Canadian Railroads > Former GN Prince of Wales hotel under threat

Another iconic former Great Northern Railway hotel is under threat from a wildfire.

The townsite of Waterton Lakes has already suffered some fire losses in an aggressive forest fire. The town was evacuated a couple of days ago.

The Prince of Wales hotel is a mostly wooden structure. Waterton Lakes National Park is the Canadian continuation of Glacier Park, Montana, and was created at the urging of the Great Northern Railway. During the Prohibition years, visitors from Glacier Park , Montana could legally enjoy a few drinks and a cruise on Waterton Lake.

Earlier this year, Glacier Park's historic Sperry Chalet, another GN structure was lost to a forest fire.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/13/17 13:44 by eminence_grise.

The grass is so brown. When I was there in 1980, it was very green, damp, and rainy.
In 2006 it was getting drier.

By the evening of September 13th, the townsite of Waterton Lake and the hotel are out of immediate danger. Six buildings in the townsite were lost in the fire, no lives were lost. The Park visitor centre was one of the buildings destroyed. The evacuation order remains in place for now.

The Glacier Park Shuttle van system goes up there every day from East Glacier and Many Glacier. I suppose that has been cut back.

When returning to the US side, that is the one and only time US Customs made me open my suitcase as it seemed too heavy to him for a tourist, thought maybe I had guns, and questioned what my Chicagocard transit RFID card was for. He just had to come up with something. It was a Boyt suitcase, which I no longer have, and they were heavy when empty for their size..