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Northern Getaway

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View the page of Dominique Brégent-Heald

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Dominique Brégent-Heald investigates the connections between film and tourism during the first half of the twentieth century, exploring the economic, pedagogical, geopolitical, and socio-cultural contexts and aspirations of tourism films.

Image courtesy of interviewee. March 11, 2024

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The speaker discusses their research on the intersection of film and tourism in Canada during the early to mid-20th century, which was driven by their work on their first book, "Borderland Films, American Cinema, Mexico, and Canada." Their research focused on how films produced between 1908 and 1919 depicted borderlands as complex spaces that shaped societal views on race, gender, and nationhood.

Notably, they found that the Canadian Pacific Railway sponsored films in 1910 to promote tourism, leading to the involvement of both federal and provincial agencies in film production to attract American tourists. Their new project, "Northern Getaway," aims to trace the evolution of tourism films in Canada and their enduring impact on the country's tourism branding.

The speaker emphasizes their historian background and reliance on primary sources, having conducted extensive archival research in Canada and the U.S. They noted how Canada was innovative in using film for tourism promotion and that various strategies emerged, such as post-World War II collaboration with Hollywood to stimulate tourism.

Additionally, they highlight the role of government film agencies in producing tourism films that were often overlooked in film history. However, these films shaped national narratives, frequently erasing Indigenous communities while commodifying aspects of their culture for tourism. The speaker illustrates this with the example of the fictionalized character Gray Owl, designed to attract visitors to national parks.

The speaker concludes that while tourism films were highly effective in increasing visitor numbers—especially from the U.S.—the trend diminished by the late 1950s, shifting focus toward television production for promoting tourism.

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X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

00:00.000 --> 00:02.445
So I started working on this research project

00:03.125 --> 00:05.485
actually while completing my first book,

00:05.535 --> 00:08.645
borderland Films, American Cinema, Mexico,

00:09.025 --> 00:10.965
and Canada, during the Progressive era.

00:11.505 --> 00:13.325
Uh, and this came out in 2015

00:13.785 --> 00:15.525
by University of Nebraska Press.

00:16.425 --> 00:19.565
And in this book I draw on hundreds of motion pictures

00:20.445 --> 00:24.325
produced and released in the US between 1908 and 1919,

00:25.685 --> 00:29.705
and looking at how, films about borderlands functioned

00:29.765 --> 00:30.825
as these complex

00:31.565 --> 00:35.825
and paradoxical spaces to explore the social construction

00:35.825 --> 00:40.385
of race and gender, and nation in North America.

00:41.605 --> 00:45.505
And in researching this book, I became particularly struck

00:45.765 --> 00:49.425
by the role that tourism played in shaping these filmic

00:49.825 --> 00:51.905
representations of Canada, even

00:51.905 --> 00:52.985
during this early period.

00:53.805 --> 00:58.145
So for example, the Canadian Pacific Railway known

00:58.145 --> 01:01.225
as a CPR, sponsored film productions

01:01.225 --> 01:04.145
that celebrated Canada's scenic landscapes

01:04.445 --> 01:06.025
to promote railway travel.

01:06.685 --> 01:08.425
And most notably, in 1910,

01:08.425 --> 01:11.225
the CPR contracted the Edison Film Company

01:11.725 --> 01:14.705
to produce a series of films explicitly to boost

01:15.255 --> 01:16.825
railway travel in Canada.

01:17.805 --> 01:22.265
And I also learned that by the 1910s,

01:22.265 --> 01:24.785
government agencies at both the federal

01:25.365 --> 01:28.545
and provincial levels began investing in film production

01:28.965 --> 01:31.265
to promote, Canada as this kind

01:31.265 --> 01:34.745
of attractive destination to the American tourist market.

01:35.795 --> 01:39.935
So really the desire to learn more about these,

01:39.965 --> 01:41.895
intersections between film

01:41.895 --> 01:44.575
and tourism in Canada during the first half

01:44.575 --> 01:48.855
of the 20th century was what motivated me to write,

01:48.875 --> 01:50.575
and research Northern getaway.

01:51.315 --> 01:54.575
Uh, so my goal was to kind of chart the development

01:54.575 --> 01:56.135
of the tourism film in Canada

01:56.795 --> 02:00.215
and how this created a particular destination brand,

02:00.625 --> 02:02.815
which in many ways, exists.

02:03.075 --> 02:04.255
Uh, to this very day.

02:04.675 --> 02:08.295
I'm a historian first and a film scholar second.

02:09.115 --> 02:13.295
Uh, therefore my methodology is rooted in primary sources.

02:13.755 --> 02:15.375
So whether they're visual

02:15.475 --> 02:18.495
or textual, that is really what kind of drives,

02:18.555 --> 02:22.095
drives me as, as a historian

02:22.195 --> 02:24.215
and researcher, thankfully,

02:24.335 --> 02:28.335
I had a five-year research grant from the social,

02:28.615 --> 02:30.975
sciences and Humanities Research Council,

02:31.245 --> 02:32.935
sometimes just called Shirk.

02:33.435 --> 02:35.575
Uh, this, enabled me to travel

02:35.675 --> 02:37.055
to archives throughout Canada

02:37.195 --> 02:40.095
and the United States to follow the paper trail

02:40.195 --> 02:41.455
of the tourism film.

02:42.395 --> 02:47.015
So in addition to spending several weeks at the Library in

02:47.015 --> 02:48.735
Archives Canada, in Ottawa,

02:49.295 --> 02:51.975
I conducted research at the Library of Congress

02:52.275 --> 02:54.415
and at the National Archives

02:54.415 --> 02:58.375
and Records Administration in Washington, DC and,

02:58.755 --> 03:00.605
Uh, was able to travel

03:00.745 --> 03:03.765
to eight provincial archives across Canada.

03:05.025 --> 03:08.245
And these research trips unearthed a treasure trove

03:08.505 --> 03:11.645
of documents related to the ways in which,

03:11.645 --> 03:12.725
both feature films

03:12.905 --> 03:16.725
and nonfiction films were mobilized, both informal

03:16.905 --> 03:20.245
and informal ways to promote tourism to Canada.

03:21.305 --> 03:22.445
Uh, sadly, most

03:22.445 --> 03:25.925
of the films I discuss in the book are no longer ex extent,

03:26.625 --> 03:31.085
but some of these repositories did hold viewable copies

03:31.145 --> 03:34.365
of some of the travel logs I discuss, in the book.

03:35.345 --> 03:36.965
And, in addition to that,

03:37.005 --> 03:41.045
I also conducted countless hours of digital research,

03:41.115 --> 03:43.005
combing through, copies

03:43.105 --> 03:45.605
of film industry periodicals in newspapers.

03:46.305 --> 03:48.005
Uh, and thankfully did not have

03:48.005 --> 03:50.045
to do any dreaded microfilm research.

03:50.165 --> 03:51.925
I was very grateful that,

03:52.695 --> 03:55.525
these materials were digitized for me.

03:56.315 --> 03:58.885
Very soon. In the research phase of the book,

03:59.325 --> 04:01.685
I became cognizant of how much Canada

04:02.465 --> 04:05.645
was an innovator in using films as a means

04:05.705 --> 04:07.125
of tourism promotion,

04:07.505 --> 04:10.725
and that a very variety of strategies were adopted

04:11.985 --> 04:14.225
famously or perhaps infamously.

04:14.845 --> 04:16.465
Uh, after the Second World Board,

04:16.565 --> 04:18.865
the Motion Picture Association of America

04:19.495 --> 04:22.145
made an explicit commitment to the federal government

04:22.445 --> 04:25.705
to encourage tourism to Canada to stimulate the flow

04:25.725 --> 04:27.505
of US dollars into the economy.

04:28.165 --> 04:29.545
And this arrangement was known

04:29.545 --> 04:31.505
as the Canadian Cooperation Project.

04:32.585 --> 04:35.505
Uh, mainly this resulted in several Hollywood feature films

04:35.555 --> 04:36.825
being shot wholly

04:36.925 --> 04:40.225
or partially in Canada, such as Niagara

04:40.565 --> 04:43.745
or River of No Return starring Marilyn Monroe.

04:44.045 --> 04:47.185
Or sometimes they would awkwardly include references

04:47.205 --> 04:49.305
to Canada in films, as well.

04:50.485 --> 04:53.145
Uh, yet I realized very soon that this type

04:53.145 --> 04:56.145
of transnational collaboration had,

04:56.175 --> 04:57.905
much longer historical legs.

04:58.525 --> 05:00.585
So, in the 1920s,

05:00.845 --> 05:04.705
the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau advocated for,

05:05.005 --> 05:07.545
cooperating with the US Film Ministry

05:07.605 --> 05:11.025
and actually encouraged American producers to film in Canada

05:11.565 --> 05:14.545
as an indirect way to advertise the nation

05:15.125 --> 05:16.505
as a tourist destination.

05:18.005 --> 05:21.865
Um, and Canada was one of, if not the first country,

05:21.965 --> 05:25.825
to actually establish an in-house film production agency.

05:26.645 --> 05:29.465
Uh, initially called the Exhibits in Publicity

05:29.465 --> 05:30.745
Bureau in 1918.

05:31.565 --> 05:35.465
It was established to produce motion, motion pictures,

05:35.565 --> 05:37.385
to attract external trade

05:37.445 --> 05:39.705
and above all, tourist traffic.

05:40.325 --> 05:43.025
It was renamed the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau

05:43.085 --> 05:44.305
in 1923,

05:44.965 --> 05:48.665
and then absorbed into the National Film Board in 1941.

05:49.795 --> 05:53.345
These government film agencies produced hundreds

05:53.405 --> 05:55.985
of short nonfiction films about Canada.

05:56.835 --> 05:59.285
Sometimes they were shown in commercial theaters,

05:59.705 --> 06:01.965
but the vast majority were circulated

06:01.995 --> 06:05.805
through these expansive non-theatrical networks.

06:06.225 --> 06:10.885
So they were shown to millions of prospective Americans,

06:11.345 --> 06:13.485
in schools, university

06:13.485 --> 06:17.485
and college extension programs, exec exhibitions

06:17.485 --> 06:21.045
and fairs, clubs, boards of trades, hunting

06:21.105 --> 06:23.405
and fishing associations and so on.

06:24.185 --> 06:25.965
Um, and these are the types of films

06:25.965 --> 06:29.165
that are all too often forgotten in film history,

06:29.165 --> 06:32.285
which tends to focus on feature films and documentaries.

06:33.475 --> 06:36.215
Yet these functional films, you know, created

06:36.355 --> 06:39.455
for a specific purpose, in this case to promote tourism

06:39.675 --> 06:42.335
to Canada, I argue, are equally important

06:42.335 --> 06:46.015
to the historical record as they provide insight into

06:46.075 --> 06:50.175
how kind of various institutional agencies deployed film

06:50.275 --> 06:52.215
for their particular interests.

06:52.955 --> 06:56.655
And ultimately, these tourism films were steeped in the

06:56.655 --> 06:59.135
trappings of National Myth mythmaking.

07:00.035 --> 07:03.775
Um, basically they by and large drew from

07:03.995 --> 07:07.255
and perpetuated settler colonial ideologies.

07:07.915 --> 07:12.735
Uh, filmic depictions of Canada, were, you know,

07:12.735 --> 07:17.655
often appeared as pristine, kind of an unpopulated landscape

07:17.655 --> 07:20.295
that was ready made for tourism development.

07:20.795 --> 07:23.335
Uh, thus erasing indigenous communities.

07:24.055 --> 07:26.565
First nations peoples were then often re inscribed

07:26.565 --> 07:28.365
as tourist attractions.

07:29.025 --> 07:33.205
So, performing Indianness on screen as a way to kind

07:33.205 --> 07:35.925
of gesture towards some kind of authenticity.

07:36.625 --> 07:39.805
Uh, and this is best seen perhaps in films dealing

07:39.805 --> 07:41.565
with Canada's national parks.

07:42.775 --> 07:46.475
So you have the establishment of, of Banff Glacier

07:47.455 --> 07:51.195
Jasper, for instance, predicated on the removal

07:51.415 --> 07:53.595
and exclusion of indigenous communities

07:53.595 --> 07:55.635
that had resided upon those lands.

07:56.415 --> 07:59.875
Yet the parks would then incorporate Indian imagery in its

07:59.875 --> 08:01.915
promotional materials, including film.

08:02.655 --> 08:05.515
And, the most notorious example of this is that

08:05.515 --> 08:08.875
of Gray Owl, which was the imagined identity

08:09.295 --> 08:10.635
of Archie Bini.

08:11.055 --> 08:13.035
Uh, someone who was born in England,

08:13.215 --> 08:14.435
but became ensconced

08:14.575 --> 08:17.555
as a tourist attraction at Prince Albert National

08:17.555 --> 08:19.395
Park in Saskatchewan.

08:19.395 --> 08:20.515
During the 1930s,

08:21.335 --> 08:24.395
the National Parks made several films about Gray Owl

08:24.455 --> 08:27.355
and his famous beavers, whom he

08:27.355 --> 08:30.555
and his common law wife, Anaria, raised from kits.

08:31.095 --> 08:34.555
Uh, and these films in turn boosted tourist visits

08:34.695 --> 08:36.555
to the park in the surrounding region.

08:36.935 --> 08:39.915
It is difficult to qual quantify,

08:40.015 --> 08:41.715
but the data I examined revealed

08:41.715 --> 08:45.075
that Canada's investment in film paid off in the form

08:45.075 --> 08:47.875
of increased tourist traffic, primarily from south

08:47.875 --> 08:50.635
of the border throughout the first half of the 20th century.

08:51.765 --> 08:54.265
In the decade, following the second World War,

08:55.105 --> 08:56.365
the National Film Board

08:56.825 --> 08:59.405
and the Canadian Travel Bureau had become

08:59.995 --> 09:03.845
much more sophisticated in terms of developing tourism films

09:04.145 --> 09:06.045
and measuring their effectiveness.

09:06.545 --> 09:10.525
So, for example, employing surveys or collecting statistics

09:10.525 --> 09:12.605
and other forms of kind of hard data.

09:13.945 --> 09:16.525
Uh, this was truly the golden age

09:16.705 --> 09:18.685
of the Canadian tourism film.

09:19.385 --> 09:22.005
Uh, beginning in 1946,

09:22.025 --> 09:25.685
the Annual Dominion Provincial Tourist Conferences would

09:25.685 --> 09:27.285
provide occasions for federal

09:27.745 --> 09:30.845
and provincial stakeholders, as well as private interests

09:31.265 --> 09:33.925
to collaborate on ways to promote tourism

09:34.265 --> 09:36.765
and attract US tourist dollars.

09:36.935 --> 09:39.605
Again, this was needed to rectify, kind

09:39.605 --> 09:41.165
of an ongoing trade imbalance.

09:42.245 --> 09:46.185
So this resulted in increased investment in tourism films

09:46.775 --> 09:51.705
largely distributed through, non-theatrical networks.

09:52.565 --> 09:56.465
And government officials routinely justified the expense

09:56.855 --> 10:00.905
arguing that a single film would have long-term value.

10:01.565 --> 10:04.425
So the film, Rocky Mountain Trout is a case in point.

10:05.055 --> 10:08.345
This was a 15 minute color production distributed

10:08.445 --> 10:12.425
by the National Film Board in, made in 1947

10:13.045 --> 10:14.985
for just under $30,000.

10:16.085 --> 10:19.145
10 years later, it's still being shown throughout these

10:19.425 --> 10:22.505
networks, to an estimated audience

10:22.565 --> 10:24.265
of 13 million viewers.

10:24.405 --> 10:26.625
So again, it had a, a long-term value.

10:27.645 --> 10:31.945
Um, however, by the end of the decade, so the 1950s,

10:31.945 --> 10:36.785
tourism promotion through film would, subside

10:37.245 --> 10:40.745
and be replaced by, television production.

00:00 - So I started working on this research project actually while completing my first book, borderland Films, American Cinema, Mexico, and Canada, during the Progressive era. and this came out in 2015 by University of Nebraska Press.

00:16 - And in this book I draw on hundreds of motion pictures produced and released in the US between 1908 and 1919, and looking at how, films about borderlands functioned as these complex and paradoxical spaces to explore the social construction of race and gender, and nation in North America. And in researching this book, I became particularly struck by the role that tourism played in shaping these filmic representations of Canada, even during this early period.

00:53 - So for example, the Canadian Pacific Railway known as a CPR, sponsored film productions that celebrated Canada's scenic landscapes to promote railway travel. And most notably, in 1910, the CPR contracted the Edison Film Company to produce a series of films explicitly to boost railway travel in Canada. And I also learned that by the 1910s, government agencies at both the federal

01:25 - and provincial levels began investing in film production to promote, Canada as this kind of attractive destination to the American tourist market. So really the desire to learn more about these, intersections between film and tourism in Canada during the first half of the 20th century was what motivated me to write, and research Northern getaway. so my goal was to kind of chart the development of the tourism film in Canada

01:56 - and how this created a particular destination brand, which in many ways, exists. to this very day. I'm a historian first and a film scholar second. therefore my methodology is rooted in primary sources. So whether they're visual or textual, that is really what kind of drives, drives me as, as a historian and researcher, thankfully, I had a five-year research grant from the social,

02:28 - sciences and Humanities Research Council, sometimes just called Shirk. this, enabled me to travel to archives throughout Canada and the United States to follow the paper trail of the tourism film. So in addition to spending several weeks at the Library in Archives Canada, in Ottawa, I conducted research at the Library of Congress and at the National Archives

02:54 - and Records Administration in Washington, DC and, was able to travel to eight provincial archives across Canada. And these research trips unearthed a treasure trove of documents related to the ways in which, both feature films and nonfiction films were mobilized, both informal and informal ways to promote tourism to Canada. sadly, most of the films I discuss in the book are no longer ex extent,

03:26 - but some of these repositories did hold viewable copies of some of the travel logs I discuss, in the book. And, in addition to that, I also conducted countless hours of digital research, combing through, copies of film industry periodicals in newspapers. and thankfully did not have to do any dreaded microfilm research. I was very grateful that, these materials were digitized for me.

03:56 - Very soon. In the research phase of the book, I became cognizant of how much Canada was an innovator in using films as a means of tourism promotion, and that a very variety of strategies were adopted famously or perhaps infamously. after the Second World Board, the Motion Picture Association of America made an explicit commitment to the federal government to encourage tourism to Canada to stimulate the flow

04:25 - of US dollars into the economy. And this arrangement was known as the Canadian Cooperation Project. mainly this resulted in several Hollywood feature films being shot wholly or partially in Canada, such as Niagara or River of No Return starring Marilyn Monroe. Or sometimes they would awkwardly include references to Canada in films, as well. yet I realized very soon that this type

04:53 - of transnational collaboration had, much longer historical legs. So, in the 1920s, the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau advocated for, cooperating with the US Film Ministry and actually encouraged American producers to film in Canada as an indirect way to advertise the nation as a tourist destination. and Canada was one of, if not the first country, to actually establish an in-house film production agency.

05:26 - initially called the Exhibits in Publicity Bureau in 1918. It was established to produce motion, motion pictures, to attract external trade and above all, tourist traffic. It was renamed the Canadian Government Motion Picture Bureau in 1923, and then absorbed into the National Film Board in 1941. These government film agencies produced hundreds of short nonfiction films about Canada.

05:56 - Sometimes they were shown in commercial theaters, but the vast majority were circulated through these expansive non-theatrical networks. So they were shown to millions of prospective Americans, in schools, university and college extension programs, exec exhibitions and fairs, clubs, boards of trades, hunting and fishing associations and so on. and these are the types of films that are all too often forgotten in film history,

06:29 - which tends to focus on feature films and documentaries. Yet these functional films, you know, created for a specific purpose, in this case to promote tourism to Canada, I argue, are equally important to the historical record as they provide insight into how kind of various institutional agencies deployed film for their particular interests. And ultimately, these tourism films were steeped in the trappings of National Myth mythmaking. basically they by and large drew from

07:03 - and perpetuated settler colonial ideologies. filmic depictions of Canada, were, you know, often appeared as pristine, kind of an unpopulated landscape that was ready made for tourism development. thus erasing indigenous communities. First nations peoples were then often re inscribed as tourist attractions. So, performing Indianness on screen as a way to kind of gesture towards some kind of authenticity. and this is best seen perhaps in films dealing

07:39 - with Canada's national parks. So you have the establishment of, of Banff Glacier Jasper, for instance, predicated on the removal and exclusion of indigenous communities that had resided upon those lands. Yet the parks would then incorporate Indian imagery in its promotional materials, including film. And, the most notorious example of this is that of Gray Owl, which was the imagined identity of Archie Bini.

08:11 - someone who was born in England, but became ensconced as a tourist attraction at Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan. During the 1930s, the National Parks made several films about Gray Owl and his famous beavers, whom he and his common law wife, Anaria, raised from kits. and these films in turn boosted tourist visits to the park in the surrounding region.

08:36 - It is difficult to qual quantify, but the data I examined revealed that Canada's investment in film paid off in the form of increased tourist traffic, primarily from south of the border throughout the first half of the 20th century. In the decade, following the second World War, the National Film Board and the Canadian Travel Bureau had become much more sophisticated in terms of developing tourism films and measuring their effectiveness.

09:06 - So, for example, employing surveys or collecting statistics and other forms of kind of hard data. this was truly the golden age of the Canadian tourism film. beginning in 1946, the Annual Dominion Provincial Tourist Conferences would provide occasions for federal and provincial stakeholders, as well as private interests to collaborate on ways to promote tourism and attract US tourist dollars.

09:36 - Again, this was needed to rectify, kind of an ongoing trade imbalance. So this resulted in increased investment in tourism films largely distributed through, non-theatrical networks. And government officials routinely justified the expense arguing that a single film would have long-term value. So the film, Rocky Mountain Trout is a case in point. This was a 15 minute color production distributed by the National Film Board in, made in 1947 for just under $30,000.

10:16 - 10 years later, it's still being shown throughout these networks, to an estimated audience of 13 million viewers. So again, it had a, a long-term value. however, by the end of the decade, so the 1950s, tourism promotion through film would, subside and be replaced by, television production.

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