Canada

Thursday, August 22, 2013
It is only about an hour drive up to Waterton Park in Canada, but we wanted to be on the 10 am boat, so got an early start. The Montana end of the lake is called Goat Haunt and in this case the Haunt means haven. There are stamps to be had there and we thought it sounded like a nice trip.

At the Border

We had no trouble going through customs, enjoyed the scenery along the way, and parked at the marina in plenty of time to get tickets and wait to get on the boat. It holds about 150 people on a lower enclosed deck, or upper open one.
According to the boat captain and crew, we chose a fantastic day to go. Most often it is quite windy, and we had a very still day. The water was smooth and it was a beautiful trip. 
The crew member that did the narration was really good at it, and really knew a lot about the area. The trip up the lake was just over an hour. They stopped along the way to show us the border between the countries. There were markers and a wide swath cut in the trees and brush. He said they have a trail crew that clears the swath manually with chain saws and hand tools.
At another stop there was a man standing at the end of a dock and playing probably some Indian tune on a wooden flute. We could just barely hear it, so they killed the boat engine.
The narrator gave us a lot of information about wildlife in the area, but the only thing we saw was the bald eagle. There aren’t many of them in the area because the fish stay near the bottom of the lake, and it is quite deep.

Docked at Goat Haunt

When we docked we were told we had 30 minutes before the return trip, and it was a little ways down to the pavilion where the passport stamps were kept. It was a very brisk walk down, get our pages stamped, and then hurry back to get back on the boat. We could have caught the next boat, but that would have been about 3 hours to wait. We could have taken the one hour hike in to a lake where there are moose, but we didn’t. If we had wanted to do any hiking, we would need to clear customs there also, but there is an 8 mile hike back down to the main part of the park.

80 feet deep two feet off the edge

On the return trip we stopped along a rock face and were told that two feet out from the rock, the water was 80 feet deep. He wondered if he had any takers for cliff diving. He had already told us that you don’t drown in the lake – you freeze to death before you can drown!
The Prince of Wales Hotel is the one you see in pictures of the park, and it is  very prominent and pretty. It was fun to see it, although we did not go inside.
After a picnic lunch beside the lake we were about finished up with the Canada end, so we headed back across the border. Again, no problem with the crossing.

 View at Many Glacier

We drove down a very rough road to the Many Glacier ranger station and got that stamp. I really think that was the prettiest part of the park, but it was all pretty good.
Our last stop for the day was for our last stamp for the park, at St Mary VC. We also watched a short movie about the making of the Going to the Sun Road, then headed back to camp and a quiet evening. It was another full day, but very nice. We all enjoyed the trip to Goat Haunt very much.