Glacier National Park

More than a million acres on the Canadian border in northwestern Montana, taking in parts of two sub-ranges of the Rocky Mountains, more than 130 named lakes, over 1,000 plant species and hundreds of animals. The centrepiece of what is called the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem, 16,000 square miles of protected land. Native Americans lived here first; when European explorers arrived the Blackfeet held the east and the Flathead the west. Under pressure, the Blackfeet ceded the mountainous part of their treaty lands in 1895.