Covering Niagara: Studies in Local Popular Culture (review)

Covering Niagara, an original study of local popular culture in the Golden Horseshoe area, uses a variety of critical and historical perspectives and a wide range of methodologies, including cultural studies, textual analysis, archival research, and participant interviews, to map out this borderlands place. Such a variegated approach clearly suits a region labelled a green belt / fruit belt / rust belt that also calls itself home to a World Biosphere site (the Escarpment), a natural wonder (Niagara Falls), and a tourist mecca (Clifton Hill).

The collection as a whole contains fifteen chapters, divided into five broad sections. Of the three studies making up the first ‘Public Showings’ part, the last one, Marian Bredin’s comprehensive look at the Niagara Falls Indian Village, a tourist attraction popular in the 1960s, is particularly important. Operating as an ‘authentic’ Iroquois site, the Indian Village was located on four acres of unused wooded land well above the Horseshoe Falls (the area now occupied by Marineland and Game Farm). Featuring a large log palisade that enclosed a Plains-style tipi, wigwams, longhouses, a sweat lodge, a central stage for dance performances, and a souvenir shop, the attraction, which was based as much on myth as on history, was a very successful commercial and educational venture.

From the ‘Movies and Media’ section, Paul Moore’s study of late Victorian projection and moving picture apparatuses is of special interest. Besides providing an overview of the early films shown at the Princess Theatre in Niagara Falls, the author also unearths the first cameras to capture the cataracts on film (in 1896) and discusses how the experience of seeing this spectacle at the local Princess Theatre entertained audiences with images of home. Coincidentally, in two other chapters of the collection, when Jeannette Sloniowski and Joan Nicks analyze Hollywood movie ads and amateur minstrel shows from the first decades of the twentieth century, they add to the discussion about how the Princess Theatre was an important venue for popular events.

Other examples of fascinating regionally focused research are found in two articles on Niagara’s drinking culture. Dan Malleck’s history of the governments that prohibited the sale of intoxicating beverages (except for medicinal purposes) also surveys the terrain of Niagara’s post-Prohibition-era public houses (1927–44). Rounding out this ‘Food and Drink’ section, Hugh Gayler’s examination of Niagara’s emerging wine culture takes up the post–World War II period, when grape growers and winemakers tore out the local varieties, collectively known as Vitis labrusca, and planted in their place Vitis vinifera and French hybrids. Because of the region’s excellent soil and weather conditions, these new grapes thrived enough to gain the VQA stamp of approval.

And finally, of the half-dozen chapters under review in the ‘Local Connections’ and ‘Borderline Matters’ sections, Greg Gillespie’s examination of the tartan displayed on the kilts and bagpipes of the Niagara Regional Police Pipe Band is most enlightening. Tracing the story behind the creation of the tartan, Gillespie emphasizes the symbolism of the colours woven into its fabric and design. We learn that dark blue represents the Great Lakes; light blue the Niagara River and Welland Canal; white the Horseshoe Falls and mists; green the parks and farms; and red the bloodshed during local battles. After speculating on how this tartan is part and parcel of the myth of Highlandism too, Gillespie then goes on to argue that such ‘invented traditions’ still serve official, material, and popular purposes within the local community.

All in all, Covering Niagara leaves the reader with the impression that many community-building cultural experiences have found their roots and are growing in prominence from the ground up.