Waterton, Canada
August 20 & 21, 2009
Waterton National Park has a common boundary and management program with our Glacier National Park. Together they are known as the Waterton – Glacier International Peace Park World Heritage Site. As we know, Yellowstone was the world’s first national park established in 1872 and with it stared the park movement as we know it today. The concept of national parks took off like the space shuttle and more national and state parks soon were established. Waterton Lakes followed in 1895 and Glacier in 1910. Adjoining one another along the Canada and Unites Sates Boundary, our governments joined the two as the world’s first International Peace Park in 1932.
We took a boat tour of Waterton Lake from the townsite of Waterton Canada, south into Montana’s Glacier National Park, crossing the international boarder. It was interesting to realize that we crossed an international boarder without processing through Customs and entered Montana by boat.
Posted by Carl Nielsen, 8:07 PM, Permalink Comment (1)
Jasper National Park
For those of you who are following along on this journey please forgive me for falling behind. Now that I am in the lower 48 I should have more internet connectivity.
Alberta, Canada
August 10-17, 2009
There wasn’t much to report as we traveled the Alaskan Highway south through Canada along much of the same route we traveled going north to Alaska. Not until we reached Jasper National Park in Alberta Canada. Shortly after passing through the park entrance gate, where we purchased an annual pass for Canada’s National Parks, we started seeing wildlife. We camped a short distance outside of the town of Jasper in one of the thirteen campgrounds this park offers. The campground we first stayed in, Whistlers has 781 campsites! It’s well designed and very busy. The entrance to the campground has four lanes and they could use more. It looked liked it was a holiday weekend with all of the people. Electric was not available as the few sites with electric were reserved far in advance so we moved a little further from town to Wapiti campground which did have electric but we literally camped in a paved parking lot.
The townsite of Jasper is quaint with many restaurants and shops. It even has its own train depot as do many of the older national parks in North America. There was ample parking on the edge of town for RV’s but in town parking was rarely available with the park being so busy. But we didn’t come here to spend much of our time in town, we wanted to see the resource and experience the northern Rocky Mountains. And experience the Northern Rockies is what we did for the next week.
After four days in Jasper National Park we traveled south along the Icefields Parkway through Jasper National Park, into Banff National Park where we spent another four days exploring Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay National Parks.
I was shocked at the lack of Park Law Enforcement that I didn’t see throughout these parks. I hadn’t seen any uniformed Wardens except at the campground registration booths until I approached a roadside trailhead that we planned on hiking and I saw a marked vehicle on the road shoulder with the lights activated and a young women struggling with loading a road-kill deer into the back of her patrol truck. I identified myself and asked if I could help, which she seems thankful to accept. After loading the deer into the back of her patrol truck, we spoke about PLEA which she knew of, and I learned that there was only three commissioned law enforcement Wardens for the entire four parks. Incredible!
Posted by Carl Nielsen, 7:57 PM, Permalink Comment (0)
August 20 & 21, 2009
Waterton National Park has a common boundary and management program with our Glacier National Park. Together they are known as the Waterton – Glacier International Peace Park World Heritage Site. As we know, Yellowstone was the world’s first national park established in 1872 and with it stared the park movement as we know it today. The concept of national parks took off like the space shuttle and more national and state parks soon were established. Waterton Lakes followed in 1895 and Glacier in 1910. Adjoining one another along the Canada and Unites Sates Boundary, our governments joined the two as the world’s first International Peace Park in 1932.
We took a boat tour of Waterton Lake from the townsite of Waterton Canada, south into Montana’s Glacier National Park, crossing the international boarder. It was interesting to realize that we crossed an international boarder without processing through Customs and entered Montana by boat.
Posted by Carl Nielsen, 8:07 PM, Permalink Comment (1)
Jasper National Park
For those of you who are following along on this journey please forgive me for falling behind. Now that I am in the lower 48 I should have more internet connectivity.
Alberta, Canada
August 10-17, 2009
There wasn’t much to report as we traveled the Alaskan Highway south through Canada along much of the same route we traveled going north to Alaska. Not until we reached Jasper National Park in Alberta Canada. Shortly after passing through the park entrance gate, where we purchased an annual pass for Canada’s National Parks, we started seeing wildlife. We camped a short distance outside of the town of Jasper in one of the thirteen campgrounds this park offers. The campground we first stayed in, Whistlers has 781 campsites! It’s well designed and very busy. The entrance to the campground has four lanes and they could use more. It looked liked it was a holiday weekend with all of the people. Electric was not available as the few sites with electric were reserved far in advance so we moved a little further from town to Wapiti campground which did have electric but we literally camped in a paved parking lot.
The townsite of Jasper is quaint with many restaurants and shops. It even has its own train depot as do many of the older national parks in North America. There was ample parking on the edge of town for RV’s but in town parking was rarely available with the park being so busy. But we didn’t come here to spend much of our time in town, we wanted to see the resource and experience the northern Rocky Mountains. And experience the Northern Rockies is what we did for the next week.
After four days in Jasper National Park we traveled south along the Icefields Parkway through Jasper National Park, into Banff National Park where we spent another four days exploring Banff, Yoho, and Kootenay National Parks.
I was shocked at the lack of Park Law Enforcement that I didn’t see throughout these parks. I hadn’t seen any uniformed Wardens except at the campground registration booths until I approached a roadside trailhead that we planned on hiking and I saw a marked vehicle on the road shoulder with the lights activated and a young women struggling with loading a road-kill deer into the back of her patrol truck. I identified myself and asked if I could help, which she seems thankful to accept. After loading the deer into the back of her patrol truck, we spoke about PLEA which she knew of, and I learned that there was only three commissioned law enforcement Wardens for the entire four parks. Incredible!
Posted by Carl Nielsen, 7:57 PM, Permalink Comment (0)
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