the contest over the private Craig family lands that eventually reached the U.S.Supreme Court. Craig and his Nez Perce wife Pahtissah (also known as Isabel, d. 1886) raised one son and three daughters. Their Craig descendants, as well as the Phinnie family,are familiar names on the both the Umatilla and Nez Perce reservations today. William R. Swagerty University of the Pacific Seeking Refuge: Birds and Landscapes of the Pacific Flyway by Robert M. Wilson foreword by William Cronon University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2010. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 280 pages. $35.00 cloth. Robert Wilson provides a scholarly examination of the geographical nature and biological requirements of North American water birds, especially waterfowl, and the efforts, sociopolitical conflicts, and trials and errors in attempts to protect, create, and enhance those birds’ habitats. He speculates about former distribution,quality,and constancy of wetland habitats and presents estimates and inventories by others to characterize changes in bird populations and wetland abundance since western settlement in the 1800s. For some closed-basin wetlands, he reasons that managed wetlands are more productive today than in pristine times.He explains the concept of“flyways”that was conceived through analyses of recoveries of birds banded up to the mid 1930s. While delineation of the four flyways does not fit the north-south migrations of all bird species, the scheme is still an effective administrative tool for waterfowl management within the United States, but less so for Canada and Mexico. The so-called Pacific Flyway is of international proportions and significance,and fosters international cooperation in efforts on behalf of shared birds. It encompasses approximately the western third of North America, the area west of the Continental Divide in the United  OHQ vol. 112, no. 3 States.After summarizing the history of North American bird conservation, Wilson devotes his attention to southern wintering and migration areas in the coterminous western United States. He characterizes these areas as being an archipelago of widely separated wetland islands in a sea of desert or, for some, a sea of intensively irrigated agriculture.Acknowledging roles of various governments and entities in bird conservation,he further limits his treatise to the U.S. federal government’s role from the late 1800s through early 2000.He discusses the chronology and significance of many,but by no means all,of...

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