The End of America: The Beginning of Canada

For two centuries visitors to Niagara Falls have described the landscape of the Canadian side as orderly and pleasing, the American side as messy and polluted. This contrast is partly the result of divergent local economies and different levels of government involved in the structuring of the landscape. The War of 1812 created a firm and visible border along the Niagara River. This Paper examines the sharply contrasting meanings of the Niagara region in relation to the ideologies of Canadian and American nationalism. There are obvious reasons for the region's special importance to Canada, but American neglect of it may have a more sinister explanation.