Here’s a home movie from the 1930s that shows a captain’s travels through the Panama Canal. 

Title card reads “Entering Gatun Locks, Panama Canal.” There are wide shots of the canal and a hut-like home on a bank. 

A ship appears to be parked, perhaps waiting to enter through a gate. 

A very large two-doored gate is seen closing and opening slowly. One ship eventually makes some progress moving through a narrow, man-made passage. A small, train-like vehicle appears to be guiding the ship; the side of the vehicle reads “U.S. 645.” People watch the ship move. 

Title card reads: “Mighty gates that hold the water both in and out are roughly nine feet thick, and are equipped with an uncanny disappearing handrail.”

Title card reads: “On Lake Gatun, eighty four feet above the Atlantic.” 

Title card reads: “Culebra Cut being widened hydraulically.” 

Title card reads: “We come upon Gaillard Cut, where the mighty engineering task was almost frustrated by persistent landslides.” From a moving ship, a steep hill is seen in the distance, on a bank of the canal.

Title card reads: “Approaching Pedro Miguel Lock on our way to the Pacific.” Assorted shots of a harbor area follows. Boats are docked. There are also images of a market; people are moving food and making purchases.