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.

J. Keri Cronin is an assistant professor in the Visual Arts Department at Brock University. She is also a faculty affiliate in Brock's Social Justice & Equity Studies Graduate Program, the editor of The Brock Review, and part of the organizing committee for Greenscapes, a biennial conference on the cultural history of gardens held at Brock University. She is the author of Manufacturing National Park Nature: Photography, Ecology and the Wilderness Industry of Jasper National Park (2010).

Kirsty Robertson is a professor of contemporary art and museum studies at the University of Western Ontario. She has published widely in her two major areas of research, globalization, creative industries and activism; and the study of wearable technologies, immersive environments, and the potential overlap(s) between textiles and technologies. She is completing her manuscript Tear Gas Epiphanies: New Economies of Protest, Vision and Culture in Canada.

J. Keri Cronin's profile page

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.

Electronic Green Journal, Issue 34, Winter 2012

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.

International Journal of Wilderness, Vol 18, No 1

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.

The Goose, Issue 10, 2012