Grasslands National Park

Almost all of the North American prairie was ploughed, and Grasslands protects one of the few large pieces that never was: mixed-grass prairie running to the Montana border, with coulees, badlands and a river valley cut into it. Plains bison were brought back in 2005 after more than a century away and now range free in the West Block. This is the only place in Canada with black-tailed prairie dog colonies, whose towns are noisy with alarm calls and support burrowing owls and ferruginous hawks. In 2009 it became a Dark Sky Preserve, and on a clear moonless night the Milky Way here is bright enough to cast a faint shadow.

History

Glacial meltwater carved the Frenchman River valley, the Seventy Mile Butte and the badlands of Rock Creek, and in 1874 George Mercer Dawson, working on the International Boundary Survey, found Western Canada's first dinosaur remains in the Killdeer Badlands. In 1877 Sitting Bull took refuge in the area with around 5,000 Sioux, the park was established in 1981, and a 2022 agreement between the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan and Parks Canada provided for the transfer of 24 bison (Wikipedia, Grasslands National Park).

What you'll find

• Free-ranging plains bison - reintroduced in 2005 to the West Block.
• Prairie dog towns - the only black-tailed colonies in Canada.
• The night sky - a dark sky preserve with almost no light on the horizon.
• The badlands of the East Block - eroded coulees and fossil beds.

When to go

May to September, with wildflowers and birdsong at their peak in June and the most comfortable walking in September. Summer days are hot and there is no shade anywhere. Dark sky viewing needs a moonless night, which means checking the lunar calendar before booking.

Things to know

There is essentially nothing here in the conventional sense: no lodge, no restaurant, no visitor centre inside the park, and the two blocks are two hours apart by road. Roads turn to impassable gumbo after rain. Rattlesnakes and ticks are present. The reward is silence and space, which is exactly the wrong thing for anyone wanting a full itinerary.

Nearby

Val Marie is the West Block gateway; Big Muddy Badlands are east.

Key facts