Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park

Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park—called Áísínaiʼpi, a Blackfoot word meaning "it is pictured" or "written"—lies about 100 kilometres southeast of Lethbridge, Alberta, straddling the Milk River, and 44 kilometres east of the community of Milk River. It ranks among the largest protected prairie areas in Alberta’s park system, functioning as both a nature reserve and a sanctuary for Indigenous rock carvings and paintings. The park holds deep spiritual importance for the Blackfoot and other First Nations.

Designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site on July 6, 2019, under the name Writing-on-Stone / Áísínaiʼpi, the park is synonymous with the Áísínaiʼpi National Historic Site. It contains one of the densest collections of rock art on the North American Great Plains, with over 50 petroglyph sites and thousands of individual works. A reconstructed North-West Mounted Police outpost stands on its original location; the original was dismantled or removed after closure in 1918, not destroyed by fire. The park offers a visitor centre, campgrounds, picnic areas, group-use spaces, hiking trails, and canoeing and kayaking on the Milk River.

Covering 1,106 hectares of coulee and prairie habitat, the park supports diverse wildlife. Birds include prairie falcons, great horned owls, short-eared owls, American kestrels, cliff swallows, and introduced ring-necked pheasants and grey partridges. Pronghorn antelopes thrive in the surrounding prairie, while mule deer, northern pocket gophers, skunks, raccoons, yellow-bellied marmots, and bobcats also live here. Amphibians include tiger salamanders, boreal chorus frogs, leopard frogs, and plains spadefoot toads. Reptiles include garter snakes, bull snakes, and prairie rattlesnakes. The coulee environment supports balsam poplars, narrow leaf cottonwoods, peachleaf willows, and plains cottonwoods, along with shrubs like chokecherry, juniper, saskatoon, sandbar willow, and two wild rose species (Rosa acicularis and R. woodsii). Some of the northernmost cactus species—Opuntia (prickly pear) and Pediocactus (pincushion)—also grow here.

Geologically, the sandstone outcrops belong to the Milk River Formation, deposited along an inland sea’s edge about 84 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous.