6000 Mile EV Road Trip - Stay 10
Prince of Wales Hotel, Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada | July 1-4, 2024
Written by John Martinson
Alberta’s Waterton Lakes National Park is 195 square miles of rugged mountains and wilderness, and a diverse ecosystem much like Montana’s Glacier National. In fact, the two parks border each other.
Upon our arrival on July 1, we checked in and then drove to the town of Waterton just two miles down the way to a marina where we discovered two L2 Tesla Destination chargers and three L2 CCS chargers. We parked, plugged, and explored the town, which was just enough time to fully charge the car.
We stayed 3 nights at the Prince of Wales Hotel at the north end of Waterton Lake. The south end of the lake is in Glacier National Park.
The hotel was named after the Prince of Wales (later, King Edward VIII) in an effort to draw him to the hotel on his 1927 Canadian Tour, but it fell on deaf ears. Neither the Prince nor any other Royal has stayed there in the hotel’s history to date.
In 1932, the Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park, the world’s first peace park, was formed by the Rotary Clubs of Alberta and Montana to promote peace and goodwill between nations and to emphasize the international nature of wilderness protection. Once ratified by both nations, Waterton-Glacier International was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and is Canada’s second biosphere reserve.
The extraordinary lobby at the center of the hotel rises 7 stories (121 ft) where an enormous chandelier hangs over a wide common area. The lounge restaurant and a formal dining hall extend at opposite sides. All standard meals can be enjoyed by guests at a lounge area on the south end of the common area where seating is directed toward an enormous picture window looking south over Upper Lake Waterton. A traditional English Afternoon Tea is offered each day in the formal dining hall. We partook of it the first day and then discovered the lobby lounge opportunity. It is here where we parked ourselves for two days from after breakfast to after dinner for Suzanne to work on a journal article and for me to catch up on my blogging.
The ever-changing weather in this room presents a spectacle here beyond the window from the mountains to the lake and beyond, and one experiences all of it like a slow-motion IMAX film. A typical day started off with high clouds and blue skies and moved through various atmospheric conditions like fog, light rain, moderate rain, clear, low clouds, high clouds, overcast, and the like—a dramatic display.
The staff at Prince of Wales all wear kilts (both men and women), and the international staff is delightful. The food—all meals, and in fact all the food service at the hotel was quite impressive.
Wildlife
On our drive to Waterton Lakes National Park on the Chief Mountain Highway, we encountered a lone adult grizzly bear in the middle of the road. When it saw us, it immediately turned and bounded away. It was amazing how quickly it moved. On our last evening, we saw three white-tailed deer—a doe and two young adults walk across the parking lot at the Prince of Wales, and soon after we encountered two adult red foxes, running near the parking lot. We also saw a family of Columbia ground squirrels playing and eating on the hotel’s grassy area.
