 Location: Rugged, windswept mountains rise abruptly out of gentle prairie grassland in spectacular Waterton Lakes National Park. This landscape supports a great variety of plant life and habitat for wildlife such as bison, deer, moose, elk and bears. The park is home to Upper Waterton Lake, the deepest lake in the Canadian Rockies.
Terrain: The park's unusual red and green rocks are siltstones called argillite. The red rocks contain oxidized iron; the green ones contain unoxidized iron. The beige/grey/brown rocks are limestone or dolomite. A noticeable black band of igneous rock called the Purcell Sill can be seen on the face of some mountains. In most of the front ranges of the Rockies, mountains were built of overlapping, tilted thrust sheets. In Waterton, the main movement was a single, flat-lying thrust sheet which originated about 100 km southwest of the mountains' present position. For millions of years it slid northeast horizontally over younger 70 million year old Cretaceous rock. This fault is called the Lewis Thrust. Glaciers and other forms of erosion have sculpted the mountains and deposited the pieces at their feet. Glacial and fluvial deposits blanket the area east of the moutains, creating Waterton's unique 'Where The Mountains Meet The Prairies' landscape. There are presently no remaining glaciers in Waterton, just snowpatches. Glacier National Park has several snowfields and about 50 small glaciers, which are retreating rapidly and at current rates of recession may be gone by mid-century. The effects of glaciation are obvious - deep, U-shaped and hanging valleys (Upper Waterton and Akamina); arêtes (Citadel Peaks); cirques (Cameron Lake); kames (where the Prince of Wales Hotel sits) and eskers (in the bison paddock). Every day, erosion continues to tear down the mountains and...more
History: On May 20, 1895, a 140 sq. km area was protected by the federal government as a Dominion Forest Park. Its status, boundary and name have changed over the years, and it is now known as Waterton Lakes National Park of Canada. It became Canada's 4th national park and is the smallest in the Canadian Rockies at 525 sq.km. The park derives its name from the Waterton Lakes. This chain of lakes, named by Lieutenant Blakiston of the Palliser Expedition, honours a British naturalist, Squire Charles Waterton (1782-1865). John George "Kootenai" Brown was the first settler in the park area, the first game guardian and fisheries inspector, and became the first park superintendent in 1911. In 1927 the Prince of Wales Hotel was opened and bus service to Glacier National Park began. The same year, a 250-passenger launch, the "M.V. International", was built and a year later began operating on the upper lake. Visitors can still experience a boat tour on this historic vessel. In 1932, the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park was created to commemorate the peace, goodwill and cooperation between Canada and the U.S.A. The Peace Park is now a symbol and a working example of positive cooperation in heritage management across borders. In 1979, Waterton became Canada's second biosphere reserve and the first Canadian national park to take part in this UNESCO program. Biosphere Reserves are created to achieve a better understanding of the relationship between humans and the...more
Park Information
Headquarters: Waterton Park, AB
Permits: Daily Entry Fee: Adult $3.50; Senior (65 years and over) $2.50; Youth (6 to 16 years) $1.50; Child (under 6 years) Free; Family $8.00; Bus Tours, per person $2.50; Organized Youth Group, per person $1.00 Seasonal Pass: Adult $17.50; Senior $12.50; Youth $7.50; Child Free; Family $40.00 Summer Camping Permit Fee per night: Tent Site with Fireplace and Electricity $22.00; Tent Site with Electricity, Water andSewer $24.00; Tent Site $18.00; Tent Site with Fireplace $20.00; Tent Site with Electricity $20.00; Tent Site with Fireplace, Electricity, Water, and Sewer $26.00 Overflow Camping $15.00 Group Campground - Per Person, Per Night: Organized Youth Groups (minimum $30.00) $3.00; Others (minimum $40.00) $4.00 Backcountry Camping (Summer) - 1 Night Fishing Cove $15.00 Click for Peak Lister |