Kananaskis

Kananaskis lies on the eastern approaches to the Rocky Mountains, where foothills and valleys connect the high country with the northern plains. The Stoney Nakoda, known as Îyârhe, hunted bighorn sheep, elk and bison in the valley and used the mountain passes for seasonal travel. Blackfoot, Peigan and Kootenay people also moved through these foothills, trading horses, hides and dried meat. Mountain passes linked the watersheds on either side of the divide, and in the first years of the nineteenth century the fur trader and surveyor David Thompson crossed the divide by passes near this country, mapping the routes for the fur companies.