The Crown of the Continent—spanning corners of Alberta, British Columbia, and Montana—provides visitors with 42,000 square kilometers (16,000 square miles) of spellbinding scenery and a good chance to spy bighorn sheep, mountain goats, elk, or, with luck, the monarch of the Crown—the grizzly bear.

The region includes two United Nations World Heritage Sites. One, Waterton-Glacier
International Peace Park, protects headwaters of three continental river systems, and affirms the wisdom of transcending political boundaries in the management of shared ecosystems. The second, Alberta’s Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, attests to the region’s 6,000 years of human economy derived from the diversity of the landscape and its wildlife.

Not long ago, visitors to remote mountain valleys were likely to be horse-mounted hunters seeking hides and heads as trophies. Today’s backcountry trekkers are most often birders, fly casters, photographers, or snowshoers. Many of today’s year-round residents first came as tourists who, smitten by the mountain vistas, returned with their professions or savings—and their urban tastes and expectations.

While ranching and woodcutting continue to define some smallcommunities, demographics are changing rapidly as builders cater to migrants and weekenders who may not be aware of how their choices impact the ecosystems they came to enjoy. Along timbered valleys and across open foothills, landowners, conservationists, and many of the newcomers themselves, are joining to sustain working ranchlands, clear streams, and free-ranging wildlife. Increasingly, those fortunate enough to visit or live in the Crown of the Continent are seeking less to dominate the landscape than to find a personal harmony with it.

— David Thomas, writer, Fernie, BC