International Boat Ride

 On one of our days at Waterton National Park, we took a boat ride for a couple of hours that showed us how much this Park and our own Glacier National Park are, in fact, a single preservation area. 

As we traveled down Waterton Lake, we passed from Canada into the United States! On either side of the Lake we could see the cut out path of the international border between our two countries, the longest un-defended border between two countries in the entire world.  

We learned that where hiking trails cross the border, there is a QR code on a post so that you can scan the QR code and make a legal border crossing of record!

At the far south end of the Lake, we landed at the Goat Haunt Ranger Station of the US National Park Service.  A single ranger is posted here for the season. We got to stamp our National Park Passport Book. This locale is called Goat Haunt because the Blackfoot Natives called it “the place with many goats,” (mountain goats), and someone later remarked that it was virtually “haunted with goats!” 

As we rode back up the lake, we had several sunsets as the sun went in and out behind the peaks on the west side.

Then we spotted our hotel back at our starting place and enjoyed seeing just how long this magnificent Lake is.  The boat we were on was the International. It was nearly a hundred years old.  In the early days, people traveled on the United States side up to Goat Haunt by horse or Stagecoach, then took the International boat up to the Prince of Wales Hotel.  We loved making this journey!