The Ghost River Wilderness Area is a provincially designated

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

in the

Canadian Rockies The Canadian Rockies () or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part of the Canadian Cordillera, w ...

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

protecting the headwaters of the Ghost River. It was established in 1967 and it, as one of the three wilderness areas of Alberta, has the strictest form of government protection available in Canada. All development is forbidden, and only travel by foot is permitted. Hunting and fishing are not allowed. The other two wilderness areas are White Goat Wilderness Area and Siffleur Wilderness Area and together the three areas total . Situated west of

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

and bordering

Banff National Park Banff National Park is Canada, Canada's first National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous ter ...

, the Ghost Wilderness spans the area north of the Trans-Canada Highway (Highway 1) along the eastern slope of the

Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Can ...

up to the

Red Deer River The Red Deer River is a river in Alberta and a small portion of Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a major tributary of the South Saskatchewan River and is part of the larger Saskatchewan / Nelson River, Nelson system that empties into Hudson Bay. T ...

. It lies just slightly north of Lake Minnewanka. Mountains rise to . The area has rugged mountains, glacier-carved valleys, mountain lakes, and alpine meadows. There are two distinct vegetation zones. Above , the

tree line The tree line is the edge of a habitat at which trees are capable of growing and beyond which they are not. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually low ...

, are grasses, sedges and wildflowers. Below that are subalpine forests of spruce, fir, and lodgepole pine. There are many rare species of butterflies. Animals include

Bighorn Sheep The bighorn sheep (''Ovis canadensis'') is a species of Ovis, sheep native to North America. It is named for its large Horn (anatomy), horns. A pair of horns may weigh up to ; the sheep typically weigh up to . Recent genetic testing indicates th ...

, deer,

moose The moose (: 'moose'; used in North America) or elk (: 'elk' or 'elks'; used in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is the world's tallest, largest and heaviest extant species of deer and the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is also the tal ...

cougar The cougar (''Puma concolor'') (, ''Help:Pronunciation respelling key, KOO-gər''), also called puma, mountain lion, catamount and panther is a large small cat native to the Americas. It inhabits North America, North, Central America, Cent ...

s, bears, wild horses, and timber wolves. The area is a world-class venue for

ice climbing Ice climbing is a climbing discipline that involves ascending routes consisting entirely of frozen water. To ascend, the ice climber uses specialist equipment, particularly double ice axes (or the more modern ice tools) and rigid crampons. ...

. The area was also a filming location for the Academy Award-winning 1994 epic drama film ''

Legends of the Fall ''Legends of the Fall'' is a 1994 American epic historical Western drama film directed by Edward Zwick, and starring Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins, Aidan Quinn, Julia Ormond and Henry Thomas. Based on the 1979 novella of the same title by Jim ...

''.

References

External links

Alberta Parks
Municipal District of Bighorn No. 8 Protected areas of Alberta Parks in the Canadian Rockies {{AlbertaRockies-geo-stub