In this short but dense volume, J.I. Little details the interplay of development pressures, natural resource industry interests and environmental conservation efforts around the Howe Sound near Vancouver, Canada. Each of the five chapters focuses in on the responses to development proposals in a particular area, ranging from Devonian Harbour Park on the edge of Vancouver to the northernmost end of the Howe Sound, and spaces in between. In so doing, Little attempts to explain why local residents were particularly successful in pushing back against unfettered development despite Vancouver's widespread growth from the 1960s to 1980s.

At the Wilderness Edge begins its exploration with Devonian Harbour Park, detailing multiple attempts to redevelop a small piece of Vancouver waterfront. Little deftly handles two decades of development fights as local protests successfully deterred five iterations of development plans for the parcel, ranging from hotels to apartments to office buildings. While Little gestures to alliances between disparate grassroots actors, his account of the proceedings primarily keep to higher-level political officials and policy-makers. Though this chapter suggests the importance of passive public space was key to the anti-development actors, Little does not fully flesh out the ways this thread runs through the long history of development proposals on the property.

Chapter 2 details how competing concepts of recreation negotiated for the use of Hollyburn Ridge, situated north of West Vancouver. After successfully protecting the ridge from clearcutting, the provincial government set aside thousands of acres for a park reserve. In subsequent years, hikers and naturalists fought against skiing enthusiasts as desire for a wilderness reserve competed with proposals for multi-million-dollar ski resorts, leading to an eventual compromise of a small downhill skiing area and a larger area for cross-country skiing, snow shoeing and summer hiking. The story is a clear cautionary tale, with the West Vancouver municipal government's decision to partner with the logging industry to clear space for ski slopes leading to near disastrous consequences.

Chapter 3 is particularly strong, describing the wealthy residents of Bowen Island as they pushed for new zoning controls to protect the rural character and wilderness aesthetic of the island on which they lived. Though Little at times gets lost in the weeds of government wrangling, leading to confusion about who is taking action and upon whose interests those actions are based, he illustrates the tensions between those who wished to develop versus conserve the island. Unfortunately, it is particularly clear in this chapter the ways in which Little passes on the opportunity to theorize the differences between environmentalism and conservationism. Likewise, Little stops short of exploring what impacts the socio-economic class of Bowen Island residents played in the success at holding off widespread development on the island.

The ways in which the environment was both a reason for and an excuse to oppose development are most evident in chapter 4, exploring the proposals to create a port for the export of natural resources in the Squamish Estuary at the far north of the Howe Sound. In a similar vein, Little's final chapter on Gambier Island details efforts by the island's community to resist an open-pit copper mine. It is in this final chapter that he does his best work fleshing out grassroots actors involved in the resistance, detailing several key players and emphasizing the interconnectedness of their work to promote recreational, rather than industrial, use of the island through emphasis on ‘natural-appearing landscapes’. The Gambier Island Preservation Society was ultimately successful in using legal action to support the creation of a large government-supported wilderness reserve over the island.

Little is at his best when he moves to the level of individuals, particularly shining in chapter 5 when he brings the biography of grassroots actors to bear on their action in support of the preservation of Gambier Island. Unfortunately, readers can occasionally become lost in the various successive development proposals – understandable when each of the proposals Little details can involve as many as ‘sixty-two planning seminars, two public meetings…and the receipt of more than 200 written submissions’ (p. 91). In addition, while Little clearly understands the ways broader forces of public interest can lead to coalitions among disparate groups, as seen in his discussion of the anarchic squatter village that sprang up on contested land adjacent to a popular public park, his clearest explorations of protest groups come when a single interest group is at play, as with the wealthy homeowners on Bowen Island.

While the protests in all five locations took place within the same short period in the same geographic area, Little insists there was little co-operation between the anti-development groups. Here, the lack of sustained theorizing throughout the chapters limits Little's ability to trace connection and change between the varied protest efforts. When and why are developments supported or opposed? When are appeals to the environment genuine concerns or simply tactics to preserve personal property values and recreation interests? What conclusions can be drawn about the impacts of class and race on both the desire to oppose development and the ability to be successful in doing so? Little leaves these questions and others unexplored.

Ultimately, this book would likely prove most useful in classrooms or for researchers who are looking to take advantage of Little's well-researched recreation of development proposals and anti-development protests along Canada's west coast. Because Little leaves theorizing for a different book, At the Wilderness Edge opens up the opportunity to use the events he details to develop one's own theories about when development happens or does not, and what enables successful resistance against development pressures – all questions with important implications today.