WATERTON LAKES
- Hannah McDonald
- Jul 17, 2024
- 6 min read
Crossing the US-Canada border near Glacier and Waterton Lakes might be the easiest border crossing we’ve done yet: No line and a very friendly Canadian officer. You can’t bring pepper spray, but you can bring bear spray, which is just hard core pepper spray. “You can beat up the bears, just not us Canadians,” he laughs.
Waterton Lakes is the same park as Glacier, just on the Canadian side. Together, they are an International Peace Park. True to its name, there are several lakes as you enter Waterton Lakes. Then, the Prince of Wales hotel comes into view, perched above the lake (and everything else), reaching up toward the mountains. Everything seems to happen around the hotel. And by everything I mean the town center. Yes, there is a town in the national park.
A "Leisurely" Bike Ride
This morning, the plan is to sleep in and rent some bikes to explore Waterton—a nice, leisurely morning. Pat’s Waterton Gas and Bike Rental is our a cute retro style spot that rents bikes, in addition to selling gas, ice cream, popcorn, t-shirts, and groceries. Pretty much a one-stop shop. According to a Google review, they have cool “Patsagonia” shirts, although we don’t look for them. We rent mountain bikes, get a map with some vague ideas of where to go, and grab our bikes off the rack. After starting down the road and up a hill then returning to the shop to trade my bike for a smaller one, we are set.
The town center itself is quite small—basically just two streets. So, Joelle tries to find a good bike trail on the large but not super helpful map the shop gave us (I also am not super helpful). We turn up a road, and I quickly begin struggling. I didn’t realize I was this bad at biking. Joelle flies up the hill (in slides, I might add), showing off all her years of biking around CU’s campus, and I begin walking my bike. Back on my bike, we come up on what I would say is a sketchy turn, given cars won’t see us around it. The view is pretty enough from here, with the lake and the mountains, so we bail back down to the main road. Okay, the downhill is pretty steep, so maybe I’m not that bad—just a big hill and it’s starting to get quite hot.
We continue up the main road until we hit the turn for Red Rock Canyon. We read about this ride online, and they said it’s a nice ride with some rolling hills. At the bike shop, they told us it’s ~23 miles roundtrip, so we figure we will start it and turn around whenever we want. Rolling hills does not feel like an accurate description. This is a big hill that I’m peddling, now walking, up. Phew made it. From here, the hills are more rolling, and it is beautiful around us. Lots of wildflowers and mountain views. Getting very hot and tired, we turn around and enjoy the downhill on the way back, stopping at a shaded picnic table for lunch. There isn’t a lot of shade, so this is very much enjoyed.
We finish our bike ride by doing a lap around town, stopping in the International Peace Park park and peeking at what stores we should stop in this afternoon—the Book Nook looks most promising.
I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting for today’s bike ride, but that wasn’t it. That was “type two fun”—fun in hindsight, not necessarily in the very hot, sweaty, and legs burning moment.
Afternoon Tea at the Prince of Wales Hotel
After a bit of a climb (by foot thankfully), the details of The Price of Wales Hotel come into view. The first thing we spot is a kilt-wearing, juggling gentleman at the booth gating the parking lot. Other guests entering the hotel are dressed for tea. It seems the dress code has been elevated to nice, white dresses. While we did manage to put on some dresses, they’re technically athletic dresses, and we have been camping for over a week. Fortunately, we spot some other hikers upon entering.
The view out the enormous front windows in the lobby is stunning, over the lake with the mountains rising above. The hotel has a “rustic mountain” feel and is very cozy with comfy furniture. And, it’s air conditioned—woohoo! We enjoy the lobby and read our books while we wait for our tea reservations. We’re actually finding some time to read this trip!
Let’s just say, our dietary restrictions are somewhat on hold for this, except meat and cheese. We start with some yummy scones, plain and cranberry orange, with honey and Haskap Jam. Then, the tower arrives with three tiers: Sandwiches, desserts, and pastries. Usually, there are four sandwich types, but we stick to cucumber sandwiches to avoid the meat and egg salad. In our waitress’ words, she brings us “a lot of cucumber sandwiches.” And, we surprise her by eating them all. The dessert tier has Chocolate Profiterole, Haskap Cheesecake, Lemon Sponge, and Bakewell Tart. The pastry tier has Shortbread Cookie, Palmier, and Pistachio Biscotti. We try at least a bite of each, and the scones we started with are our favorite. While we snack, we have unlimited tea, all from Jolene’s Tea House—organic and hand-blended in Banff. We keep drinking cup after cup, trying each flavor. The herbal teas are really good! To sum it up, the afternoon felt very Bridgerton with a beautiful lake and mountain view.
After tea, we continue reading in the grand lobby, and time melts away. Before we know it, it’s 7:00pm, and the nightly historical talk is starting. One of the hotel’s bellman walks us through the history of the park and the hotel, and there are a few interesting facts:
The Prince of Wales Hotel was the only American hotel in Canada built in the 1900s by the Great Northern Railway, the same company that built the Many Glacier hotel. Originally, the plans for the hotel were the same as Many Glacier’s, but the architect kept making small changes to the design as they went, resulting in a very different hotel. It took 14 years to build the hotel from when the idea was born in 1913. This is due to Canada dedicating its resources to WWI starting in 1914 rather than tourism. Meanwhile the US allowed the Many Glacier hotel to be built because they weren’t initially interested in being involved in the war.
The hotel is named in hopes of the Prince of Wales coming to visit, but no British royalty has ever stayed in the hotel.
Upper Waterton Lake crosses the US-Canada border into Montana, making this an alcohol-smuggling location during the prohibition times.
The hotel was nearly burned in a fire, but it was saved by dumping 50 million gallons of water on it. Today, the hotel is still mostly original.
If you look to the ceiling in the tall lobby, there is a small rectangle that is a different shade of brown. This is the trap door that the smallest bellman of the season would dangle through to dust the large chandelier. Apparently they have other methods of cleaning it today.
We stop outside to take in the dramatic view of the valley and deer wander by. We walk back to our campsite, passing the staff lodging for the hotel. Everyone there seems to be enjoying their night off. Behind us, I hear a rustling. “Jo! There’s a wildlife,” I say. “It’s a fox,” she responds. I quickly ask, “are they dangerous??” The fox trots right behind and then passed us with its dinner dangling from its mouth.
Red Rock Canyon
Since we didn’t make it on our bikes (not that we intended to), we figure we should drive up to Red Rock Canyon and check it out. So, we do just that on our way out of the park. This would have been a really long bike ride…
We hop out of the car and begin up the short trail. There are rocks and they are red, but canyon seems generous. The river is flowing down, but the walls aren’t particularly high. We make our way up the path, in sandals and with bear spray, and notice the baby trees starting to grow below the tall trees burned to sticks in the fire. Further up, the canyon walls drop lower to the river below. Okay, now we see Red Rock Canyon—all components, “canyon” included.
On the drive back, there is a line of cars. I excitedly ask, “Oh my gosh. Is this an animal jam??” Sure enough, there is a bear up on the hillside. I much prefer an animal jam to a traffic jam.
Calgary
This begins our 7.5 hour drive to Jasper, with a stop in Calgary—a real city—to restock a few groceries. Little did we know, during our brief grocery stop, we would stumble into a gem—the Calgary Farmers Market. This is an indoor market with lots of fresh produce stands, fresh flower stands, and food stands. We abandon our PB&Js for a real lunch—vegan and gluten free mac and cheese and vegan and gluten-free ramen. Yum! The quick stop quickly becomes not so quick…
You girls are in a province I dearly love! What an adventure! I just heard from your dad that you had to evacuate Jasper unexpectedly! Oh my! So glad you got out safely!
I see the kindles are getting some use 👀
Can you see me now?