Detail of Lower Cross River Falls, 2009, c. harmon

The Banff Windermere Highway was opened on June 30, 1923. Byron Harmon was there for the ribbon cutting ceremony. He had travelled this route, from Banff to Windermere Valley, many times with horses and a guide, to photograph in the Purcell Mountains. Initially called "Kootenay Dominion Park", Canada’s tenth national park was created in 1920 as part of an agreement between the province of British Columbia and the Canadian Dominion government to complete a highway, which British Columbia had begun but couldn’t afford to finish, between the Windermere Valley and Banff National Park, in exchange for title to a strip of land, approximately 8 km. in width, on either side of the 94 km. route. This route was first identified in 1858 by Sir James Hector, geologist to the Palliser expedition, which had been tasked by the British Government to discover a possible route for wheeled vehicles through the Canadian Rockies. Settlers homesteaded in the Cross River Valley, a tributary of Kootenay River, arriving by wagon-train from the fertile Windermere Valley in south-eastern British Columbia via the old Settler’s Trail, now known as Settler’s Road.

I wanted to see where, on Kootenay and Cross rivers, Byron had shot his 1923 canoe film. He had advocated for this highway and was one of the first to use it.

Although Kootenay National Park was later much expanded in size beyond this strip of land, to this day there remains a section of Crown Land, bordered by Banff National Park, Kootenay National Park, and Mt. Assiniboine Provincial Park, which includes Settlers Road. It is home to logging operations, a magnesium mine, and back-country lodges, some in locations of former homesteads. People and resources pass to and fro through Kootenay and Banff National Parks using the Banff-Windermere Highway.

Pine beetle clear-cut // Baymag magnesium mine on Mt. Brusselof // Mt. Aye and Mt. Eon from Aurora Creek Road, 2009, c. harmon..

In 2009, my son and I went up Settler’s Road. We stayed at Nipika Mountain Resort which has a great piece about their history on their website blog. It was shocking to come across mining and lumbering activities in this area with grandfathered land claims which pre-date the formation of Kootenay National Park. It left no doubt in my mind what the fate of the Canadian Rockies might have been had the National Parks System never been established. We found the place Byron took the photographs from, but it could only be accessed from the river itself, moving upstream from Kootenay River. There were steep cliffs on every side, with the waterfall cascading into a pool. The river is much shallower than in 1923.

Cross River and Settler’s Road

The Store with the Pictures