In 1932, the United States and Canada created the world’s first International Peace Park: joining together Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park as the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.
At the time of inscription, the Peace Park commemorated the peace and goodwill our two nations share. Today, Waterton Lakes National Park and Glacier National Park use peace and goodwill to work towards shared management: protecting the water, plants and animals that are found in the WGIPP. You will find the Waterton–Glacier International Peace Park an oasis of solitude and tranquility, a powerful setting for personal reflection on peace.
People have always been at the forefront of the WGIPP. Beginning in 1911, Waterton’s first park official, John G. "Kootenai" Brown, forged a friendship with Henry "Death on the Trail" Reynolds, an American Ranger from Goat Haunt, MT. Upon meetings and visits with one another the two men discussed the idea of joining Waterton and Glacier. Both men felt that the upper Waterton valley, which is intersected by the Canada/US border, could not and should not be divided.
Waterton Lakes National Park is a national park located in the southwest corner of Alberta, Canada, and borders Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. Waterton was Canada's fourth national park, formed in 1895 and named after Waterton Lake, in turn after the Victorian naturalist and conservationist Charles Waterton. The park contains 505 km2 (195 sq mi) of rugged mountains and wilderness.
Photo: Photograph by the Canadian Commision of UNESCO, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license