Читать книгу Waterton Lakes National Park: lakes amid the mountains - David M. Baird - Страница 5

Table of Contents

Waterton Lakes National Park is an irregularly shaped area tucked into the southwestern corner of Alberta. The southwest corner of the park itself is formed by the intersecting lines of the continental divide on the west and the Canada-United States boundary on the south—at this point the 49th parallel of latitude, an exact east-west line. Waterton Lakes Park extends for some 38 miles in an eastward direction along this southern boundary. From the southeast corner, only about a mile east of the Chief Mountain customs port where Route 6 passes southward into Montana, the border of the park extends northward along a surveyed line for about 10 miles. From here it goes generally northwestward for a distance of some 35 miles along a series of surveyed north-south and east-west lines which make a series of right-angled jogs, to a point on Yarrow Creek in the northernmost part of the park. The boundary then extends up Yarrow Creek to a tributary and along the tributary to the shoulder and eventually the crest of Cloudy Ridge. From here it follows a series of divides, first between the north-flowing waters of Yarrow Creek and the southeastward-flowing waters of Bauerman Brook, then between the waters of north-flowing Castle River and the headwaters of Bauerman Brook, to the northwestern corner of the park on the continental divide.

The quietly flowing waters of Waterton River about half a mile southwest of the park entrance reflect the grey mass of Vimy Peak. The gently rolling country around this point is underlain by slightly disturbed rocks which give way to the east to the nearly flat lying rock of the great plains. The mountains in the background however, lie on the other side of the “Lewis thrust” which marks an abrupt change to very mountainous country and rocks of complicated structure.

From the northwest corner to the southwest corner the park’s border is the Alberta-British Columbia boundary (here the continental divide). Along this series of ridges and peaks the drainage to the east, which ends up in Hudson Bay via Saskatchewan River, is separated from drainage to the west which ends up in the Pacific Ocean via the Flat Head and Columbia Rivers.