Parc interprovincial des Cypress Hills
The Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park will not fail to win visitors to the region. This provincial park shared by Saskatchewan and Alberta hosts the highest point between the Canadian Rockies and the Appalachian Mountains at 1,468 meters above sea level, and 600 meters above the surrounding plain. Bird species typical of the Rocky Mountains are found here. Visitors can camp there, observe moose, go fishing, and walk the many hiking trails to be closer to nature.
You can also ride horses and visit the Historic Reesor Ranch, which belongs to the same family for generations. You will meet the Drapeau-Reesor family there. A memorable meeting to look forward to.
The top of this plateau offers a breathtaking view of the surrounding landscape. This is lodgepole pine country. The harsh climate makes life difficult for these magnificent trees typical of this ecosystem. Stone cliffs embedded in natural mortar found nowhere else in the province testify to the impact of the last ice age on the morphology of the landscape. The highlands of Cypress Hills are a "nunatak", an ancient geological island spared by the ice. We could have been here 11,000 years ago and able to admire an ocean of ice all around which has carved out the highlands. The view there would have been breathtaking, at least as much as it still is today.
It was not far from here that the infamous Cypress Hills massacre took place in 1873, which claimed no less than 23 men, women, and children in a Nakoda Nation camp, after a dispute fueled by bad alcohol, and allegedly caused by horse theft.
You will surely enjoy visiting Fort Walsh. It was built in 1875 as a permanent station of the newly created North West Mounted Police to put an end to the whiskey trade, enforce Canadian law and sovereignty over these newly acquired territories of the British Crown, and encourage the First Nations to settle on reserves. Fort Walsh is now a National Historic Site whose palisades and incomparable site make a lasting impression.