Waterton Lakes National Park

Waterton is where the mountains do not build up gradually: the prairie runs flat to the foot of the range and then the Rockies begin, abruptly, which gives the park a look no other Canadian park has. In 1932 it was joined with Glacier National Park across the Montana border as the world's first international peace park, and the pair carry a joint World Heritage listing. A boat crosses Upper Waterton Lake into the United States, docking at Goat Haunt. Trails climb to Crypt Lake through a tunnel cut in the rock and along the Carthew-Alderson traverse, and the Prince of Wales Hotel stands on a bluff above the lake in a permanent gale. A major fire in 2017 burned much of the park, and the regrowth is now part of what you see.

History

The surveyor William Pearce first suggested a park here in 1886, and after the rancher Frederick William Godsal took up the idea, an order-in-council of 30 May 1895 created a 140-square-kilometre forest park, the fourth national park in Canada, later named after the Victorian naturalist Charles Waterton. Oil seeps drew prospectors, and in 1902 John Lineham drilled the first oil exploration well in Alberta near Cameron Creek, though it never produced; in 1911 only 35 square kilometres were designated a dominion park, but in 1914 Minister of the Interior William James Roche enlarged it to 1,096 square kilometres. A golf course was laid out from 1920, and the Prince of Wales Hotel, one of Canada's grand railway hotels, went up in 1926-1927 (Wikipedia, Waterton Lakes National Park).

Highlights

• The mountain-prairie meeting - the Rockies rising straight from flat grassland.
• The Crypt Lake trail - the boat, ladder and rock tunnel to a hanging lake.
• The international boat - crossing the lake into Montana at Goat Haunt.
• Red Rock and Cameron - the canyon drives and their coloured rock.

When to go

June to September is the season, with wildflowers in July and the boat and most trails running; many facilities close from October and the townsite largely shuts for winter. Wind here is constant and famously strong.

Things to know

The 2017 fire burned a large share of the park's forest and trails, and while the regrowth is genuinely interesting, visitors expecting unbroken forest will find burnt slopes. The wind is relentless enough to be a factor in planning. It is a small park compared with Banff and a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Calgary through empty country.

Nearby

Head-Smashed-In is an hour and a half north; Glacier National Park is across the border.

Key facts