Unlike the U.S., Canada is getting serious about renovating its national parks . . .
WEST GLACIER – Less than 50 miles north of here, as the crow flies, officials at Waterton Lakes National Park announced this week they had chosen a location for a new $7.6 million visitor center inside the park. It will replace an old (1950s-era), tiny (600-square-feet) visitor center that park officials call “wholly inadequate to meet the needs and volumes of today’s visitors.”
It’s a big deal for Waterton, Glacier National Park’s next-door neighbor and, since 1932, half of the world’s first international peace park.
Perhaps even more noteworthy, however, is that the visitor center is just one of 17 major infrastructure upgrades or replacements being completed in Waterton over a five-year period.