Cory T. Shaman reviews Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman River Dam and the Search for Justice by Robert Girvan

Shaman, Cory T

English

Scholars Commons

The Goose
Volume 14 | No. 1 Article 16
8-8-2015
Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman River
Dam and the Search for Justice by Robert Girvan
Cory T. Shaman
John Tyler Community College
Part of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America
Commons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment Commons
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de la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactez
scholarscommons@wlu.ca.
Recommended Citation / Citation recommandée
Shaman, Cory T.. "Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman River Dam and the Search for Justice by Robert Girvan." The Goose, vol.
14 , no. 1 , article 16, 2015,
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/16.
Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman 
River Dam and the Search for Justice by 
ROBERT GIRVAN  
Fifth House, 2013 $24.95 
 
Reviewed by CORY SHAMAN 
 
Enchanted by an Aboriginal painting 
and intrigued by the environmental context 
of its production, Robert Girvan was stirred 
to write about the controversial Oldman 
River Dam, focusing primarily on a series of 
environmental injustices involving the 
people of the Piikani First Nation. Girvan 
explains how this chance encounter with 
the painting, created by Ojibway artist Doug 
Fox to raise money for the legal defense of  
Piikani activist, Milton Born with a Tooth, 
who protested the dam’s construction, 
spurred his own desire to understand the 
historical forces culminating in Born with a 
Tooth’s imprisonment and the successful 
completion of the dam.  
Girvan’s authorial self-
consciousness, thus, is important to 
orienting the reader to the intersections of 
aesthetics and politics in this historical 
account, and though this is assuredly a well-
documented and meticulously-researched 
work of non-fiction, he measures his efforts 
by an ideal of narrative form he describes 
that is invested in “interpretation, 
reconstruction, and rarely—perhaps in a 
work of literature—resurrection” (6). It is in 
that method of reconstruction that the 
composition of Who Speaks for the River is 
most interesting, I believe, as Girvan seeks 
to re-examine this formative moment in 
Canadian environmental history more than 
twenty years after the most volatile events 
of protest and litigation.  
For Girvan, how this series of events 
is remembered, judged, and taken as 
political motivation, therefore, seems just 
as important as what happened, and so he 
assembles existing documentary evidence 
and newly available court documents 
alongside first-hand retrospective accounts 
he solicited from key players. Such 
testimony as resurrection is perhaps, then, 
a means of troubling the usual emphasis on 
nostalgia in the elegiac form as Girvan 
alternatively seeks to retrieve that past to 
reinvigorate passion for just, inclusive 
environmental action and decision-making. 
He organizes his narrative to present the 
perspectives of farmers and their 
representatives, environmental activists, 
scientists, Canadian civil and legal 
authorities at the provincial and national 
levels, and members of the Piikani. Two 
figures, however, clearly take center stage 
in this book: environmentalist Martha 
Kostuch and Piikani leader Milton Born with 
a Tooth, both of whom played critical, 
though divergent roles in contesting the 
development of the dam and bringing 
attention to the manifold losses 
accompanying the flooding of the Oldman 
River Valley.  
Kostuch mounted significant legal 
challenges to the construction of the dam 
based largely on procedural grounds, while 
Born with a Tooth mobilized Piikani protests 
by forming the Lonefighter group, which 
attempted to divert the Oldman River 
upstream from the dam site. Kostuch’s 
work laid the groundwork for the 
environmental oversight protections 
enabled by a landmark Canadian Supreme 
Court ruling after Alberta repeatedly defied 
lower court decisions, in the process 
exposing the galling abuses of power by 
leaders and bureaucrats in the provincial 
and national governments that revealed a 
blatant disdain for fair and open decision-
making processes. While she tackled the 
legal front, Born with a Tooth’s focus on 
1
Shaman: Who Speaks for the River?
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015
cultural and environmental devastation 
brought public attention to the siting of the 
dam on Piikani ancestral burial grounds, to 
irreparable habitat destruction, and to the 
disenfranchisement of the Piikani from the 
process. Interestingly, Girvan was unable to 
track down Born with a Tooth, and his 
interviews with Kostuch occurred shortly 
before her untimely death. To his larger 
narrative purpose, then, Girvan’s 
construction of mythology and memorial 
for these activists might be understood not 
as lament but as reclaiming the past to 
underscore how their concerted and 
collaborative resistance can serve as a 
model for future action. 
Who Speaks for the River also 
carefully documents the long-range 
historical roots of the land and water 
politics of southern Alberta and the Oldman 
River, beginning with the problematic 
brokering of Treaty Seven (1877) and the 
Piikani land “surrender” of 1909, followed 
by the formation of the Lethbridge 
Northern Irrigation District (LNID) and its 
implementation of irrigation canal works in 
1923, and finally the droughts and 
agricultural over-irrigation of the 1970’s. 
While nicely sketching an important 
environmental timeline, the author makes 
clear the painfully familiar story of 
discriminatory practices as First Nation 
claims and concerns were ignored or 
manipulated to the advantage of 
government and commercial interests. In a 
similar vein, the bulk of the book is 
concerned with events from 1987 to 1994 
from an environmental justice perspective, 
spanning the formation of the 
environmentalist group Friends of Oldman 
River (FOR), the occupation and resistance 
to the dam by the Piikani, and the legal 
battles aimed at halting construction, 
defending Born with a Tooth’s actions in 
protest of the dam, and ultimately seeking 
compensatory damages and reclamation 
assurances once the dam was put into 
commission. 
Drawing on his credentials as a 
criminal defense lawyer and former Crown 
prosecutor, Girvan makes adjudication the 
substantial focus of the book. He 
supplements other accounts of these 
events (notably Jack Glenn’s 1999 Once 
Upon and Oldman: Special Interest Politics 
and the Oldman River Dam) by using his 
expertise to evaluate the legal dimensions 
of the various court challenges to the dam 
and the prosecution of Born with a Tooth. 
Though the narrative is sometimes a bit 
slow, the events are certainly compelling as 
Girvan painstakingly shows how resource 
needs were grossly overstated by and on 
the behalf of a very small number of 
farmers while cultural and environmental 
concerns were neglected or flaunted 
through grievous and long-entrenched 
practices of racism and capitalism. And 
though the dam was completed and Born 
with a Tooth’s conviction was upheld, 
Girvan shows how the moral victories of 
challenging injustice were nevertheless 
significant. Given the recent reversals of the 
Supreme Court successes with the overhaul 
of the Navigable Waters Protection Act 
(after the publication of this book), Girvan’s 
work is important reading for those who 
would understand the ongoing public 
battles involving the competing demands of 
resource management, ecological health, 
and environmental justice. Likewise, 
Girvan’s work would surely galvanize 
resistance like the Idle No More campaign 
by way of his careful analysis and 
documentation of the historical record of 
environmental injustice. 
  
2
The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 1 [2015], Art. 16
https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/16
CORY SHAMAN is Associate Professor of 
English at John Tyler Community College. 
His research focuses on post-natural and 
environmental justice concerns from a 
regional perspective.   
 
3
Shaman: Who Speaks for the River?
Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015


Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman River Dam and the Search for Justice by Robert Girvan

Wilfrid Laurier University

The GooseVolume 14 | No. 1 Article 168-8-2015Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman RiverDam and the Search for Justice by Robert GirvanCory T. ShamanJohn Tyler Community CollegePart of the Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Literature in English, North AmericaCommons, Nature and Society Relations Commons, and the Place and Environment CommonsFollow this and additional works at / Suivez-nous ainsi que d’autres travaux et œuvres:https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegooseThis article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Goose by anauthorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact scholarscommons@wlu.ca.Cet article vous est accessible gratuitement et en libre accès grâce à Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Le texte a été approuvé pour faire partie intégrantede la revue The Goose par un rédacteur autorisé de Scholars Commons @ Laurier. Pour de plus amples informations, contactezscholarscommons@wlu.ca.Recommended Citation / Citation recommandéeShaman, Cory T.. "Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman River Dam and the Search for Justice by Robert Girvan." The Goose, vol.14 , no. 1 , article 16, 2015,https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/16.Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman River Dam and the Search for Justice by ROBERT GIRVAN  Fifth House, 2013 $24.95  Reviewed by CORY SHAMAN  Enchanted by an Aboriginal painting and intrigued by the environmental context of its production, Robert Girvan was stirred to write about the controversial Oldman River Dam, focusing primarily on a series of environmental injustices involving the people of the Piikani First Nation. Girvan explains how this chance encounter with the painting, created by Ojibway artist Doug Fox to raise money for the legal defense of  Piikani activist, Milton Born with a Tooth, who protested the dam’s construction, spurred his own desire to understand the historical forces culminating in Born with a Tooth’s imprisonment and the successful completion of the dam.  Girvan’s authorial self-consciousness, thus, is important to orienting the reader to the intersections of aesthetics and politics in this historical account, and though this is assuredly a well-documented and meticulously-researched work of non-fiction, he measures his efforts by an ideal of narrative form he describes that is invested in “interpretation, reconstruction, and rarely—perhaps in a work of literature—resurrection” (6). It is in that method of reconstruction that the composition of Who Speaks for the River is most interesting, I believe, as Girvan seeks to re-examine this formative moment in Canadian environmental history more than twenty years after the most volatile events of protest and litigation.  For Girvan, how this series of events is remembered, judged, and taken as political motivation, therefore, seems just as important as what happened, and so he assembles existing documentary evidence and newly available court documents alongside first-hand retrospective accounts he solicited from key players. Such testimony as resurrection is perhaps, then, a means of troubling the usual emphasis on nostalgia in the elegiac form as Girvan alternatively seeks to retrieve that past to reinvigorate passion for just, inclusive environmental action and decision-making. He organizes his narrative to present the perspectives of farmers and their representatives, environmental activists, scientists, Canadian civil and legal authorities at the provincial and national levels, and members of the Piikani. Two figures, however, clearly take center stage in this book: environmentalist Martha Kostuch and Piikani leader Milton Born with a Tooth, both of whom played critical, though divergent roles in contesting the development of the dam and bringing attention to the manifold losses accompanying the flooding of the Oldman River Valley.  Kostuch mounted significant legal challenges to the construction of the dam based largely on procedural grounds, while Born with a Tooth mobilized Piikani protests by forming the Lonefighter group, which attempted to divert the Oldman River upstream from the dam site. Kostuch’s work laid the groundwork for the environmental oversight protections enabled by a landmark Canadian Supreme Court ruling after Alberta repeatedly defied lower court decisions, in the process exposing the galling abuses of power by leaders and bureaucrats in the provincial and national governments that revealed a blatant disdain for fair and open decision-making processes. While she tackled the legal front, Born with a Tooth’s focus on 1Shaman: Who Speaks for the River?Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015cultural and environmental devastation brought public attention to the siting of the dam on Piikani ancestral burial grounds, to irreparable habitat destruction, and to the disenfranchisement of the Piikani from the process. Interestingly, Girvan was unable to track down Born with a Tooth, and his interviews with Kostuch occurred shortly before her untimely death. To his larger narrative purpose, then, Girvan’s construction of mythology and memorial for these activists might be understood not as lament but as reclaiming the past to underscore how their concerted and collaborative resistance can serve as a model for future action. Who Speaks for the River also carefully documents the long-range historical roots of the land and water politics of southern Alberta and the Oldman River, beginning with the problematic brokering of Treaty Seven (1877) and the Piikani land “surrender” of 1909, followed by the formation of the Lethbridge Northern Irrigation District (LNID) and its implementation of irrigation canal works in 1923, and finally the droughts and agricultural over-irrigation of the 1970’s. While nicely sketching an important environmental timeline, the author makes clear the painfully familiar story of discriminatory practices as First Nation claims and concerns were ignored or manipulated to the advantage of government and commercial interests. In a similar vein, the bulk of the book is concerned with events from 1987 to 1994 from an environmental justice perspective, spanning the formation of the environmentalist group Friends of Oldman River (FOR), the occupation and resistance to the dam by the Piikani, and the legal battles aimed at halting construction, defending Born with a Tooth’s actions in protest of the dam, and ultimately seeking compensatory damages and reclamation assurances once the dam was put into commission. Drawing on his credentials as a criminal defense lawyer and former Crown prosecutor, Girvan makes adjudication the substantial focus of the book. He supplements other accounts of these events (notably Jack Glenn’s 1999 Once Upon and Oldman: Special Interest Politics and the Oldman River Dam) by using his expertise to evaluate the legal dimensions of the various court challenges to the dam and the prosecution of Born with a Tooth. Though the narrative is sometimes a bit slow, the events are certainly compelling as Girvan painstakingly shows how resource needs were grossly overstated by and on the behalf of a very small number of farmers while cultural and environmental concerns were neglected or flaunted through grievous and long-entrenched practices of racism and capitalism. And though the dam was completed and Born with a Tooth’s conviction was upheld, Girvan shows how the moral victories of challenging injustice were nevertheless significant. Given the recent reversals of the Supreme Court successes with the overhaul of the Navigable Waters Protection Act (after the publication of this book), Girvan’s work is important reading for those who would understand the ongoing public battles involving the competing demands of resource management, ecological health, and environmental justice. Likewise, Girvan’s work would surely galvanize resistance like the Idle No More campaign by way of his careful analysis and documentation of the historical record of environmental injustice.   2The Goose, Vol. 14, No. 1 [2015], Art. 16https://scholars.wlu.ca/thegoose/vol14/iss1/16CORY SHAMAN is Associate Professor of English at John Tyler Community College. His research focuses on post-natural and environmental justice concerns from a regional perspective.    3Shaman: Who Speaks for the River?Published by / Publié par Scholars Commons @ Laurier, 2015

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Who Speaks for the River?: The Oldman River Dam and the Search for Justice by Robert Girvan

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