Manufacturing National Park Nature
Photography, Ecology, and the Wilderness Industry of Jasper
Drawing on postcards and holiday snapshots of the Canadian Rockies, this book reveals how popular forms of picturing nature can have ecological implications that extend far beyond the frame of the image.
Description
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 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.
Reviews
This book is specifically about Jasper National Park, yet its theoretical discussions, analyses, and conclusions can be applied broadly to visual representations in any managed, “wild” area...this text is a valuable contribution to the growing field of visual-culture-based ecological criticism.
- Gaby Zezulka-Maillqux, Abu Dhabi University
Manufacturing National Park Nature is highly recommended to scholars and students of environmental studies and history, recreation and tourism, as well as those of media and marketing. It is an accessible way of challenging taken-for-granted conceptions of both wilderness landscapes and photography.
- Philip M. Mullins, University of Northern British Columbia
The book is brief, and lavishly illustrated…it makes a real contribution to the literature by analyzing the cultural and physical impacts of tourism in an iconic environment…the author has deftly woven together a convoluted web of images and ideologies, uniquely focused on one location. This work will appeal to readers interested in parks, tourism and leisure, in cultural concepts of landscape, and in the management of wilderness areas… while it engages deeply with theoretical issues, Manufacturing National Park Nature is highly comprehensible, and appropriate for any intelligent, interested reader.
- Fred Mason, University of New Brunswick