Alberta’s Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park’s rugged, ancient landscape transports visitors to a time when great bison roamed the prairies and ice shaped the landscape.

Today, it is home to a rainbow of wild orchids. It’s also a star-gazer’s delight as the sunniest weather in Canada coupled with almost no light pollution reveals the heavens in all their glory.

Compared with more than 500 Alberta provincial parks selected for their beauty, Cypress Hills stands out as being particularly awesome.

Its spectacular landscape is steeped in history and is home to all sorts of species that seem at first glance to be enormously out of place. Take for instance the 18 species of wild orchids or the cougars or the northern leopard frog. In fact, the very park itself is an anomaly. Its height above the prairies spared it from the grinding glaciers of the last ice age.

Check out Alberta parks holiday packages and read on to explore all the things to discover in Cypress Hills.

Canada’s Only Interprovincial Park

More recently, Cypress Hills became the first and only interprovincial park in Canada, with an area that spans the borders of both Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The area continues to attract people to its pristine wilderness. Located partly in Alberta’s very southeast corner, Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is easily accessible from the Trans-Canada Highway and just a scenic drive from the international gateway cities of Calgary and Edmonton.

The history of Cypress Hills sheltering indigenous people from the bitter prairie winters and providing them with abundant wildlife for food led to the park’s archeological dig in the 1970s. That dig waned as time went on, but was revived in 2002. The park’s visitor centre now has a display of the layers of human activity that have been unearthed at the site.

Guides Provide Direction

Outside in the fresh air, it takes just a little direction or imagination to get a powerful sense of the past. Guides provide that direction to help visitors imagine the bison that once roamed the park and smell the long-extinguished cooking fires of primitive man. The park’s numerous viewpoints are essential starting points for embarking on this journey through time.

“When you’re in the hills on one of the higher viewpoints, you can see for miles,” says Nicole Bullivant, visitor centre coordinator. “There are no ranches or obstructions so it gives you a feel for the past where bison would have roamed.”

See Abundant Wildlife

Although there are no longer bison in the park, there is still an abundance of wildlife, most of which is easy to spot.

There are cougars, elk and mule deer, moose, white-tail deer and beavers, pine martens, more than 220 bird species, coyotes and foxes. There are also more than 700 plant species. Of these, 18 belong to the orchid family. Part of the reason for the abundance of this spectacular flower is the elevation of the Cypress Hills.

June Best for Orchids

“It’s because it’s almost an island or an oasis where you have a Rocky Mountain ecosystem at the same elevation as the Banff townsite,” says Bullivant. “The orchids like the climate, the grasslands, forests and wetlands. It’s the three ecosystems that attract them.”

June is the best time to see the delicate blooming orchids that glow bright red, purple and other softer colors. Orchids tend to grow individually and spread out, so the best way to see them is to stop by the visitor centre to get the latest information on their locations. The centre also supplies brochures identifying the various species.

Enjoy Stargazing

In addition to the orchids’ bright colors, Cypress Hills also has dark black, and lots of it. An almost complete absence of light pollution makes the park one of the foremost places to stargaze in North America. As a result, it’s been designated a dark sky preserve and every care has been taken to minimize stray light once the sun has gone down.

“We have huge telescopes and at night we run programs with our interpreters and we explain stars,” says Bullivant. “It’s one of the best places to look at the stars and people come from all over the world to see them. We have little cloud cover and no light pollution.”

The park’s stargazing programs and interpreters are all free of charge and run throughout the summer. Every August, the Saskatchewan side of the park holds the Saskatchewan Summer Star Party, a series of astronomy events spread over three days.

Although the park spans two provinces, travelling throughout is a cinch. There is no physical evidence of the political boundary between the two provinces except for signposts, though distances between the three main areas of the park are considerable and require a vehicle.

Hike, Cycle, Fish, Canoe

For those who have the time and prefer a slower pace, there are more than 80 km (50 mi) of walking and cycling trails throughout Cypress Hills.

“You could hike for a week and not cover the same ground twice,” says Bullivant.
A guided bus service is also available to tour the park’s finest features and ensure that each guest gets the most from his or her visit.

Cypress Hills offers a number of other activities that effortlessly consume free time. Motorboats are permitted on one of the park’s three lakes and the fishing is outstanding - brook trout, northern pike and walleye are all plentiful.
 
There is also a golf course just outside the park for those who like to tee off in a spectacular setting.

Accommodation in the park is at campsites designed for everything from tents to motorhomes. There’s also a small resort community at Elkwater, the park’s western-most side, with a lodge, resort, suites, cabins and a bed and breakfast.

“There are more remote campgrounds and then walk-in tenting and full RV sites and some upscale accommodation,” says Bullivant.