An examination of the role and contributions of the four Welland Canals to the development of Niagara Peninsula communities.

...makes some notable contributions to the popular and scholarly literature about the Niagara region...a welcome addition to the literature of US-Canada cross-border studies. -The Canadian Historical Review...provides a most engaging and eloquently written story, a learned tale of the Niagara region's associated historical triumphs and abiding challenges. The book's geographical and social histories will be of interest not only to residents of the Niagara Frontier but to anyone who has ever been fascinated by the complexly related natural and technological wonders that have helped to make Niagara one of the world's most famous and enduring icons. -ISLEThis in-depth regional study of the Niagara Frontier traces the evolution of landscape and patterns of settlement on both sides of the Niagara River extending from St. Catharines, Ontario, to Lockport, New York. This significant region, astride an international frontier, both connects and separates, unites and divides Canadian and American territories bordering the Niagara River.Like map overlays that build on an underlying base geography, Professor Jackson's chronological approach begins with the qualities of the physical background and their ongoing ramifications up to the present for the use and development of land. He then adds the Native settlements, showing their trails and economic activities, while highlighting the amazing fact that certain Native features remain an intrinsic part of the modern landscape. The next time period reveals that the previous human landscapes, once continuous across the Niagara River, became acutely discontinuous with the creation in 1783 of an unseen but divisive international boundary.Subsequent chapters follow the changes over the course of time as canals, railways, hydroelectric power, and the dominance of the automobile in the present era all transform the environment. Jackson also discusses Niagara Falls as the fulcrum around which the Niagara Frontier has developed and the impact of the tourist industry on the region. This thorough analysis of an important international region will be of great use to students of regional, urban, and historical geography as well as to anyone involved in cross-boundary trade, education, or tourism.John N. Jackson (St. Catharines, Ontario) is professor emeritus of applied geography at Brock University and the author of fourteen previous books on regional geography and history.John Burtniak (St. Catharines), now retired, was the special collections librarian and university archivist at Brock University.Gregory P. Stein (Buffalo, NY) is associate professor of geography and planning at SUNY College at Buffalo.

In Overcoming Niagara Janet Dorothy Larkin analyzes the canal age from the perspective of the Niagara–Great Lakes borderland between 1792 and 1837. She shows what drove the transportation revolution, not the conventional story of westward expansion and the international/metropolitan rivalry between Great Britain and the United States, but a dynamic connection, cooperation, and healthy competition in a transnational-borderland region. Larkin focuses on North America's three most vital waterways—the Erie, Oswego, and Welland Canals. Canadian and American transportation leaders and promoters mutually sought to overcome the natural and artificial barriers presented by Niagara Falls by building an integrated, interconnected canal system, thus strengthening the borderland economy and propelling westward expansion, market development, and the Niagara tourist industry. On the heels of the Erie Canal's bicentennial in 2017, Overcoming Niagara explores the transnational nature of the canal age within the Niagara–Great Lakes borderland, and its impact on the commercial and cultural landscape of this porous region.

Making extensive use of the National Archives and the Archives of Ontario, Styran and Taylor unveil previously unpublished information about the construction of the canals, including technical plans and drawings from a wide variety of sources. They illustrate the technical and management intricacies of building a navigational trade and commerce lifeline while also revealing the vivid characters - from businessman William Hamilton Merritt to engineer John Page - who inspired the project and drove it to completion. The history of the Welland Canals is a gripping tale of epic proportions. Given the ongoing importance of the Great Lakes in the North American economy, interest in the St. Lawrence Seaway - of which the Welland is "the Great Swivel Link" - and the relevance of labour history, This Great National Object will be of interest to enthusiasts and historians alike.

This Colossal Project presents an absorbing epic on the building of the fourth Welland Canal, which connects Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and allows ships to bypass Niagara Falls. An immense undertaking, the canal is a vital part of North America’s infrastructure and still functions as an essential part of the St Lawrence Seaway. Emphasizing the role that vivid personalities – including engineers John Laing Weller and Alex Grant as well as contractors and labourers – played in the construction of the canal, Roberta Styran and Robert Taylor use archival sources, government documents, newspapers, maps, and original plans to describe a saga of technological, financial, geographical, and social obstacles met and overcome in an accomplishment akin to the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. A story of Canadian skill, courage, vision, and hardship, This Colossal Project details the twenty-year excavation of the giant channel and the creation of huge concrete locks amidst war, the Great Depression, political change, and labour unrest. Building on the work presented in Styran and Taylor’s This Great National Object, which told the story of the first three Welland canals built in the nineteenth century, This Colossal Project chronicles an impressive milestone in the history of Canadian technological achievement and nation building.

The World of Niagara Wine is a transdisciplinary exploration of the Niagara wine industry. In the first section, contributors explore the history and regulation of wine production as well as its contemporary economic significance. The second section focuses on the entrepreneurship behind and the promotion and marketing of Niagara wines. The third introduces readers to the science of grape growing, wine tasting, and wine production, and the final section examines the social and cultural ramifications of Niagara’s increasing reliance on grapes and wine as an economic motor for the region. The original research in this book celebrates and critiques the local wine industry and situates it in a complex web of Old World traditions and New World reliance on technology, science, and taste as well as global processes and local sociocultural reactions. Preface by Konrad Ejbich.

This text examines the history of the Great Lakes Basin in relation to its importance as a place of social, economic, and political interaction between the United States and Canada.