Waterton Lakes Park, Alberta, Canada

Waterton Lakes Park, Alberta, Canada By H. C Singer AMONG the seven beautiful reservations set aside by Canada in the Rocky Mountains, is none lovelier than Waterton Lakes National Park. This charming reserve lies on the eastern slope of the Rockies where they approach the international boundary line. The park forms a rough square with a long L- shaped section added to the east. Its western boundary is the crest of the Rocky Mountain divide; its northern, roughly, the Carbon- dale river; to its east spread the rolling foothills of the province of Alberta and its southern boundary the beautiful Glacier National Park of the United States. About the Waterton Lakes the Indians have woven a beautiful legend. Very long ago, where the park now stands was all unbroken prairie. Among the tribes lived a young brave, named Sokumapi. On an evil day he fell into the hands of the Seven Devils, who carried him down to the underworld and made a slave of him. There he fell in love with another captive, a beautiful maiden, who suggested a way of escape. While the devils slept, the lovers stole away, tak- ing with them three magic gifts, a stick, a stone, and a basket of water. They fled westward with the evil spirits in fast pursuit, but when nearly overtaken, Sokumapi threw down a stone. At once mountains sprang up on the prairie. Profiting by the delay, the lovers again fled and when again nearly overtaken threw down a stick, and it became a luxuriant forest. From his basket Sokumapi emptied the water which became a beautiful lake, and in the basket as a canoe the lovers escaped. On the crest of the divide, they made a happy home and the Indians of the mountains believe to this day their happy spirits haunt the shores of the lovely waters now known as Waterton Lakes, and from its shores the Seven Devils have de- parted. Early in 1857, a white man by the name of Lieut. T. Blakis- ton, R. A., crossed the pass. He was a member of the famous Palliser expedition fitted out by her Majesty's Government to explore west- ern Canada with a view to obtaining information as to its possibili- ties and discovering a route across the mountains in British territory. The party explored the main passes of the Rockies between Atha- basca and the international boundary. Lieutenant Blakiston was in charge of the expedition which was ordered to explore the passes to the south. On this occasion Waterton received its name, which was given in honor of Charles Waterton, 1782-1865, the English naturalist and traveler, world famed for his researches into Indian

482 IMPROVEMENT ERA April. 19 2? poisons and ornithological work. By 1860 Blakiston had crossed the pass and arrived at the International Boundary Commission, which was engaged in surveying the boundary between the United States and Canada. Eight years later there passed over the mountains one of the Chalet at Moraine Lake, Near Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada

April. 1929 WATERTON LAKES PARK, ALBERTA, CANADA 483 most picturesque figures of the early West, John George Brown. He was born in England, educated at Eton and Oxford and was for years an army officer in India. He reached San Francisco in 1862, and became a cowboy, gold prospector and soldier of fortune. In 1865 he made his way to Fort Edmonton, Alberta, and from one of the mountains nearby, he and his four companions saw the plains below black with buffalo and beyond them, spread out in all its beauty, lay the blue lake engirdled by mountains. Greatly moved by the scene, Brown decided to settle there and later became the park's first warden and afterwards acting superintendent. He married twice, half-breed women, his last wife, a woman of more than ordinary intelligence, surviving him and now living in Waterton Lakes Park. "Kootenai" Brown (as he came to be called), though suffering pri- vation and hardship, defended the region first chosen by himself and later by the Government from the attack of poacher and vandal. Unlike the other parks, the reservation cannot be reached di- rectly by rail, the nearest stations being over thirty-five miles away, one at Pincher Creek and the other at Cardston, in the south, where stands the beautiful "Mormon" temple. But the lakes can be reached by splendid roads that are a delight to the traveler. Nearing the mountains the road from Cardston crosses a swiftly flowing river and pretty valley of grassy meadows, and round the bend one passes from prairie land to mountain land, and the lake stretches out in all its grandeur. There may be more imposing parts of the Rockies but none are surpassing these lakes in loveliness. Green forests spread around the blue water and, towering high above them, the peaks covered with eternal snow look like fantastic castles and fairy turrets. These have their reflection in the lake, and here the poet may commune with the Infinite, the weary and sad find surcease from toil and care, while the artist may find many a theme as entrancing as the tales of beauty of far-off Arcadia. Eastward of the mountains lay the towns of southern Alberta, Cardston, Lethbridge, Pincher Creek and McLeod, whence come tourists to share the delights of nature. Here on the vast rolling prairies are the beautiful and well cultivated farms inhabited to a large degree in the south country by Latter-day Saints. Here, where once roamed the buffalo by the thousands, but gone today, they live and worship; where once tribe clashed with tribe, wheat and sugar beets grow, and there is but little to remind one of exciting hunts and fights. Still occasionally is seen a half-obliterated wallow near the road side, an old beaten trail, a few poles that mark the site of a once ancient Sun Lodge. But it is believed today that the spirits of the old braves find rest in the mountains that surround "Omoksiimi" (beautiful waters), now known as Waterton Lakes.