Travelling with Chuck and Sheila again is terrific – it’s
been a while.
Our plan was to tour every other day and use the other days for other things – like solving all the problems of the world or catching up on the card games we have been missing.
First Day Out
1. Writing-on-Stone
Provincial Park
There in the middle of the prairies just north of the Montana
border is the Milk River.
It carves a path coming up from Montana
- meanders along for a few miles - and then wanders back into Montana. The river offers a fascinating canoeing
pathway or an inviting swimming hole!
The banks are steep cliffs and eons of climatic change and erosion have
created a landscape unique to the valley.
As you follow Hwy 501 east from the Town of Milk River (on
Hwy 4 – the main highway that goes from the Canadian/USA border crossing at
Coutts to Lethbridge), you find yourself travelling along a flat, straight road
through farm fields and grazing cattle.
About 30 km down the road, a rather innocuous Writing-on-Stone Provincial
Park sign directs you off to your
right and into a field of wild prairie grass.
At the top of an incline, there is a fork in the road. One road leads down into the Milk
River Valley
and an eclectic campground that offers everything from primitive, dry camping
to fully serviced sites. It lies in and
amongst the trees along the Milk River. The second road goes further up the hill to
an impressive new Interpretation Centre that overlooks the valley, the river,
and the unique rock formations. From
there you can see the Sweet Grass Hills that are in Montana
on the other side of the river. The
entire park covers over 4000 acres and the river forms the boundary between Alberta
and Montana.
This area was a traditional native camping spot with the
abundance of water and food but most of all the protection it offered.
To the Blackfoot people, Writing-on-Stone
has long been a sacred place. Oddly
shaped rock formations (Hoodoos)
erupt out of a sandstone foundation.
Millions and millions of years of flooding, winds, freezing and thawing
has worked its magic to create a ghostly atmosphere where these tall narrow
constructs reach majestically to the sky.
There they stand – a hard layered caprock
that protects the softer stem with holes where the harder ironstone has fallen out.
I can just visualize the hunters etching "messages" – in the form of carvings (petroglyphs) and painting (pictographs) – to those who followed after them about their successful hunt or where others could find game.
Today this delicate rock
art is carefully preserved and protected.
Visitors must be accompanied by a guide.
In the 1880’s the North West Mounted Police established a presence in
the Valley. Their job was to be a
resource for the incoming settlers and keep out the whisky runners but it was a
lonely, debilitation experience for them and many deserted or were dispersed to
other assignments. At its height the
Post housed 12 horses, 5 Mounties and 2 hired range riders but it burned down
shortly after it was closed down in 1918.
After an archaeological excavation (in 1975) the buildings were rebuilt
and then refurnished to recreate the year 1897.
2. The Etzikom
Museum
and the Canadian Historic Windpower Interpretive Centre
Now this was a real
hidden treasure. We only found out about it from the fellow at the Interpretive
Centre at Writing-on-Stone. The Museum took over the Etzikom
School when it closed down and the
Windmill site sits next to it.
The 4 acres windmills ranging from a
Holland-looking mill to the water pumping windmills that dot the landscape
throughout the south.
Inside, there is over 11 000 square feet of indoor display
space. My favourite display is the dolls (and I thought I had a lot of dolls).
The Youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKAOS1Ypk_0)
shows just how extensive and well displayed this local museum is.
The next tour was to Smashed-in Buffalo Jump.
