Elk Island National Park

Located less than an hour away from Edmonton, Elk Island National Park of Canada protects the wilderness of the aspen parkland, one of the most endangered habitats in Canada. This beautiful oasis is home to herds of free roaming plains bison, wood bison, moose, deer, and elk. Also boasting over 250 species of birds, the park is a bird watcher's paradise. Be it for wildlife viewing, hiking, cross-country skiing, picnicking or overnight camping, there is something for everyone at Elk Island National Park.

Elk Island National Park is an island, not in the geographical sense, but in terms of its landscape of small hills and depressions surrounded by flat plains, and by virtue of its purpose, to create a fenced refuge for the protection and preservation of 3000 head of hoofed mammals, one of the highest concentrations of big game animals in the world. It was the first federally controlled area in Canada to be enclosed to protect a native mammal, the elk, and also the first large mammal sanctuary established in Canada. Set in the Beaver Hills, 45 kilometres east of Edmonton, Alberta, its 194 square kilometres rises 60 metres above the surrounding prairie, an oasis of boreal mixed forest and aspen parkland vegetation. It is also an island of protection for the heritage resources within its boundaries, and an island of tranquility for the 350 000 - 400 000 visitors who each year approach the park as a destination for nature and wildlife viewing.

Beaver Hills-Cooking Lake Moraine, a remnant of the last ice sheet, is characterized by ‘knob and kettle’ topography. When the glaciers retreated from the area, they left debris clustered around chunks of ice that formed the knobs, while the melting ice made shallow ponds or kettles. These are eutrophic ponds, meaning they have a very poor oxygen supply, but they contain rich accumulations of nutrients, making them an excellent habitat for plants and wildfowl. The park has more than 250 lakes, ponds and wetlands over 20% of its surface area. Astotin Lake, near the park®s north end is 3.9 kilometres long, almost 3.1 kilometres wide and .5 - 10 metres deep, the park®s largest body of water.

The forested hills and rolling meadows are surrounded by grain fields and pasture, the aspen thickets providing forage and protection for the wildlife. Unique vegetation communities of white spruce, white birch, sand hill vegetation and saline wetlands are also found. Trembling aspen appears on the higher slopes and paper birch on the lower wetlands. In the northern end of the park are the boreal-type forest, orchids, Indian pipe, yellow pond lily and white water lily. In the central region are the black spruce bogs with muskeg vegetation such as round-leafed sundew. Browsing moose, elk, and deer munch berry bushes such as dogwood and saskatoon. Some prairie vegetation that may appear within the park are hawthorn, buckbean, buckbrush, prairie sage and Black-eyed Susan.

For thousands of years the aboriginal peoples occasionally used the area now known as Beaver Hills. Glaciation has destroyed any evidence of occupancy before 10 500 years ago. The mix of vegetation would have been very important to native people, who probably relied on the location for winter food and shelter. In the summer, the surrounding plains would have provided bison. It has always been an excellent habitat for elk, moose, deer, bear and game birds, berries, wild vegetables and fish. The camp could depend on the site for fresh water and firewood. The European trappers, who came to develop the fur trade, rapidly depleted these resources making the land inhospitable to settlers who arrived in the early 1900’s but rarely stayed to homestead.

The rich aspen parkland vegetation is an extremely productive habitat for a widely diverse and abundant wildlife. There are 44 species of mammals ranging from North America’s largest, the wood bison, to its smallest, the pygmy shrew. The white-tailed deer, coyote, snowshoe hare, mink, weasel and ground squirrel have stable populations here. The once-threatened beaver, nearly wiped out by trappers, is now thriving. In September, the bull elk can be heard bugling challenges throughout the park. In the 1700’s, plains bison roaming throughout the continent were estimated to number in the millions. By 1870, the bison was almost eliminated and other large herbivores were rare. The wood bison, whose population had fallen to almost 300 by 1891, once traversed the forested regions of northwestern Canada in great numbers. Today, to maintain a population of no more than 350 animals in the park, between 30 to 60 surplus bison are translocated each year to establish other free roaming populations in Canada. Similarly, elk, moose, and plains bison are shipped all over the continent for the re-introduction and upgrading of other herds. There are 230 species of birds in the park where the numerous kettles provide for a high density of dabbling ducks, particularly mallards, shovellers and pinwheels; red-necked grebes also nest along the shores. Beaver Hills is the most northern breeding range for mourning doves and a few black-crowned night herons, and the easternmost limit for the mountain-dwelling Barrow’s goldeneye. The great grey owl and both the three-toed and black-backed woodpecker winter here. Warblers are everywhere in the spruce and aspen forests. Living close to the ponds are the tiger salamander, wood frogs, the boreal chorus frog, the northwestern toad and the western garter snake.

By the turn of the century, hunting posed a threat to wildlife populations such as the elk in Beaver Hills, considered to be one of the last herds in Canada by 1903. Five concerned residents of the area proposed to the federal government that they would deliver at least 20 elk to a reserve around Astotin Lake, in return for the government reimbursing them for the cost of fencing the land. This agreement may have been the beginning of Canada’s game laws. The herd that was delivered had never been crossed with other elk and thus are today one of the few, and possibly the only, herd that has not been hybridized.

In the 1880’s a small group of plains buffalo calves were rescued and turned loose on a reserve in Montana after a hunting party had wiped out all the adults in the herd. Years later, two Montana ranchers, realizing the little herd might be the last in existence, bought them and gave them free range with their cattle. When the U.S. government offered to purchase these buffalo, they so offended the owner’s pride that he refused their bid, accepting $200 a head from the Canadian government instead and 716 bison were sent to Elk Island. When a larger facility was finally completed at Buffalo Park, in Wainwright, Alberta, the herd, except for 48 animals that avoided capture, were sent to the new reserve. Also at Buffalo Park was a small herd of the nearly extinct wood buffalo, which interbred with the plains buffalo. As a result, almost all the world’s purebred plains bison have originated from that small herd of 48 left behind in Elk Island. No longer considered endangered, more than100 000 plains bison are now found in parks and zoos all over North America.

In 1957, a small herd of purebred wood buffalo were discovered in a remote section of Buffalo Park and in 1965, Elk Island received 23 of the endangered animals so a herd could be established isolated from the plains bison - an insurance for the survival of the species. The Trumpeter Swan has been designated a vulnerable species, having been hunted to near extinction for its meat, feathers and down. In 1987, the re-introduction of the swan in Elk Island National Park, through a program of capture and release of entire families, was begun in August when adults are molting and young cygnets have not fledged. When these families migrated back to Canada the following spring, the relocated cygnets returned to Elk Island and a population began that in 1998 saw a family of Trumpeter Swans successfully hatched and raised in the park.