Grasslands National Park

Molestead Creek ValleyGrasslands National Park is one of Canada's newest national parks and is located in southwestern Saskatchewan. Bordering the American state of Montana to the south, Grasslands National Park is grouped in two blocks about an hours drive south of Swift Current.

Our trip focused on the West block of the park. The main service community and the park offices are located in the village of Val Marie. To get to Val Marie, take the Trans-Canada Highway #1 to Swift Current. Swift Current is a small city which is likely your last point for critical supplies and food. From Swift Current, turn south on Highway #4 and travel approximately 1 hour to Val Marie. If you are arriving from the United States, enter through the port of Malta Montana and proceed north on Highway #4 for about 20 minutes.

A Park visitor centre is available in Val Marie along with a gift shop and museum operated by the Friends of Grassland National Park.

If you are interested in trying out some of the roads less traveled (and within Grasslands National Park, there are very few roads well-traveled), you may want to consider bringing an SUV for the trip. Rent one in Swift Current from your favourite car rental outlet if you'd like.

Grasslands National Park is can be added to an itinerary for a number of other side-trips and other destinations:

  • Visit Scotty, the restored Tyrannosaurus-Rex at Eastend's Discovery Centre, a paleontological research and interpretation centre;
  • Check out the Cypress Hills, the highest land between the Rocky Mountains and Quebec and one of the few places spared by the last Ice Age;
  • Gaze in awe at the art work and architecture of Gravelbourg, and experience the culture of this Francophone community in the middle of southern Saskatchewan;
  • Visit the Claybank Brick Factory National Historic Site;
  • Walk The Great Sand Hills northwest of Swift Current, one of the very few active sand dune areas in North America with its rare species of vegetation and animal life;
  • And while you're at it, check out the many attractions in Moose Jaw including tunnels dating from the prohibition era, the Western Development Museum with it's displays on transportation and Canada's premier stunt aerobatic team, the Snowbirds.

While in Grasslands National Park, we can offer the following advice to other interested travellers:

The Gift Shop rents out a Field Guide to the park. This guide is available for $10/day with a $40 deposit. The entire guide is also available for purchase at $65.00 (taxes included I believe). This is a good thing since reading the entire guide will take you at least 7 days anyway.

The guide is also available in sections. If you're interested in walking around at all, purchase the Guide to the Hiking Routes of Grasslands National Park. It was $15.95 and includes colour maps. Alternatively, the maps are also available for $3.50 each (and there are 5 of them in total; you do the math!).

The park does not have any hiking trails. It only offers descriptions of routes. In hiking through the park, you will never find a cut path worn by previous travellers. The guide book describes the hills and valleys that make up a route, but the actual path trodden is completely up to you.

For these reasons, you should have a working, quality compass and a GPS unit with extra batteries if you plan to venture into the back country, and you should know how to use both. (Unfortunately, to date no business in or adjacent to the park offers these tools for rent; I got my cheap GPS unit from Mountain Equipment Co-op). As invaluable as the guidebook is, it does contain errors. Sometimes these errors are on the compass and bearing side and other errors are in GPS coordinates. Be able to use both methods and you won't have problems.

I can't stress this strongly enough. The park's terrain is very hilly and contoured. The backside of a hill or valley can look very different from the frontside. Walk out into the countryside without navigational aids and then try to figure out which hill you left your car behind! And did I mention that the park has no potable water except that which you can get from the visitors' centres? While Parks Canada suggests 2 litres, I recommend 3 litres a day per person.

Be aware that Grasslands National Park is planning to reintroduce bison to the park's ecosystem in winter 2005-2006. This should place a visit to the park even higher on people's plans.

  1. Accommodation
  2. Driving Tours
  3. Wildlife
  4. Hiking

 

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