On this day in 1953, when the classic animated film Peter Pan flew into theaters, the marquee would also bear the name of the accompanying featurette, Bear Country. The Academy Award®-winning True-Life Adventure tells the story of American black bears. In a 1955 article by Bear Country photographers Alfred and Elma Milotte, the couple discussed the differences and similarities between human parental discipline and what they witnessed while working on that film. “We watched disciplinary maternal love in action while photographing a black bear and her playful cubs in Disney’s Bear Country. Mother bears are very affectionate. But they cuff as well as they hug their little ones in teaching them survival manners.” In thinking about their work on Bear Country and many of the Disney nature films they worked on, they concluded, “You learn in many ways that love is more powerful than hate, else the earth long since would have been a barren desolation.”
