This article studies the promotional publications of the Canadian National Parks Branch by examining how the ideal national park landscape was constructed in booklets. The study adds to literature that examines the shifting purposes of national parks and complements recent studies on representations of national park nature, by extending attention to Canadian park brochures, which have received little attention from scholars. Based on an examination of numerous booklets and extensive archival records on promotional publications, the article argues that rather than merely publicising the parks as they were, the Branch carefully constructed the park ideal in its booklets. This portrayal of parks drew from the parks agency's own ideas regarding the purpose of parks and from the perceived wishes of visitors and society, creating expectations of park nature but also responding to them. The park ideal portrayed in booklets transformed over time. The article illustrates how nature's place and meaning was altered in booklets to create and recreate the parks according to the needs of changing times. In examining the National Parks Branch's promotional brochures and their creation process, the article aids our understanding of the place of national parks and nature in society. It demonstrates how the parks agency redefined parks in response to its own evolving views of parks and society's wishes: changing views of what made parks useful altered their representation and the guiding themes of parks promotion shifted from usefulness and recreation to wilderness museum. Promotional literature carried certain connotations - such as national identity connected to natural landscape - throughout the period, rearticulating them to suit different times. As recent discussions on national parks in global perspective have noted, parks are part of transnational circulation of ideas, hence the Canadian experience can also be seen in a broader context.
...More
Article
Raf De Bont;
(July 2017)
A World Laboratory: Framing the Albert National Park
(/isis/citation/CBB327867560/)
Book
Kheraj, Sean;
(2013)
Inventing Stanley Park: An Environmental History
(/isis/citation/CBB001451500/)
Article
Craig-Dupont, Olivier;
(2012)
Science gouvernementale et nation building: Parcs Canada et la réinterprétation des territorialités locales
(/isis/citation/CBB001211541/)
Article
Kheraj, Sean;
(2007)
Restoring Nature: Ecology, Memory, and the Storm History of Vancouver's Stanley Park
(/isis/citation/CBB001030865/)
Book
Rothman, Hal K.;
(2007)
Blazing Heritage: A History of Wildland Fire in the National Parks
(/isis/citation/CBB000950079/)
Article
Beudel, Saskia;
Daly, Margo;
(2014)
Gallant Desert Flora: Olive Pink's Australian Arid Regions Flora Reserve
(/isis/citation/CBB001451690/)
Article
MacEachern, Alan;
(2013)
The Sentimentalist: Science and Nature in the Writing of H.U. Green, a.k.a. Tony Lascelles
(/isis/citation/CBB001451664/)
Book
Cosens, Barbara;
(2012)
Columbia River Treaty Revisited: Transboundary River Governance in the Face of Uncertainty
(/isis/citation/CBB001420368/)
Book
Gough, Joseph;
(2007)
Managing Canada's Fisheries: From Early Days to the Year 2000
(/isis/citation/CBB000954871/)
Article
Doel, Ronald E.;
Friedman, Robert Marc;
Lajus, Julia;
Sörline, Sverker;
Wråkberg, Urban;
(2014)
Strategic Arctic Science: National Interests in Building Natural Knowledge---Interwar Era through the Cold War
(/isis/citation/CBB001450344/)
Book
Jennifer Hubbard;
David Wildish;
Robert Stephenson;
(2016)
A Century of Maritime Science: The St. Andrews Biological Station
(/isis/citation/CBB276028581/)
Book
Drushka, Ken;
(2003)
Canada's Forests: A History of Use and Conservation
(/isis/citation/CBB000741276/)
Article
Carstairs, Catherine;
(2008)
Expertise, Health, and Popular Opinion: Debating Water Fluoridation, 1945--80
(/isis/citation/CBB001030863/)
Article
Huizen, Philip Van;
(2010)
Building a Green Dam: Environmental Modernism and the Canadian-American Libby Dam Project
(/isis/citation/CBB001030635/)
Book
Mary Colwell;
(2014)
John Muir: The Scotsman who saved America's wild places
(/isis/citation/CBB544310865/)
Article
Terence Young;
Alan Maceachern;
Lary Dilsaver;
(2021)
From Competition to Cooperation: A History of Canada-US National Park Relations
(/isis/citation/CBB399081903/)
Article
Clapperton, Jonathan;
(2013)
Naturalizing Race Relations: Conservation, Colonialism, and Spectacle at the Banff Indian Days
(/isis/citation/CBB001550532/)
Article
Wakild, Emily;
(2009)
Border Chasm: International Boundary Parks and Mexican Conservation, 1935--1945
(/isis/citation/CBB000932645/)
Book
Choko, Marc H.;
Hühne, M. C.;
(2016)
Canadian Pacific: Creating a Brand, Building a Nation
(/isis/citation/CBB068088591/)
Article
Wilmshurst, Sara;
(2015)
“Tobacco Truths”: Health Magazine, Clinical Epidemiology, and the Cigarette Connection
(/isis/citation/CBB001552480/)
Be the first to comment!