My first sight of Waterton Lakes National Park was as a teenager peering out from the back seat of the family Rambler during a summer vacation out of Calgary.
The last remnants of southern Alberta's rolling fescue prairie abruptly gave way to a lake-filled, flower-strewn valley cupped by mountains that shone in the sun. The park's tiny village was a sprinkling of modest cottages, small shops and low-slung motels along a main road that skirted the north shore of Upper Waterton Lake, the deepest lake in the Canadian Rockies and the largest in a string of three that spill south toward Montana. The one touch of rustic elegance was the American-owned Prince of Wales Hotel, a seven-storey gabled confection that loomed like an aging aristocrat on a high knoll overlooking the community and the lake.
It was love at first sight and the beginning of a romance with this small Rocky Mountain gem that has deepened with my repeated visits over the past 40 years.
Surprisingly, little has changed in Waterton over the decades. The Prince of Wales is still serving high tea in the afternoons and, despite the sanding off of the rougher edges, the town remains modest. You may now be able to buy a good California chardonnay at the liquor store, sleep in more upscale accommodations and stock up on gourmet cheeses for a day-hike picnic, but rampant commercialization on Banff's scale has been kept at bay. This is still a place for those travellers who prefer the great outdoors to alpine shopping malls. Even more important for those of us who are regular visitors, it is an intimate place you can get to know intimately.
The 17-kilometre round-trip hike to Crypt Lake along Hell-Roaring Creek showcases the full beauty of Waterton park. (Laszlo Buhasz)
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Tucked into the extreme southwest corner of the province, Waterton, at 526 square kilometres, is the smallest — and probably the least-known — national park in the Rockies. First set aside as a forest preserve in 1895, it became a national park in 1910. Twenty-two years later, Waterton and the much larger Glacier National Park in Montana were linked as the first International Peace Park in the world. They are administered separately, but are contiguous and together protect a spectacular ecosystem that was named a World Heritage Site in 1995.
Botanists have recorded close to 1,200 species of plants growing within the park, more than in Banff and Jasper combined. On a major migratory flyway, Waterton seasonally shelters up to 250 species of birds and is the permanent home of more than 60 species of mammals, including elk, grizzly bears and cougars.
The continuing health of Waterton's biodiversity is owing in no small part to its relative isolation and the limited human footprint within its boundaries. It was never served by rail, and visitors don't treat the park as a stop on a trip to someplace else, mainly because there are no through roads (this is also the reason for the blessed scarcity of tour buses). Even in July and August, Waterton feels uncrowded compared with the larger mountain playgrounds to the north.
In the winter, the park is almost deserted. Fewer than 100 people live here full-time, and while some services remain open, most who visit are cross-country skiers and snowshoers.
Waterton's culture celebrates the mountain environment, and the main activity here is hiking. Although the park is small, its impressive trail system stretches for more than 220 kilometres. Routes range from the easy 1.6-kilometre jaunt at Cameron Lake to an arduous three-day backpacking trek over Lineham Ridge to Lone Lake, Twin Lakes and Goat Lake. The truly energetic can even cross the international border and hike the 1,200 kilometres of trails in Glacier National Park.
My favourite excursion is one I first made with my son when he was the same age I was when I first came to Waterton. We pored over maps of climbs to such colourfully named places as Bear's Hump, Goat Haunt and Wishbone. In the end, the 17-kilometre round-trip day hike to Crypt Lake along Hell-Roaring Creek proved irresistible.
It was a perfect day, with blue skies and a lull in Waterton's infamous winds. Best of all, the route we had chosen showcased the full beauty of the park. We traversed flower-filled slopes, saw waterfalls cascading hundreds of metres into the creek's valley, negotiated narrow ledges on cliff faces and crawled through a natural tunnel before arriving at emerald-green Crypt Lake, nestled in a hanging valley that edged into Montana. It was as good a father-son adventure as any I remember.
We had taken a water shuttle across Upper Waterton Lake to the Crypt Lake trailhead, but small ferries can also take visitors on a 45-minute cruise from the town marina to Goat Haunt in Montana.
There are alternatives for those who prefer not to hike. Fishing is good in the lakes that dot the park, and the 6,118-yard Stanley Thompson-designed golf course — first constructed in 1929 and one of the oldest in Alberta — is again in good condition after decades of neglect.
There aren't many roads in the park, but two are worth exploring. The 16-kilometre Akamina Parkway winds up to Cameron Lake and affords a 400-metre-high lookout over the townsite and the park's main valley. The 13-kilometre Red Rock Canyon Parkway winds up Blakiston Valley and is popular with families and picnickers who go to see the crimson, water-carved gorge.
At the eastern edge of the park, you can drive around a large prairie paddock that houses 15 to 20 bison that graze on the fescue in a scene that was common 150 years ago when millions of the animals roamed the continent's great grasslands.
There is history here too — although like the park itself, it's on a modest scale. A roadside plaque along the Akamina Parkway, for example, marks the site of Oil City, a city that never was. The Rocky Mountain Development Company struck oil here in 1901, the first commercial oil well in Western Canada and only the second in Canada. The boom was short-lived, however, and only a few traces of a community that was planned for the site can still be found a short stroll from the road.
In some ways, the protection of this special place is the legacy of John George (Kootenai) Brown, one of the more colourful characters in Canada's Old West. Irish-born and Oxford-educated, Brown sold his commission in the British Army after serving a stint in India, and set out in 1862 for the gold fields of British Columbia. The story of the next 54 years of his life read like fiction — and some of it probably is.
After brief spells as a miner, gambler and constable, Brown made his way east across the Rockies to try his hand as a buffalo hunter and whisky runner before working south of the border as a message rider for the U.S. Army. He claimed to have been captured by — and then to have escaped from — Chief Sitting Bull. In one interview late in life, he said he missed the massacre at Little Big Horn by declining to scout for George Custer's cavalry.
Brown finally settled in the Waterton area in 1878, opened a trading post and, like many others since, fell in love with the region and was concerned with its preservation. In 1901, he was appointed forest ranger for the newly created forest reserve and 10 years later, at the age of 71, he was named as the first superintendent of the national park he lobbied for years to create.
In a very real sense, he was one of Alberta's first conservationists, a rough-hewn character remembered in Brock Silversides's Waiting for the Light as ready "to defend the region ... from the ruthless attack of poacher and vandal."
Brown died in 1916 and was buried on the shores of Lower Waterton Lake. From the highway leaving the park, a trail leads through a patch of trembling aspen to a clearing where his modest tombstone stands behind a white picket fence.
He would have appreciated the view.
GETTING THERE
Waterton Lakes National Park is 270 kilometres south of Calgary and 130 kilometres southwest of Lethbridge. If you're driving from Calgary, turn west off Highway 2 towards Black Diamond and take Highway 22 south, Highway 3 east to Pincher Creek and then Highway 6 south.
WHERE TO STAY
Prince of Wales Hotel: 403-859-2231; www.glacierparkinc.com/princeofwaleshotel.htm. Opened in 1927, it's a faded, somewhat overpriced gem with rooms from $179 to $799C.
Kilmorey Lodge: 403-859-2334; www.watertoninfo.ab.ca/kilmorey.html. Rates range from $129 to $228.
Aspen Village Inn: 403-859-2255 www.watertoninfo.ab.ca/aspen.html. Rooms start at $146.
Bayshore Inn: 1-888-527-9555; www.bayshoreinn.com. Rooms from $104
THINGS TO DO
Waterton Lakes Golf Course: 403-859-2114; www.golfguide.ca/course-3617.htm. Fees are $36 for 18 holes, $24 for nine.
Alpine Stables: 403-859-2462; www.alpinestables.com. Offers a variety of guided trail rides in the park.
White Mountain Adventures: 1-800-408-0005; www.whitemountainadventures.com. Wildlife viewing tours and guided hikes.
MORE INFORMATION
Waterton Lakes: www.watertonchamber.com and www.watertonpark.com
Parks Canada: www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/waterton
Alberta tourism: www.travelalberta.com.
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