Waterton Lakes

Waterton Lakes National Park occupies the southwestern corner of Alberta. Here the mountains rise abruptly out of the prairie. This geographical diversity accounts for the wide variety of plants and animals in the park. Sedimentary rocks as many as 1.5 billion years old form most of the mountains in this National Park. This rock was once an ancient seabed, heaved up by powerful forces to create new mountains. Wind, water, and ice shaped the landscape further. Upper, Middle and Lower Waterton Lakes, for example, lie in a depression hollowed out by a glacier. Indians have inhabited parts of the area for at least 8,000 years. Europeans, however, did not penetrate the region until 1858, because the powerful Blackfoot Confederacy controlled it. The federal government created the park in 1895 at the behest of, among others, John George "Kootenai" Brown, a noted adventurer and the park's first warden. In 1932 the Rotary Clubs of Alberta and Montana convinced the Canadian and American governments to designate Waterton Lakes National Park and the adjoining American Glacier National Park as the world's first international peace park: The Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. The acrylic painting used to illustrate the Waterton Lakes National Park stamp is the work of Brent Laycock, a native of Lethbridge. Typographic design is by William Tibbles.