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WATERTON LAKES NATIONAL PARK  - DAY NINE

Previous Blogs: Day 1+2 Canadian Rockies | Day 3 British Columbia | Day 4 The Road to Montana | Day 5+6 Glacier National Park | Day 7 Big Mountain | Day 8 Back to Canada | Day 9 Waterton

Click photos for a larger image...

 

No Bruce and Wendy trip would ever be complete without a boat ride, so next morning we jumped aboard the "International" a 90 year old boat that has been running this lake since 1927.

The trip runs from North to the South end of the lake crossing the border into the United States.   She docks at the very southern park of the lake at a US Ranger station called Goat Haunt.

There are 10 rangers that live at this station during the summer months. The only way to access this station is via water and via Canada. Once again showing the cooperation between Canada and the United States.

 

The views on the way there and back are nothing short of spectacular!

On the left is the USA/Canada border. If you look carefully you can see the concrete obelisk demarcating the border.

The agreement is that there is  no fence or patrol but the border has to be marked so it can bee seen everywhere.

So a 20 foot wide section of the trees and undergrowth has been cleared the entire length of the border up and over the mountains.  If there is just rock and no trees like at the mountain top a concrete obelisk has been erected.

This is known as the "Slash" and is 5,525 miles long and costs the US government $1.4 million per year to maintain the border. International law states a border must be visible so the obelisks are installed every few hundred yards.

 

The water is very clear and makes you want to dive in, but being a glacier fed lake it is very, very cold. The top surface layer runs at about 50 degrees in summer while the bottom (200 feet on average) is not much above freezing.

So what a fitting end to our round trip of the Canadian and Montana Rockies.

Once the boat returned to dock it was time for the final 3 hour drive to Calgary so we can fly home.

And finally...
How many Royal Canadian Mounted Police can you fit into a 20 foot patrol boat?  Apparently 8!!
 

Wendy was super excited to discover that our hotel room in Waterton had a Jacuzzi tub!!

 

Note the wine in the disposable coffee cup!

 

 

Our final evening in Calgary and the best part of the trip was having dinner with a dear friend we hadn't seen in about 18 years. We were all eatin' good in the neighborhood that evening!!

That's all, folks!

We will see you in December for our next trip which is a transatlantic crossing

on the Queen Mary II