ABSTRACT
John Towner has shown that in North America generally there was 'a rapid transition from eras of discovery and exploration to larger scale tourism developments', and Niagara epitomized this trend. Isaac Weld, visiting the Falls in the 1790s, was already able to view them from several defined 'stations' and was led to the foot of the Falls via 'Mrs Simcoe's ladder' to peer into the caverns behind. Franklin himself, it was revealed, had died in June 1847, but other men lingered on until at least 1851, and 'a handful almost made it out of the Arctic'. and the mysteries of the Canadian Arctic would slowly be revealed, but by the stage in the evolution of the travel genre Romantic readers were already well aware that there could be a lot more at stake in travel literature than mere 'amusement' and occasional instruction.
