Cardston Alberta

The next morning we traveled less than an hour to a campground in Cardston Alberta.  Cardston and three other small towns around it were settled in the late 1880’s by Mormon pioneers – the farthest north people were called to colonize.  Some families actually moved to Canada to get away from the laws and pressure against polygamy in the United States by this time in Mormon history.  Not long after arriving in Canada they began building a temple and it was finally dedicated in 1923.  We were able to attend a session at the Cardston Temple.  It is beautiful inside with amazingly intricate woodwork and beautiful murals.  The original design and décor is still in place – it has not been modernized like Logan.  That was a very nice experience.

It was still mid-afternoon when we finished so we drove over to Waterton Lakes National Park which is the neighbor sharing the border with Glacier National Park in Montana.  There are not many roads in this section of the park – mostly hiking trails.  We did see lots of beautiful wild flowers - -  including one of my favorite “Grizzly Bear Flowers”.  I kept hoping we would see a Grizzly bear eating a Grizzly Bear flower but we were never that lucky.

We did see a rather large black bear right in town on the road to turn up to the golf course.  At first we thought it was just another sign like the one we had seen earlier (see pictures below) but then it turned its head.

There was a funny sign in a meadow that said don't go near to any bears you may see - they are not friendly but we just could not resist - petting the bear sign &

Wrestling the bear sign.  I think in this one of Dad his face looks like Anthony when he is wrestling really hard and trying to pin the guy.

The next morning we visited the Remington Carriage Museum in Cardston.  It was quite interesting.  A local rancher who had lots of money started collecting old carriages of all types and restoring them as a hobby until he had way too many for one person. 

He talked the Canadian Parks into accepting them as a donation if they would build the museum and always keep the collection together.  There are lots and lots of all different varieties set up in nice displays.  Some of them were brought together to join the collection from other sources.  I had no idea there so many different types of vehicles that could be pulled by horses.  They even had some that were gasoline cars but when gas got so expensive during the depression they converted them back to being pulled by horses!