Hiking to Stanley Glacier in Kootenay National Park.Megan Robertson
To celebrate Parks Canada's 100th anniversary, we asked for your stories and photos. Reader Megan Robertson writes:
Passing through the improbable narrowness of Sinclair Canyon, the road curves and climbs into the Rocky Mountains. Kootenay National Park in southeastern British Columbia is a local, national and international treasure. Designated as a national park in 1920, the 1,406 square kilometres that butt up against the western edge of Alberta was recognized as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. It is a park of impressive facts and figures, and it is visited by millions of tourists who travel along the highway between the two provinces.
For sheer visual beauty, it's hard to beat. But what I like best about KNP is that it offers itself as a place to be humbled. Speeding by in the air-conditioned peace of a car is one thing; it's another to get off the road and spend time in this place.
Hiking above the tree line toward the Stanley Glacier, you notice the altitude, the silence, the coldness of the wind.
Descending past grouse and marmots, the moss returns and soon flowers line the trail that crosses streams protected by pine and spruce trees.
Farther east, the silver stalks of a burned forest stand among new growth - green stretching skyward. Bears amble in meadows, searching out summer berries.
To spend time in this place is to recognize nature moves at its own pace. We can push and prod it to serve our desires, but to be vulnerable to the park and its natural forces requires travelling at a different speed. It takes patience to watch a sunset turn the western sky into a kaleidoscope of yellows, pinks and purples. It takes patience to discover how the sunlight reflects off the iron-heavy water of the Paint Pots.
Leaving the park's western gates and descending into the Columbia Valley, you are greeted with a sign that reads, "The Mountains Shall Bring Peace to the People." I've often wondered why this sign is placed in such a way that when you read it, you stand with your back to the Rockies. But it's not the mountains that I take with me in my memories of this place: it's the peace of finding patience rewarded, of being humbled by nature, of being fully present in the world.
Special to The Globe and Mail
Share your photos and memories of Canada's national parks at tgam.ca/YourParks . We'll feature the best throughout our national parks series.