PARKS 



4506 



PARKS 



leas known but equally charming Hetch Hetchy of 1.12,") square miles. A railroad extends to 

 Vallev accessible to travelers only since 1915. it from Merced, a town on the Southern Pacific 

 The park was created in 1890, with an area and the Santa Fe, 150 miles from San Francisco. 



Parks of Canada 



mountain scenery on the American con- 

 tinent is more inspiring than that of the four 

 ranges of the Canadian Rockies. Here, in six 

 national parks, the Dominion government has 

 ed for public playgrounds an area more 

 rhan half as great as Switzerland and greater 

 than that of all the United States parks. There 

 live parks in other parts of Canada. 

 The Algonquin and Laurentides parks are 

 among the largest on the continent, but belong 

 to provincial governments. The eleven na- 

 tional parks, like those of the United States, 

 are administered by a branch of the Depart- 

 ment of the Interior. 



Buffalo Park, which is the home of the largest 

 herd of buffalo in America, was created in 1907. 

 It consists of 162 square miles of prairie land 

 near Wainwright, Alberta, on the main line 

 of the Grand Trunk Pacific. The original herd 

 of 709 buffalo has now increased to over 

 2,000. 



Elk Island Park, a reservation of sixteen 

 square miles established in 1899 for the pro- 

 tection of wild life, contains elk, buffalo, moose, 

 deer and wild fowls of many kinds. It is 

 about forty miles east of Edmonton, Alberta, 

 on the Canadian Northern Railway. 



Fort Howe Park, the first of the Canadian 

 historical parks, is an area of nineteen acres at 

 Saint John, N. B. It is the site of a fort im- 

 portant in the defense of Canada during the 

 American Revolution. It has been in exist- 

 ence since 1913. 



Glacier Park, one of the few Canadian parks 

 well known to American tourists, was opened 

 in 1886. It contains a large number of ice 

 fields, some of only a few acres, others many 

 square miles in extent. The best known, the 

 Illecillewaet Glacier, is visited by nearly all 

 travelers through British Columbia on the 

 Canadian Pacific, Railway. The park covers 

 468 square miles. 



Jasper Park is the largest national park in 

 America, and one of the most beautiful. It 

 lies on the eastern slope of the Canadian 

 Rockies, in Alberta, and its 4,400 square miles 

 of lovely mountain valleys and snow-topped 

 peaks are crossed by the main lines of the 

 Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian North- 

 ern railways, between Edmonton and the 



it. From either of these railroads travelers 

 may drive over well-built carriage roads or ride 

 over trails to interesting and beautiful spots in 

 the park. Among these are the horseshoe- 

 shaped Pyramid Lake, at the foot of many- 

 colored Mount Pyramid; Maligne Lake, which 

 is twenty miles long but very narrow, and its 

 outlet, the Maligne River, which in its passage 

 through the rocks has scooped out mammoth 

 potholes; Miette Hot Springs, which issue 

 from the mountain side; Punch Bowl Falls, a 

 geological curiosity; and Fiddle Creek Canyon, 

 whose walls rise 200 feet above the rushing 

 waters but are in places only twenty feet apart. 

 When it was created in 1907 Jasper Park was 

 only 1,000 square miles in extent, but in 1914 

 it was enlarged. 



Maple Creek Antelope Reserve, established in 

 1914 for the preservation of the so-called 

 American antelope, or pronghorn, is an area of 

 nineteen square miles near Maple Creek, Sas- 

 katchewan, on the main line of the Canadian 

 Pacific. 



Saint Lawrence Islands Park, a group of 

 twelve reservations among the beautiful Thou- 

 sand Islands, is designed especially for summer 

 campers and picnickers. It contains only 140 

 acres, set aside by the government in 1905, but 

 is a very popular tourist resort. See SAINT 

 LAWRENCE RIVER. 



Rocky Mountains Park, the best known of 

 Canada's larger parks, in the beautiful valley 

 of the Bow River above and below Banff, con- 

 tains lovely Lake Louise and the Valley of 

 the Ten Peaks, a fairyland in the midst of 

 grim, gigantic mountains. The park is in west- 

 ern Alberta, on the main line of the Canadian 

 Pacific. It was established in 1885, and con- 

 tains 1,800 square miles. This park lies di- 

 rectly north of Glacier National Park, in tin 

 United States. 



Waterton Lakes Park, which has existed since 

 1895 as a small park, was enlarged in 1914 so 

 that it now includes 423 square miles of Al- 

 berta's mountain land adjacent, to Glacier Na- 

 tional Park in the United States. It is readied 

 by a twenty-mile drive from Pincher or Card- 

 si on, the one on the Crows Nest line of the 

 Canadian Pacific, the other on a branch from 

 Lethbridge, 



