Rare 1930s Jasper National Park Home Movie of Maligne Canyon Hiking

If you want to know what it was like to hike Maligne Canyon in the early days of Jasper National Park (founded in 1907), check out this rather fun vintage 1930s home black and white movie from YouTube.  Take a look at the people, the signs, and the experience of this rare home movie footage.

Notice how different the hiking clothing is.  It seems as if the 1930s Jasper National Park hikers are all dressed up.

It is also very likely, given what I’ve read about Jasper National Park’s history in Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park and in other sources, that the people visiting Jasper National Park in the 1930s were more wealthy than most.  Remember too that the great depression was in the 1930s.  In the 1930s, Jasper National Park was still relatively obscure compared to Banff National Park, with Jasper having an average of 14,859 visitors per year in the 1930s whereas Banff National Park had an average of 173,178 visitors per year in the 1930s (source: I used the visitor statistics chart on page 226 of “Culturing Wilderness in Jasper National Park” [2007] to come up with these averages).

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