The Selling of Canada : The CPR and the Beginnings of Canadian Tourism

The book explores how the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) played a pivotal role in shaping early Canadian tourism. Through strategic marketing, luxury travel services, and the construction of grand hotels across the country, the CPR not only promoted Canada as a majestic wilderness destination to domestic and international tourists but also helped forge a national identity. The book examines how the railway company commodified the Canadian landscape—especially the Rocky Mountains—as an exotic, pristine frontier to be experienced by wealthy travellers. This work provides a critical look at the intersection of corporate interests, nation-building, and the creation of a tourism industry in late 19th and early 20th century Canada.