Glacier Park and Waterton Lakes

Narrator James A. Patrick makes a rare onscreen appearance in this entry in his long-running Traveltalks series for MGM. He's seen shaking hands with some Indians early on.

During the Second World War, the series stuck pretty much close to home, roaming around the United States, with occasional trips to Mexico and Canada. This one gets into the scenery on the Canadian side of Waterton Lakes.

The entries in the series were beautifully shot, but the ones that TCM shows often were poorly preserved. This one, shot by William O. Steiner, is in wonderful shape. The scenery around Glacier Park is so beautiful that if you look at this short subject and think the mountains are painted, you could easily be forgiven.

Glacier Park and Waterton Lakes (1942)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This here is pretty much a double-feature as James A. FitzPatrick splits this TravelTalks entry into two locations. First we visit Glacier National Park in Northern Montana where we see several folks being greeting by Blackfeet Indians before checking into a hotel that has everything modern people would want. We see other attractions including squirrels being fed and our host being made an honorary Indian. We then travel to Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada. Here we see the various waterfalls, lakes and the actual border with the U.S.. Fans of the series will find this one to be yet another pleasant entry that tells us some nice history as well as give us some great visuals. As normal we get the Technicolor that really brings things to life. It's should be noted that the glaciers are said to be able to last a thousand years from 1942 but that doesn't appear to be happening right now.

It's Montana's Glacier National Park. At the train station, Blackfeet Indians welcome the newly arrived tourists. James A. FitzPatrick gets initiated into the tribe and given the name Chief Globewalker. At Swiftcurrent Lake, they visit Many Glacier Hotel and start feeding the ground squirrels. They visit more lakes and more hotels and see more mountains. Then they cross the border to Canada's Waterton Lakes.

I always say that old nature films do have one drawback. Nature don't usually change. The big change recently are glaciers. I'm sure that any glaciers seen here are all gone now. So that's the big time capsule aspect. The other time capsule is the focus on the close relationship between United States and Canada. It probably has a lot to do with the world war raging outside of the country. There is always a spin around that issue.