James Oliver Curwood: Advertising Canada across the Border

Abstract

Using an intermedial approach, this essay examines James Oliver Curwood’s role in promoting Canada as a destination for American tourists and settlers in the early 20th century. A native of Michigan, Curwood produced popular nonfiction articles, short stories, novels, and films that celebrated the Dominion’s seemingly unspoiled natural landscapes, while also revealing how these were integrated into a complex web of industrialism, consumerism, and technological change. Archival research at the James Oliver Curwood Papers at the Bentley Historical Library and the Essanay Manufacturing Company Papers at the Chicago Historical Research Center reveals that various Canadian governmental and railroad interests sponsored Curwood to produce indirect advertising that targeted American readers and filmgoers. Curwood’s increasingly sensational Northwest melodramas, however, helped to construct an image of Canada as an unwelcoming frozen wasteland that potentially subverted tourism promotion efforts. This ultimately spurred more direct Canadian involvement in film production in order to shape these representations.