The 49th Parallel - Rocky Mountains Part 2

 

Wherein Moominmama joins an International Peace Park hike across the U.S.-Canadian border and enjoys a demonstration of Blackfoot Pow-wow dances...

This year is the 49th summer that rangers from Glacier National Park and the Waterton Lakes National Park have led International Peace Park hikes from Waterton to Glacier across the 49th parallel. The two national parks abut one another, and back in the 1930s, our two countries decided to create the first international peace park, an idea that's been repeated elsewhere since then.

As is the custom, one of the rangers reads a few words at the border restating a commitment between the U.S. and Canada never to raise arms against each other. Participants straddle the dividing line and shake hands. I'm not in the photo because I was taking it!

But the dividing line is visible (see the v-shape beyond Ranger Frank), and is required to be cut or mowed regularly. Having seen the wall at our southern border, this carving through the brush seems its mirror image. I can't imagine what it costs to keep clearing trees and brush through this swath of our east-west border, but it certainly seems preferable to a wall!

Goat Haunt, the area on the U.S. side, is only accessible on foot or by board as it's located at the base of Upper Waterton Lake. There is no border station though U.S. Customs and Border Patrol have erected various threatening signs. We were required to carry our passports but were never asked to show them.

We were traversing some pretty dense understory on the U.S. side but walking down the length of the lake, we were able to take a boat back to the Canadian side at the end of the day.

The two rangers taught us about many of the plants in the woods plus we got a lesson on avoiding bears: bells, they said, are an unnatural and unthreatening sound and risk making bears curious. Don't use them.

Whistles sound like marmots and also may do more to attract than deter bears. Clapping your hands imitates breaking branches and makes you sound like something big and scary on the trail. And human voices are widely recognized by bears as something to avoid, also a good deterrent.

One of my fellow hikers likened it to ringing the doorbell or shouting hello before you enter someone else's home. 

The one downside to my time staying in Waterton Lakes National Park has been the fire smoke. To our west, the town of Summerland B.C. has been evacuated, and fires continue to devastate the area as I write.

There are epic mountain vistas that I missed, for sure. This photo here shows the small area of Waterton Village on the right where the campground is located and where there are shops and a small marina (which is where we returned after our hike.)

But Waterton Lakes is definitely plural. There are upper, middle and lower Waterton lakes as well as dozens of other lakes in glacial cirques around the national park. 

The water is universally pristine and cold! The Canadian parks service preserves the water in part by disallowing boats from elsewhere. You rent boats restricted to one particular water body.

While these photos don't show it, the lake is typically very windy. The water turns over in the wind, and Moominmama can testify that there is no warmer layer near the top. A swim, even along the shore, is brisk top to bottom!

The forests around Waterton Lakes suffered a major fire in 2017, and most trails now run through stands of silvery-white trees, skeletal and without bark. But after nine years, the understory is filling in with saplings and purple fireweed, which helps to fix nitrogen in the soil and provide fertile ground for new plants.

With hillsides more bare, you can easily see the layers in the rock.  The mountains are sedimentary rock formed from the ancient inland sea and lifted up by plate tectonics. But unlike other sandstone I've seen, these rocks have very distinct stripes. Here's a piece that fell near the trail and looked temptingly like a cake to me! 

In addition to the ranger-led hike and several solo hikes, Moominmama got a chance to see a program outside the visitor center, where local Blackfoot members shared examples of dances performed at North American pow-wows. Several local dancers came in full regalia, accompanied by a circle of drummers, and at the end, they brought the audience together for a circle dance.

It was interesting to learn how the Blackfoot people got separated when the 49th parallel became an international border. It now takes a special effort, an event like a pow-wow, to bring the families together from separate reservations -- all thanks to imaginary lines that have to be fenced or mowed to make them visible.

I leave you with a photo of Joseph, who demonstrated the Prairie Chicken dance where he shuffled and bobbed like the bird. The red pompoms on his headdress swayed and bounced, while the bells on his ankles joined the beat of the drummers. What a delight! (Moominmama did not take a picture until after the dance in order to secure Joseph's permission. Not all dancers wished to be photographed.)