We saw a Canadian National Jasper booklet from 1946 a few days ago, and one from 1948 several years ago. This one from 1947 looks closer to the 1946 booklet than the one from 1948.

Click image to download a 17.7-MB PDF of this 46-page booklet.

In addition to the covers, the 1946 and 1947 booklets each have four color photos, two of them being the same in both booklets. The 1948 booklet has seven interior color photos.

Pages 27 and 30 of the 1948 booklet have color photos, while the 1946 and 1947 booklets have only black-and-white photos after page 18. As someone who has designed booklets before, I consider this to be an inefficient use of ink. Booklets like these are printed in spreads of four pages, which are then folded, cut, collated, and stapled to form a booklet. These booklets are 44 pages, which means pages 1, 22, 23, and 44 are printed as one spread.

That means that, if you put color photos on pages 1 and 44, you might as well put color photos on pages 22 and 23 since doing so won’t increase printing costs — but none of these do. Similarly, if you are put color photos on pages 6, 10, 14, and 18, as the 1946 and 1947 booklets do, you can also put color photos on other pages in the same spreads — but neither booklet does.

The 1948 booklet is a slight improvement. It has color photos on pages 18 and 27, which were the same spread, and pages 15 and 30, which were also on the same spread (but different from 18 & 27). But it still didn’t have color photos in the centerfold (the same spread as the covers), or on 5 or 40 (the same spread as 18 & 27), or on 8 or 37 (the same spread as 15 & 30). It also has color photos on pages 6 and 10 but no other pages in the spreads those pages are on.

All three booklets apply tints to some black-and-white photos, sometimes with ghastly results in 1946 and 1947. The 1948 booklet uses greater restraint with tinting.

While the photos in today’s booklet were more likely to also be found in the 1946 edition, much of the text was re-written for 1947 and carried over into 1948. The last several pages of each booklet are “details of activities in Jasper National Park,” made up of relatively small print and few graphics. All three booklets also have an identical fold-out map of the park and the lodge which is glued onto the inside back cover, bringing the total page count from 44 to 46.