Kootenay National Park is a national park in Canada located in southeastern British Columbia. The park covers an area of 1,406 kilometers (543 square miles) in the Canadian Rockies, including parts of the Kootenay and Park mountain ranges, the Kootenay River, and the entire Vermilion River. The Vermilion River is fully within the park, while the Kootenay River begins just outside the park’s boundary. It flows through the park into the Rocky Mountain Trench and later joins the Columbia River. The park’s elevation ranges from 918 meters (3,012 feet) at the southwestern entrance to 3,424 meters (11,234 feet) at Deltaform Mountain.
Originally named "Kootenay Dominion Park," the park was established in 1920 through an agreement between the province of British Columbia and the Canadian federal government. The agreement involved building a highway in exchange for ownership of a strip of land, about 8 kilometers (5.0 miles) on either side of the 94-kilometer Banff–Windermere Highway, which would be used only for park purposes. The park is open year-round, but the main tourist season is from June to September. Most campgrounds are open from early May to late September, and only the Dolly Varden campground offers limited winter camping.
Kootenay National Park is one of seven connected national and provincial parks that form the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site. The Continental Divide separates Kootenay National Park from Banff National Park and marks the boundary between British Columbia and Alberta. To the northwest, the line that separates the Vermilion River and the Kicking Horse River divides Kootenay National Park from Yoho National Park. Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park also borders Kootenay. Jasper National Park, Mount Robson Provincial Park, and Hamber Provincial Park are part of the World Heritage Site but do not share a boundary with Kootenay National Park.
History
Archaeological evidence shows that humans have been passing through or staying in the area for about 10,000 years. Pictographs, or drawings, found in hot spring caves suggest that the Ktunaxa people began using the area more permanently, especially the hot springs, several hundred years ago.
European fur traders and explorers traveled through the region, including George Simpson in 1841. He passed through an area later named Simpson Pass during his journey around the world. James Sinclair led settlers westward, and Pierre-Jean De Smet traveled eastward through the same area. In 1858, the Palliser expedition used Vermilion Pass and told the British government that the area could be a good route for transportation. On the Columbia River side, an early settler claimed land that included the hot springs later known as Radium Hot Springs in the 1880s. However, Roland Stuart and his partner H.A. Pearse successfully obtained 160 acres (0.65 km) around the springs in 1890 through a provincial grant. Although they planned to bottle the spring water, the remote location made this difficult. In 1909, Stuart offered to sell the land to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for $3,000, but the offer was not accepted.
Railway engineer Robert Randolph Bruce saw the area’s potential for a road and spoke with CPR president Thomas Shaughnessy and Premier Richard McBride in 1910. He argued that a road could connect the province to Calgary and eastern Canada. The federal government agreed to build a road from Banff to the provincial border at Vermilion Pass, while the provincial government, with help from the CPR, planned to build a road from Windermere to the border. However, British Columbia underestimated the cost, went over budget, and stopped work in 1913. The federal government finished their part in November 1914. To complete the provincial section, Bruce traveled to Ottawa and suggested making the western part of the route a national park so the road could be funded as a park improvement. With the popularity of Rocky Mountains Park, officials supported expanding the park system.
In May 1916, Minister of the Interior William James Roche began talks with provincial leaders. They agreed to the Banff-Windermere Agreement, which stated the federal government would complete and maintain the road within four years after World War I ended, in exchange for land to be used for park purposes and solutions to jurisdictional issues in other federal parks in British Columbia. The agreement was signed on March 12, 1919, and the federal government took ownership of the land in July. On April 21, 1920, Kootenay National Park was created through an official order. The federal government repaired the provincial road section and finished the rest by June 1923, opening it to the public.
Attractions
The main attractions of the park include Radium Hot Springs, the Paint Pots, Sinclair Canyon, Marble Canyon, and Olive Lake. The hot springs have a pool with water temperatures ranging from 35 to 47 °C (95 to 117 °F). Just outside the park's southwestern entrance is the town of Radium Hot Springs. The town is named after the odorless hot springs located just inside the park boundary. The town offers services and accommodations for visitors who do not plan to camp in the park.
The park's northeastern entrance connects to Castle Junction in Banff National Park and the Trans-Canada Highway through Vermilion Pass, a high mountain pass across the Continental Divide of the Canadian Rockies on the Alberta/British Columbia border, at an elevation of 1,651 metres (5,417 ft).
Development of the hot springs began more seriously after a British medical journal suggested, and a 1914 chemical analysis by McGill University confirmed, the presence of radium in the water. Roland Stuart, who had acquired the springs through a Crown grant, purchased more land near the springs as the area became accessible by the Kootenay Central Railway. Stuart promoted the "Kootenay Radium Natural Springs Limited" in England and recruited St John Harmsworth to visit. After a four-month stay, Harmsworth invested enough money to build a bathing pool, a store, and a caretaker's cottage. In 1921, the Dominion government offered Stuart $20,000 for control of the springs. When Stuart did not respond, the government took control of the land in 1922 and later paid $40,000 in 1927. A new two-storey bathhouse was built in 1927, and the pool was lengthened by 30 feet (9.1 m). The town of Radium Hot Springs developed after a 1923 subdivision created commercial properties. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company built cabins in the area that later became the Radium Hot Springs Lodge. The facility was rebuilt after a fire in 1948 at a cost of $1,000,000, with a concrete pool and other facilities. Between 1960 and 1968, major renovations added more space, a restaurant, and a campground (Redstreak Campground), as well as buying out the CPR cabin properties. In 1997, renovations included a new hot-cold plunge pool.
The Paint Pots are an acidic, cold water, mineral spring system where ochre is deposited at the spring outlets. The main minerals are iron oxide, which gives the water and mud their reddish color. Other minerals can also be present, creating shades of yellow, red, and brown. The acidic, metal-rich water has limited life support, but at least 14 types of algae, one liverwort, one moss, and some extremophilic bacteria have been found in the water. The Ktunaxa people collected ochre for use as pigments, and iron oxide was mined for paint manufacturing for nearly two decades until the park was established in 1920.
Because the park is narrow (five miles on each side of the highway), many attractions are near the road and are wheelchair accessible. Forest fires in 2003 and 2004 in the Simpson River, Vermilion Pass, and Floe Creek areas left visible burn areas from the highway. Numa Falls is a short drive south of Marble Canyon and is directly accessible by Highway 93.
The Rockwall trail is a multi-day hike along the limestone cliff on the eastern edge of the Vermilion Range, continuing into Yoho National Park. Trail connections include the 10.7 km Floe Creek trail to Floe Lake campground, the 6 km Numa Creek trail to Numa Falls campground, and the Paint Pots trail, which follows Ochre Creek with forks to the 7 km Tumbling Creek trail and the 9 km Helmet Creek trail, both with campgrounds. Beyond Helmet Falls, the Rockwall trail continues through Goodsir Pass into Yoho National Park. Other multi-day backcountry hikes include the Tokumun Creek trail to Fay Hut and Neil Colgan Hut, the Simpson River trail into Mount Assiniboine Park, the Hawk Creek trail through Ball Pass into Banff National Park, the Verdant trail from the Vermilion crossing to Banff National Park via Honeymoon Pass and Redearth Pass.
Day hikes with nearby campgrounds include trails on Redstreak Mountain and Redstreak Creek, the Dog Lake trail from McLeod Meadows campground, and the Marble Canyon to Paint Pots trail from Marble Canyon campground. Other day hikes, with varying difficulty, include trails to Olive Lake, Cobb Lake, the Kindersley/Sinclair loop, the Tokumun Creek trail from Marble Canyon to Kaufmann Lake, the Kimpton Creek trail, the Verendrye Creek from the Vermilion Crossing, and the Stanley Creek trail. The Dolly Varden trail along Dolly Varden Creek (the fish was later identified as bull trout, not Dolly Varden trout) allows cycling.
Geography
The park is centered along a 94 km section of Highway 93, which runs from Radium Hot Springs to the provincial border at Vermilion Pass. The park’s size and shape were determined by an agreement between federal and provincial governments to build the road. Because of this, the park crosses several mountain ranges and river valleys, even though the area naturally forms a northwest–southeast pattern of mountains and valleys.
The park’s southwestern entrance, near Radium Hot Springs and Sinclair Canyon, is the only part of the park located in the Southern Rocky Mountain Trench. As the highway follows Sinclair Creek, which flows west toward the Columbia River, the park enters the Kootenay Ranges. These include Mount Berland and the western and southern sides of Mount Kindersley in the Brisco Range, as well as Redstreak Mountain and Mount Sinclair in the Stanford Range. The eastern side of Mount Sinclair faces the Kootenay River valley. Most of the park drains into the Kootenay River, which eventually flows into the Columbia River, but this happens outside the park and crosses the American-Canadian border twice.
The park covers about 27 km of the Kootenay River valley, including the mountain sides of Mount Kindersley and the Mitchell Range and Vermilion Range in the western part of the Park Ranges. At the bridge over the Kootenay River, the road and park turn northward to follow the Vermilion River upstream through the pass between Mount Wardle of the Vermilion Range and Spar Mountain of the Mitchell Range. As the park turns north, it includes more of the Kootenay River valley, such as Dolly Varden Creek, Lost Creek, and Whitetail Creek.
Nearby, Mount Assiniboine Park lies to the southeast. The road and park then turn northwest again as they follow the Vermilion River near its meeting point with the Simpson River. After this, the park includes the rest of the Vermilion River drainage basin. To the north, Banff National Park is located at the Continental Divide, near the Ball Range and Bow Range. To the northwest lies Yoho National Park, and to the southwest are the peaks of the Vermilion Range. A small part of the Ottertail River, which flows into Yoho National Park, is also included at the park’s northwestern edge, though the rest of that border separates the Vermilion River from the Kicking Horse River.
The park has only a few small lakes, most of which are in the Vermilion River drainage basin. These lakes are found at high elevations in cirques or hanging valleys, which is common in the Main Ranges. Floe, Kaufmann, and Talc lakes are in this area. Dog, Olive, and Cobb lakes are in the Kootenay River basin and have features like shallow depth and slow water movement, which are typical of ponds.
Geology
The geology of the park is mainly made up of mountains formed from sedimentary rock that has been broken and exposed, as well as valleys filled with material left by glaciers during the Pleistocene era.
Just outside the northwestern part of the park, there is a large rock formation called the Ice River Complex, which contains deposits of sodalite, a type of ornamental stone. The hills near the hot springs are mostly made of tufa, a type of calcium carbonate deposit that forms when hot spring water cools and mixes with surface water.
In the southwestern part of the park, the rocks are part of the older Purcell Mountains range, while the mountains in the eastern part of the park are part of the younger Rocky Mountains range.
The park has many layers of rock from the Cambrian period, which were formed from ocean sediments. These layers provide important information about the rapid development of multicellular life on Earth. In the summer of 2012, a group of scientists from the Royal Ontario Museum, Pomona College, the University of Toronto, the University of Saskatchewan, and Uppsala University discovered a fossil site above Marble Canyon. This site, called a Lagerstätte, is similar to the Burgess Shale's fossil layer, which is only 42 kilometers (26 miles) away in Yoho National Park. One species, Kootenichela, found in these rocks has been scientifically described, and more than 50 new species were discovered in the Marble Canyon area during two weeks of exploration. The new group of organisms, dating to the Wuliuan period, includes species like Surusicaris elegans. This group is notable for having many early arthropods and a wide variety of soft-bodied organisms, some of which are preserved in greater detail than previously recorded.
Climate
The park has a humid continental climate (Dfb), which means it has short, cool summers and long, snowy winters. However, it is generally drier than areas to the west because the Kootenay Ranges block some moisture. Similarly, the park's mountain ranges also block moisture that would fall on the other side of the Continental Divide, making Banff National Park drier. Because the Continental Divide protects the park from the strongest cold air coming from the Arctic, the park has a milder climate compared to other areas.
Based on the climate and geography, the park is divided into three ecoregions: Montane, Subalpine, and Alpine. These regions influence the types of plants and animals that live there. The Montane ecoregion is found at lower elevations, such as near the park's west gate and in the Kootenay River valley. It receives 300 to 600 mm of precipitation each year, with 30 to 45% falling as snow. The Subalpine ecoregion, located in areas like the Vermilion River valley, Floe Lake, and Marble Canyon, has cooler and wetter weather. It has an average annual temperature below 1 degree Celsius and receives about 800 mm of precipitation, with more than half falling as snow. The Alpine ecoregion, found at the park's highest elevations, is the coldest and snowiest. This extreme cold and heavy snowfall prevent forests from growing there.
Ecology
The Montane Spruce ecological zone in the lower parts of the park includes forests with mostly Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, western larch, trembling poplar, and western redcedar trees. The shrub layer includes plants such as soapberry, kinnikinnick, western showy aster, dwarf bilberry, twinflower, pinegrass, Canadian bunchberry, littleleaf huckleberry, Rocky Mountain maple, alder, mountain huckleberry, oval-leaf blueberry, meadow horsetail, Devil's club, and common and Rocky Mountain juniper. In the higher subalpine areas, the Engelmann Spruce-Subalpine Fir ecological zone becomes dominant, with Engelmann spruce, white spruce, subalpine fir, and subalpine larch as the main tree species. The alpine areas are covered with vegetation such as heathers, arctic willow, cinquefoils, moss campion, and mountain avens. Forest fires, such as those in 1968, 2017, and the large 2003 fire in the Vermilion area, have led to the growth of pioneer plants like fireweed and lodgepole pine. A drier climate and frequent fires are causing the Interior Douglas-fir ecological zone to spread into the park, with Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and Rocky Mountain juniper becoming more common.
A wildlife survey found 242 species of mammals, birds, amphibians, and reptiles. The largest animals are ungulates, such as bighorn sheep, mountain goats, moose, elk, red deer, white-tailed deer, and mule deer. Black bears and grizzly bears also live in the park. Coyotes and martens are the most widespread and common carnivores, while bobcats and cougars are found in the southern regions. Other carnivores, such as timber wolves, lynxes, wolverines, minks, fishers, badgers, river otters, skunks, and long- and short-tailed weasels, have been identified but are not common. The most common non-carnivorous mammals include the snowshoe hare, red-backed vole, deer mouse, red squirrel, and Columbian ground squirrel. Most bird species use the park only during summer or as part of their migration; only 32 species live there year-round. Common birds include the boreal owl, yellow-rumped warbler, golden-crowned kinglet, common yellowthroat, American robin, spotted sandpiper, chipping sparrow, two-barred crossbill, and rufous hummingbird. Other birds that may be seen include the common loon, Canada and Steller’s jays, Canada and snow geese, trumpeter and tundra swans. Three types of reptiles have been identified: the rubber boa, common garter snake, and western terrestrial garter snake.
World Heritage Site
In 1984, UNESCO added the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site to the World Heritage List. This site includes four connected national parks: Kootenay, Banff, Jasper, and Yoho. At that time, the site was recognized for meeting natural criteria, such as examples of geological processes, evidence of life, and exceptional natural beauty. In 1990, Mount Assiniboine, Mount Robson, and Hamber Provincial Parks were added to the World Heritage Site, increasing its total area to 22,991 km (8,877 sq mi). According to UNESCO's Statement of Significance, "With rugged mountain peaks, icefields and glaciers, alpine meadows, lakes, waterfalls, extensive karst cave systems, and deeply incised canyons, the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks possess exceptional natural beauty, attracting millions of visitors annually."