Flathead Beacon
29 January 2015
In 1932, while European countries simmered on the brink of war, the U.S. and Canada reached an unprecedented agreement in the name of peace and goodwill.
The two neighboring nations banded together to create the world’s first international peace park in the towering Rockies of Northwest Montana and southern British Columbia.
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park encompasses a combined 1,720 square miles of Glacier National Park and Waterton Lakes National Park. As stated in the original legislation authorized by both the U.S. and Canadian governments, the goal was to form “an enduring monument of nature to the long-existing relationship of peace and goodwill” between the two countries.
In his bill spearheading the site’s creation, Montana Congressman Scott Leavitt said the park would be an inspiring model for all nations, friendly or not.
“(Waterton-Glacier) has about it something indescribable,” Leavitt wrote in his bill. “Perhaps the imminent presence which broods over it and which is universally felt may best be described as peace.”