With the success of his first True-Life Adventure, Seal Island, Walt Disney was chomping at the bit to produce a second reality featurette. That film, Beaver Valley, swam into theaters on this day in 1950, and here’s nothing but the “tooth” about the film. Beaver Valley tells the story of a two-year-old beaver who sets forth into the wild world to establish a home with a young widow beaver and her baby. Winning the Academy Award® for Best Two-Reel Short Subject, the film was photographed by Disney Legends Alfred and Elma Milotte and other naturalist photographers, who captured images of moose, deer, crickets, frogs, salmon, and other creatures in their natural surroundings during six months at Georgetown Lake, Montana, and on the Gunflint Trail in Minnesota. Rather than hiding from the beavers, as part of the weeks of preparation, the camera team sat and stood quietly along the pond and swamp borders until the wary beaver accepted them as a harmless part of the scenery.
