Or at least, that's what Visatone Film Studios thought in 1964 when they shot a film celebrating the inauguration of Lake Burley Griffin, a digitised version of which has been re-issued by the National Film and Sound Archive to commemorate the lake's 50th anniversary.

Do you remember 1964? Those golden days when prime minister Robert Menzies ruled as a benevolent god, Canberra was blissfully un-self-governed and the internet hadn't ruined everything yet.

I certainly don't, I wasn't born yet. But Visatone makes it seem delightful.

"Canberra the lakeside city - the city now enriched by a water way which serves to unify and crystalise the concept of the National Capital," the 60s narrator says chirpily.

It could be argued the only thing the lake has "unified" in the minds of Canberrans is the words 'blue', 'green' and 'algae'.

But before our lake could be constructed we needed science - and a generous helping of it, says the video. To help simulate how this lake would work, scientists created a concrete topographical model to see how the river would flow and fill.

If they were making a similar model today, they might have included a tiny Skyfire next to it, with tiny alcopops to give to the tiny underage drinkers.

One wonders what other Canberra institutions could have benefited from a concrete scale-model - pay parking perhaps? Tiny broken parking meters beside tiny enraged public servants?

Next door, they build a tiny concrete Scrivener Dam to show how it would provide added storage capacity yet remain capable of discharging sudden excessive flooding.

Unfortunately the two models in the video appear to be spurting jets of water from numerous leaks, so either everyone in Weston Creek is going to die or they improved on this before the final construction was put in place.

From there, the lake is constructed - mighty earth moving machines roll across the lake bed and filthy trees are cast asunder before the sparkling vision we know today is revealed before our eyes.

The film shows roads being put down beside the shore for "scenic motor drives" - whatever they are - and eventually a bunch of truly C-grade royals (Duchess of Shropshire?) plant a tree.

The music rises to a climax as the film pans beneath a bridge - well, expectations were lower in those days.

Cut to Regatta Point where prime minister Menzies is bringing the house down with some of his trademark zingers, 50 years ago on Friday.

"I declare this lake duly inaugurated," Mr Menzies says, to laughter amongst the assembled proto-Canberrans. Well expectations were lower in those days.

"A lake is more than a sheet of water. You can have a sheet of water if you spend money on it anywhere I suppose, roundabout, even in the middle of Australia," he continues.

This would explain Mr Menzies' disastrous "Uluru Lake" project in 1965, which discovered that, no, you couldn't have a sheet of water in the middle of Australia.

Behind the prime minister, in the water, about 50,000 boats languorously coast across the waves, more than would ever be seen on the lake ever again.

Children frolic on the shoreline of the lake, in boats, canoes and pantone sweaters.

These were harder days than what I was used to as a child - cosy picnic benches and barbecues are nowhere to be seen. Children sit on rocks and eat sausages which appear to also have been cooked on rocks.

These kids didn't need the ACT government's barbecue police - they made their own goddamn barbecue.

The film ends on a positive note, which only needs slight alterations due to the passage of time:

"Lake Burley Griffin beautifies the capital. Its waters will be a playground [except when they're closed most of the year due to blue-green algae] and its foreshores will remain forever as landscaped areas [i.e. until Andrew Barr builds something over them] to which all people may have free access [no burqas]."