U.S.-Canadian Peace Park Becomes More a Symbol of Conflict

Some of the most scenic wilderness in North America has been dedicated to peace and international cooperation, but man’s encroachment is threatening its future.

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park spans the border between Montana and Alberta. Composed of Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park, it was designated a “peace park” in 1932 by the U.S. Congress and the Canadian Parliament. The title crowned a drive by Rotarians to commemorate the warm relations between the two countries.

The peace designation doesn’t manifest itself in many tangible ways. Park administrators on both sides of the border say it is more a state of mind.

Home to Wildlife

The park is home to grizzly bears, bighorn sheep and even a rare pack of gray wolves. Its spectacular mountains and glaciers bring tourists from around the world.

But the beauty and the wild creatures that attract visitors also attract developers, who build houses and businesses just outside the park to lure even more people.

Also coveted are such valuable natural resources as coal, timber and natural gas in the surrounding area on both sides of the border.

Conflict is increasing between commercial interests and environmentalists and park officials over how much development is detrimental to Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Even within the park, there is argument about man’s rearrangement of nature.

Treaties Require ‘Vista’

Canadian and U.S. laws based on old treaties mandate that the border be kept an open “vista.” Its entire length is cleared every few years. No matter that it passes across bogs, through forests, under rivers, or over the tops of mountains. Either it is marked with stone cairns or concrete pillars, or a path is cut through the timber.

This summer, contrary to the wishes of Glacier and Waterton Lakes officials, a 20-foot-wide demarcation line will again be mowed through the peace park. The U.S. National Park Service was awarded the $168,000 clearing contract in hopes it would minimize the impact on wildlife and the landscape.

Official concern stems, in part, from past abuses. Crews used herbicides in 1955 and again in 1967, when Tordon 101 sprayed from a helicopter killed trees up to 50 feet away from the boundary and caused a public uproar.

‘Environmental Unity’

But park managers also oppose the open vista on philosophical grounds.

“The creation of the . . . peace park . . . emphasizes the environmental unity of this ecosystem and stresses the idealism inherent in creating a system of international peace and good will,” Glacier Superintendent Gil Lusk wrote last spring in a formal appeal to suspend clear-cutting within Waterton-Glacier.

“Boundary clearing . . . is the major hurdle to our achievement of the designation’s intent and represents a symbol of division rather than unity.”

The request was denied by the International Boundary Commission, which oversees maintenance of the border.

The open vista “was an international obligation long before the parks were created,” said Dr. Alec C. McEwen, Canada’s IBC commissioner. “It is very necessary to have the open space, otherwise all sorts of jurisdictional problems could arise. How would our Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or your U.S. police, or customs agents for both countries, know where their territory begins or ends?”

Joint Management Efforts

The ties that bind the two parks in the minds of their custodians are reflected in joint management efforts.

Waterton-Glacier encompasses 1.4 million acres, 93% of that still wilderness. It contains 77 miles of paved road, 700 miles of foot and horseback trails.

Although the Park Service supervises Glacier National Park, and Parks Canada oversees Waterton Lakes National Park, administrators on both sides believe the entire ecosystem must be treated as a seamless whole. Neither country makes decisions concerning wildlife or environmental management without consulting the other.

“You can prove here that two countries can manage one ecosystem. There is no boundary for bears or elk or rabbits or wolves. Only humans take note of the border,” said Alan O’Neill, Glacier’s assistant superintendent.

Park Closely Watched

“We have joint agreement on search and rescue, fires and bears. . . . Park managers all over the world are watching us to see how we do it together.”

According to O’Neill and Waterton Lakes Superintendent Dr. Bernie Lieff, international cooperation involving major ecosystems is rare. Politics, economics, even warfare can hamper cross-border management efforts.

Such stumbling blocks have hindered some African countries’ attempts to save migrating wildlife and stalled efforts to protect Central and South America’s valuable rain forests.

But at Waterton-Glacier, preservation of its pristine condition is a paramount goal.

“In terms of an intact system, the relative purity of this one ranks it in the top half-dozen in the world,” said O’Neill.

Because most of the park remains unsullied, it is included in the United Nations Biosphere Program. Here scientists can gather information that helps them set purity guidelines for air and water around the globe.

1,200 Species of Plants

Waterton-Glacier boasts 1,200 species of flowering plants, 60 species of mammals, fish and reptiles and more than 200 species of birds.

Even wolves have come back to Glacier National Park. For half a century, Canis lupus irremotus, the gray shadow, was unseen in the American West, hunted nearly to extinction. Although it was the predominant wolf species in North America and still lived in Alaska and Canada, in the lower 48 states, it was found only in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

But a year ago a dozen wolves trotted south across the British Columbia border into Montana. Researchers believe the wolves were being pressured by logging and oil development.

Dubbed The Magic Pack by researchers because of their ability to disappear, then reappear, the wolves are wintering again in Glacier National Park. One female, nicknamed Phyllis, last year became what’s believed to be the first gray wolf to breed in the western United States in 50 years. An aerial count revealed Phyllis had five pups. Biologists speculate that 16 to 23 wolves now make their home in Glacier.

Lacks Only Caribou, Bison

“The wolf recovery here is very exciting,” said O’Neill. “From an ecological standpoint it is one of the major happenings in North America. Only two native mammal species aren’t here, now that the wolf has come back. One is the mountain caribou, the other is the American bison, and that one may return in time.”

Last month, a study of 14 national park areas in western North America indicated they had lost 42 animal types over the years, largely because the parks were too small and the adjacent areas had become too hostile. The lost populations included grizzlies, wolves, lynx, gray fox, bighorn sheep, jack rabbits, otters, mink, raccoons and pronghorn antelope.

Only one region, the Kootenai-Banff-Jasper-Yoho park group in Alberta and British Columbia, still had all its original mammal types, according to the University of Michigan study.

At Waterton-Glacier, Lieff worries that pressures beyond control of the two park services will ultimately decide the fate of the wolves and other endangered species they’re trying to protect.

Habitat Pressured

He said developers want to dig a giant strip mine, named Cabin Creek, west of his park. Such environmental encroachment, coupled with logging, recreation subdivisions, road building and oil and gas drilling, threatens the habitat of any animal that ventures outside the park, Lieff said.

In addition, he said, “The gas field on our northern edge is the biggest of its type in the world. Recreational ‘ranchettes’ could mean trouble for the international elk herd. I fought a $1.5-million water slide complex on our northern boundary for nearly two years and lost the fight.”

Last summer, crews started building a fence along Glacier’s eastern boundary to keep cattle off grazing land needed by park animals.

For years, officials say, cattle have trespassed from the adjacent Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Three of the proposed nine miles of fence were erected before the park resumed negotiations with the tribe.

“The biggest threat is that this park becomes an island,” said Lieff. “Most islands become impoverished and isolated. Today there is no buffer zone.”