“Merely to See and Touch It”

Long dismissed as a “critical error” ( Booth 2016 ) and still capable of inciting “embarrassment palpable” ( Watson 2006 ) among scholars otherwise happy to emphasize the material contexts that inform the circulation of texts, literary tourism has recently become the focus of serious academic inquiry. Recent work has begun to disaggregate the various forms of literary tourist sites ( Fawcett and Cormack 2001 ), but continues to have a methodological gap surrounding the specifically literary aspects of the practice itself, and—with the notable exception of Green Gables (Squire 1992; Devereux 2001 )—has left Canada predictably unexamined. This essay begins with a brief introduction to literary tourism in Canada before moving into a comparative analysis of two National Historic Sites associated with Canadian literary authors: the Robert Service cabin in Dawson City, Yukon, and the John McCrae House in Guelph, Ontario. The sites offer a compelling comparison as the former homes of two of the best-known Canadian poets of the early twentieth century whose works have become popularly synonymous with two of Canada’s most heavily mythologized eras. The enduring popularity of poems like “The Cremation of Sam McGee” reflect not only Service’s central role in mythologizing Canada’s north but also a strategic “cultural commoditization” of the area’s gold rush heritage ( Jarvenpa 1994 ; Grace 2001 ), while McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” retains its status not only as the “most popular poem” of the First World War in Canada and beyond ( Fussell 2000 ), but also as a primary example of the ideological function of Great War literature within Canada ( Holmes 2005 ; Gordon 2014 ). Although the two author houses may initially appear a study in contrasts, I draw on recent work in literary tourist studies to argue they are linked in their function as “materialized fictions” ( Hendrix 2008 ), or concrete interpretative frames that aim to offer tangible evidence of the Canadian myths their former inhabitants helped to fashion

Archaeology · Art · Canadian literature · Hospitality · Literary criticism · Literature · Media studies · Political science · Popularity · Sociology · Tourism · Watson · History · Law · Short Stories in Global Literature · Spatial and Cultural Studies · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts

• Canada

  Open Access•Joel Deshaye, Morgen Mills•The Journal of Commonwealth…•2022

  Incluir item

• Battle Lines

  Joel Baetz•Battle Lines•2018

  Incluir item

• Homes and Haunts

  Alison L Booth, Alison Booth•Homes and Haunts•2016

  Incluir item

• The Beaten Track

  James Buzard•The beaten track•1993

  Incluir item

• Framing the Sign

  Jonathan Culler, Jonathan D Culler•Framing the sign•1988

  Incluir item

• The Oxford Handbook of Canadian Literature

  Cynthia Conchita Sugars, Cynthia Sugars•Oxford Handbook of Canadian…•2015

  Incluir item

• Key Concepts in Tourist Studies

  Melanie Smith, Melanie Kay Smith et al.•Key Concepts in Tourist Studies•2010

  Incluir item

• The tourist

  David A Scott, David Scott•Annals of Leisure Research•2014

  Incluir item

• Literary places, tourism and the heritage experience

  Open Access•David Herbert, David T Herbert•Annals of Tourism Research•2001

  Incluir item

• Guarding authenticity at literary tourism sites

  Open Access•Clare Fawcett, Patricia Cormack•Annals of Tourism Research•2001

  Incluir item

• The Great War and Modern Memory

  Paul Fussell•The SHAFR Guide Online•2017

  Incluir item