Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park

This very special place is probably one of my favorites on this trip so far.
Writing-on-Stone is a provincial park that is preserved for several reasons: (1) because of the petroglyphs (some of them possibly 5,000 years old) and pictographs on the sandstone cliffs, (2) the sandstone formations of cliffs and "hoodoos" themselves, (3) because the RCMP established an outpost here around the turn of the century, and (4) because it is a Blackfoot sacred site.

The gods live here.

It was a bit of a detour to make it here — I was going considerably more south towards Montana than I really wanted, but... something was pulling me here.

Old wood barn; the Sweetgrass Hills in the background.

The plains are pretty flat, and as I drove, there was a sort of pimple on the horizon. These mountains weren't on my map, but that's because they were across the border in Montana! Interestingly, they really shouldn't be called "Sweetgrass Hills" but rather "Sweetpine Hills" for the pines that grow on them, but something got lost in translation from Blackfoot.

Once something like that happens, there is no going back.

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I'm starting to make a tradition of walking in a special place for my Dad's birthday, which would have been on Memorial Day (May 30). I missed this date by a bit, but this was The Place. I was just ten days late.

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The Milk River runs through it

Geology

Geologically, the area is interesting to someone who's not that familiar with what went on in the middle of the US millions of years ago, although I'm getting a handle on it.

75 million years ago what was here on the plains was a vast sea, bordered on the west by "emerging mountains." There were periodic big flood events (think "Hurricane Katrina"), which they are coming to think did kill some dinosaurs) and also sent a lot of sediments (sand, silt and clay) to the warm inland sea. Limestone was deposited there, too. Layers upon layers.

Sweetgrass Hills in the background, glaciated plain, scoured river valley

Time passed, the sediments sank and were compressed. The seas disappeared, and the lands began to rise.

Where the Sweetgrass Hills are, magma rose, but never reached the surface, and hardened in place underground. With erosion, and because this rock is so much harder than the surrounding sediments, the hills stand higher than the plains.

Glaciation happened multiple times (we're compressing time dramatically). When the ice melted, huge amounts of water were released, resulting in rivers that scoured the landscape, creating broad riverbeds and carving canyons.

Hoodoos

Today, there is much less water, but the riverbeds were established and today's smaller rivers flow through them. Wind and rain have worked to erode the sandstone cliffs, creating the hoodoos found on the landscape today.

Kids LOVE these. I swear, the best playground would just be a bunch of rock like this! A posse of them were playing "acid" or "hot lava" and jumping from rock to rock near the campground.

These soft rocks are eroding pretty quickly (but not as fast as the Badlands), returning to individual grains of sand.

And the river is taking the sand and clay and silt, sending it down to the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico so that the whole cycle of deposition and mountain building can be repeated.

(Note: this is unusual for Alberta, as this is the ONLY river in the province that doesn't end up going north to Hudson Bay.)

Enjoying the hoodoos

Hoodoo hike

You can canoe on the river (wow, that would be fun, except for the mosquitoes), camp at the campground, visit the interpretive center, or you can take quite a hike through the hoodoos and see the pictographs.


Most people just stay around the campground, which is down by the river and is a fun and pretty place to stay, right on the Milk River. Although the park service asks for "respect" for the hoodoos (the area is still used for vision quests), I'm not sure that all of the people who visit are quite being respectful. Part of the park IS closed off to visitors, so I guess they figure that a part of the park is recreational, and part is saved for spiritual and archaeologic purposes.

You can hike in the backcountry, too. You have to cross the river, and although there are no trails, it's open country so is easy to find your way.

The hike takes you for several miles along the Milk River. You go through all aspects of this varied landscape, from open prairie meadows; sandy cliffs; moist, brushy riparian habitat; and even a little bit right by the river.

It's a really pretty trail and gives you some appreciation for the rich life here, from plants, flowers, trees, berry bushes, bugs, birds, and animals. I saw deer, rabbits playing, a spotted towhee, beetles, ants, and a few too many mosquitoes as the afternoon (actually early evening wore on).

Can you find the pictographs? One is the circle "shield" near the center;
there is also a horse on the rock face lower down.

Pictographs and Petroglyphs

I'm not sure exactly what I expected.  I've seen other indigenous petroglyphs in the Southwest, and those are large and impressive.

When you're in the visitor center, they have photos of the best examples here. So when you actually see "real" ones, I have to say that there is a little bit of disappointment that they are not as clear or visible as one might have anticipated.

Battle scene: Tipi camp on the left, a line of guns firing (the dots are bullets)

The few examples available for viewing and that you can walk to are probably not the best ones out there. The photos at the center were of the best examples, taken under the best circumstances of lighting and photography, and I know that a number of photos were taken to get the very best ones for display. And I am really learning that lighting is HUGE. There is nothing that can rectify bad lighting.

Gallardia

Also one has to understand that this art is old and has been exposed to weather. It hasn't been protected in a museum. They think that some of the art may be 5,000 years old. It is one of the challenges of studying these representations, because of course the people who made these did not date them! So they have to do approximations: wider etchings are probably older, both because of weathering and because they were probably made with another rock rather than metal. If there is "desert varnish" on the images, these are older than those that don't have it. If there are horses, they know that they have to be newer than about 1720, which is when escaped Spanish horses made it north to Canada. If guns are represented, these are even later.

The "Battle Scene" above is relatively new. It was identified by a Blackfoot elder as depicting a significant battle from about 1860.

But regardless, like letterboxing, it's not the end result to see, but the experience of going there. And I'm glad that the best sites are being protected as there a bunch of stupid people out there who are not respectful of the art or history. <Grrr>

So what is a "Coulee"? I've heard the word (as in "Grand Coulee Dam"), but didn't really know even think about what it was.

It's basically a wadi or small canyon of a tributary creek. These were used by First Nations people as ambush sites and camps, and later by bootlegging rum runners during Canada's prohibition (the Dry Years). There were some good examples of coulees on this hike. Police Coulee was so named because a RCMP outpost was stationed there, right at the mouth of the canyon to apprehend any bad guys were where coming out of it!

Police Coulee is the canyon in the center, coming down to the Milk River.

On the hike back, I was a little disappointed because the light was not good. I had specifically dawdled on this trip so that I'd be out at the "golden hour" before sunset. Unfortunately, there was a bit of cloud cover (no real threat of rain), but the light was flat. The rocks didn't have much color, and everything was sort of washed out. However, I did enjoy the hike, because by this time the animals were starting to come out, which is always fun, as long as you're not in a hurry and have the patience to watch for them.

However, at the very end, I was rewarded by an amazing sunset when the sun went below the clouds and lit up the land and sky. No more words, just the pictures.

Final parting shot; there's more on Facebook!