Manufacturing National Park Nature: Photography, Ecology, and the Wilderness Industry of Jasper

Jasper National Park is an international travel destination, world heritage site, and icon of Canadian identity. Although national parks occupy a prominent place in the Canadian imagination, we are only beginning to understand how their visual imagery has shaped and continues to inform our perception of the natural world, ecological issues, and ourselves. In Manufacturing National Park Nature, J. Keri Cronin draws on postcards, illustrated brochures, tourist snapshots, and other forms of visual culture to show how popular forms of picturing nature can have ecological implications that extend far beyond the frame of the image. Adopting an ecocritical approach to visual culture, Cronin focusses on four themes - wilderness, recreation, wildlife, and fake nature - to trace how park and government officials, railway companies, journalists, and environmentalists package Jasper as a series of breathtaking vistas where adorable-looking animals live. In the process, they sever the scenes from their larger contexts and mask the real threats to the park's ecosystems. In telling the story of how various groups and the tourism industry have used photographic representations of national parks to shape our ideas about nature, this book sets the stage for a re-examination of protection policies and acknowledgment of environmental damage in national parks.

Manufacturing National Park Nature joins a growing literature on the visual culture of the environment and, unlike most other works in the field, does so through a specific focus on one place. This approach allows Cronin to consider both environmental perceptions and material changes over the past century in Jasper. Her focus on tourist imagery - including postcards, brochures, newspapers, magazines, and advertisements - is original, as she uses sources often ignored by art historians, environmental historians, ecocritics, and other scholars.

- Finis Dunaway, History Department, Trent University

National parks occupy a prominent place in the Canadian imagination, yet we are only beginning to understand how their visual representation has shaped and continues to inform our perceptions of ecological issues and the natural world. J. Keri Cronin draws on historical and modern postcards, advertisements, and other images of Jasper National Park to trace how various groups and the tourism industry have used photography to divorce the park from real environmental threats and instead to package it as a series of breathtaking vistas and adorable-looking animals. Manufacturing National Park Nature demonstrates that popular forms of picturing nature can have ecological implications that extend far beyond the frame of the image.

Foreword / Graeme Wynn 1 Grounding National Park Nature 2 "Jasper Wonderful by Nature": The Wilderness Industry of Jasper National Park 3 An Invitation to Leisure: Picturing Canada's Wilderness Playground 4 "The Bears Are Plentiful and Frequently Good Camera Subjects": Photographing Wildlife in Jasper National Park 5 Fake Nature Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index