Carrick to Calgary

This is our slighty-delayed account of the Labour Day weekend we spent in Waterton. As regular readers will know, we were thinking of heading up north to Peace River, or maybe going up to Jasper again or taking a cabin in B.C. but in the end we decided to head right into the very south-western corner of our wee province and see what Waterton National Park had to offer. We left on Saturday morning for the three-hour drive down on Highway 22, past Bragg Creek, Millarville, Longview, the Bar-U Historic Ranch and coming at last to Pincher Creek and then finally to the Waterton townsite itself. The National Park occupies much of the lower-left corner of the provincial map, and is jointly run between the US and Canada with Glacier National Park which is much bigger and occupies much of northern Montana.


(The US is in yellow and Canada is at the top in orange)

The bigger version of the map is here

We got a good day for our long drive down and we stopped briefly for a picnic lunch at the Chain Lakes Provincial Park on highway 22.

Just south of there, we noticed that all the fence posts on the western side of the road were decorated with colourful farmers hats and the odd shoe nailed on the top of each post. This went on for more than half a mile and we stopped to take some pictues:


Why do they do this?


And where do they get all the hats from?

Pincher Creek is recognised as the windiest spot in all of Alberta and is home to almost 150 giant wind turbines which generate enough power for 35,000 homes. It's weird to come over a rise and see so many windmills stretching as far as the eye can see! And there are more planned for the same area!


Wind turbine at Pincher Creek

Pincher Creek is also home to Cowboy Cut-Outs! As you drive along, you will see little scenes set up in the fields by the road, featuring cowboys, indians, cattle, tee-pees and various other things from Alberta's cowboy past, all made up of black metal cut-outs. It's nice, but it's a little odd:


Cut-Out Cattle

The road that leads to Waterton Park and at the Waterton townsite itself is quite spectacular, as it skirts the western edge of the prairies in one of the few areas where the mountains meet the plains. Everywhere else along the Rockies there is a gradual transition between the two in the form of the Foothills or the boreal forest, but here the mountains just rise up all of a sudden from the flat plains!

There are 3 lakes in Waterton (Lower, Middle and Upper) and the townsite is right at the junction of the Upper and Middle lakes. The Prince of Wales Hotel (a 1920s-built, US-owned, very old-fashioned and very expensive hotel) is seven stories high and sits on a bluff overlooking the town with an amazing view of the Upper Lake, where you can see right down into Montana:


Prince of Wales Hotel


Upper Waterton Lake

To give you an idea of how close the US is, here's the same photo with the border drawn on it:



As you can see, Waterton townsite is at one end of the Upper Lake, the border is about halfway along the length of the lake and the tiny settlement of Goat Haunt is in Montana at the other, US end of the Lake.

We were staying at the Glacier Suites Hotel in the townsite and had a loft apartment with a king-size bed and a jacuzzi tub in the living room!


The Glacier Suites


Heart-Shaped Love Tub!

Our friends told us that Waterton is a bit like what Banff used to be like in the 1950s - in a lovely part of the country with lakes, forest wildlife and mountains but still fairly undeveloped, with only a few small hotels and restaurants. It has stayed fairly small because it's so remote from the rest of the province and because the train line never came here. It's got a kind of holiday feel, and the streets are full of 'surreys' (same as 'the surrey with the fringe on top'!) being pedalled around the town. It's also got a great view of Montana's mountains behind the lake:


Montana Sunset

And there seem to be lots of Mormons about the place, and deer roaming around the streets.


Deer at the Mormon church

We spent the rest of Saturday exploring the town and had home-made pizza at Pizza of Waterton, and on Sunday we set out to hike across the US border into Montana. The signs said it was only 7km (about 4 miles), so we figured it should only take us 1-2 hours to get to the border. It was very steep in places however, and we made slow going, taking almost 3 hours to reach Boundary Bay. The path weaves its way in and out of the forest and for a long stretch it goes right through prime bear territory. While we were walking through a section of the path where the forest was carpeted with the berries that bears go for, we were constantly sure that there was a grizzly having a snack around the next corner!


In the Chute! ("are you sure this is the right way?")


Bertha Bay (halfway there)


Waves on the Lake


Sun on the Rocks

The border is in the middle of nowhere, just a clearing in the forest which leads down to the lake. There's a little campsite and a biffy there, and the border is marked by a 10-foot wide clear-cut zone which leads right up the mountains on each side of the lake, so it's really clear where the border is. There's no border or customs post, no US or Canadian staff at all, just the border, the lake and the wind.


"Have you been to the toilet?" The last biffy in Canada!


The US-Canada Border


The Boundary

We slipped quietly across the border, entering the US illegally and walked for another 15 minutes or so before sitting down to have some lunch. Having penetrated Homeland Security's defences so easily, we decided to quite while we were ahead and slipped back into Canada. It took us another 2.5 hours of slogging to get back to Waterton, and we only came across a handful of people on the path - there really aren't that many people in Alberta, even on the Sunday before Labour Day!


Canada Rocks!

On the way home on Labour Day, we stopped at a few places in Waterton National Park:


Red Rock Canyon


P at Cameron Lake

We also stopped at a bison paddock which was supposed to be full of buffalo, but there were none to be seen. Maybe they were just shy...


WARNING: Bison may attack you...

We headed back up to Pincher Creek and went west up to Crowsnest Pass which is where the road penetrates the Rockies and goes over the border into B.C.

The road goes right through the Frank Slide, which is where a mountain side collapsed on a small mining village about 100 years ago. The village is gone, but the Slide is still there, huge boulders piled up on each side of the road. It's really impressive and it makes up think what it must have been like to be there when it all came down...


The Frank Slide

We drove on through the Pass until we were over into BC. It seems similar to Alberta, but the biffies are definitely different! We didn't realise that when people are crossing the border back into their home province they seem to get a bit excited and honk the horn, wave their arms, etc. So when we crossed back into AB, we had to do the same! (Well, we didn't want to seem disloyal...)


Welcome to Bee Cee!


First biffy in Bee Cee!

To end our journey, we turned north in the Pass and headed home on the Forestry Trunk Road. This is a gravel road where you can't go faster than 60 or 70 kph unless you want to go off the side! It winds all the way north from Waterton to Jasper, becoming highway 40 in Kananaskis for a while south of the Trans-Canada. And it take you up through some really deep forest, hundreds of miles from the nearest town. There's no mobile phone signal there and there's very little traffic on the road, so we made sure we had enough supplies in the Jeep to survive overnight and hike out the next day, just in case we broke down. It took us over 2 hours to make it to Highway 40, and we came across a few loggers and fishermen and a few 'random campers' who had just pulled up their RV by the road and made camp. Once we reached the proper road (highway 40), we were still in the middle of nowhere, but it was only another hour to reach the Trans-canada and then another 45 minutes to home. This was also our first time coming over the Highwood Pass, which is prime bear country too. Whew! What a drive! Happy Labour Day one and all!


The Highwood House Pass