Here is another post in my series looking at America’s National Parks.

Glacier National Park is found in the state of Montana, bordering Canada. This park is very large encompassing over 1,000,000 acres (4,000 km2).  There are over 130 lakes within the park and more than 1,000 different species of plants and hundreds of species of animals. In the park alone there are 70 species of mammals like grizzly bears, wolverines, wolves, and lynx.  Glacier National Park preserves more a million acres of forests, meadows, lakes, mountain peaks and valleys in the Rocky Mountains. There are also over 740 miles of hiking and walking trails in this park.  The park is named for the glacier-carved landscape that was created during the ice age that happened 10,000 years ago.

Throughout time, people have been drawn to live in this beautiful landscape, even though now the only people who live here are rangers and visiting tourists.  There is evidence of humans living in this area as long ago as 10,000 years or the end of the last ice age.  Several different Native-American tribes lived in this area including the Blackfeet Indians, the Salish, and the Kootenai Indians.  These American-Indians traveled across the tall mountains found in this park to hunt the great buffalo that once lived in the plains near here.  There are still some buffalo in this area, but nothing like there were a few hundred years ago and before.  European explorers first came to the area around this park looking for beaver and other animals to kill for their fur.  Now tourists come to this park to hike, camp, and take in the beautiful scenery of the magnificent mountains.

I have never been to Glacier National Park myself, but I have heard amazing stories about its beauty.  It is an especially easy park to visit if you are traveling to the Unites States from central Canada.