Kootenay National Park History

Kootenay National Park is one of five national parks that represent the Rocky Mountains Natural Region of Canada. Of these five parks, Kootenay and Yoho lie on the western side of the Continental Divide, while Banff, Jasper and Waterton Lakes lie on the eastern side.

As one of seven national and provincial parks that comprise the 26,583 sq. km Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site, Kootenay National Park (1,406 sq. km) is part of a vast protected area of global significance.

Kootenay National Park also forms part of the core area of the Central Rockies Ecosystem. This greater regional ecosystem is larger than the areas protected by the national parks alone.

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For thousands of years the area which is now Kootenay National Park was part of the traditional lands of the Ktunaxa (Kootenay) and Shuswap First Nations people. Archaeological evidence suggests the mountains were used primarily as seasonal hunting grounds. Groups also traveled across the mountains periodically to hunt bison on the plains east of the Rockies. Some sites have spiritual significance.

Kootenay National Park was established in 1920 as part of an agreement between the provincial and federal governments to build the Banff-Windermere Highway - the first motor road to cross the Canadian Rockies. A strip of land 8 km wide on each side of the 94 km highway was set aside as a national park. This resulted in the long, narrow shape of the park. The completion of the highway in 1922 expanded the new age of motor tourism in the Canadian Rockies. Today, the highway is known as the Kootenay Parkway.

From dry, southwest-facing slopes of the Rocky Mountain Trench in the south to lofty glacier-clad peaks of the Continental Divide in the north, Kootenay National Park represents a diversity of landscapes, elevation, climate and ecology. This diversity is captured in the park's interpretive theme statement: "From Cactus to Glacier".

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