Interpretations of Canada's emerging identity have been largely based on a relatively small corpus of literary writing and landscape paintings, overlooking the influence of the British and American travel writers who published hundreds of books and articles that did much to fix the image of Canada in the popular imagination.

In Fashioning the Canadian Landscape, J.I. Little examines how Canada, much like the United States, came to be identified with its natural landscape. Little argues that in contrast to the American identification with the wilderness sublime, however, Canada’s image was strongly influenced by the picturesque convention favoured by British travel writers.

This amply illustrated volume includes chapters ranging from Labrador to British Columbia, some of which focus on such notable British authors as Rupert Brooke and Rudyard Kipling, and others on talented American writers such as Charles Dudley Warner. Based not only on the views of the landscape but on the racist descriptions of the Indigenous peoples and the romanticization of the Canadian ‘folk’, Little argues that the national image that emerged was colonialist as well as colonial in nature.

J.I. Little is a professor emeritus in the Department of History at Simon Fraser University.

John Irvine Little's profile page

"Why visit Canada but for its awe-inspiring natural spaces and picturesque villages? J.I. Little’s collection of essays details how travel writers from Britain, the United States, and Canada situated landscape at the center of Canadian identity and Canada’s purpose in the world. A collection of eight revised and two new essays carry the reader over 150 years and across what has become Canada, revealing ways in which writers connected identity to colonial landscape transformation."

<em>American Review of Canadian Studies</em>

"...Little’s essays suggest that nineteenth-century tourism provides a significant vantage point for understanding the interplay of different discourses and performances of ‘nation’ that occurred within the Dominion’s borders."

Histoire Sociale/Social History, vol 52 no 105, May '19

"Little’s contribution comes from looking deeply at how a wide variety of landscapes in the provinces that are now Canada have been fashioned. The deep study of specific landscapes makes this collection a rewarding read."

<em>British Journal of Canadian Studies</em>