Photo: Taken in Glacier National Park, Montana by Chris Servheen/Photo courtesy of US Fish and Wildlife Service National Image Library
The Flathead Valley: A furry world in the corner of British Columbia
- Highest concentration of grizzly bears in the interior of North America.
- Greatest predator-prey showdowns in North America, with all the native ungulates, cats and other clawed predators still competing for survival.
- Largest diversity of vascular plants in Canada: where north, south, east and west vegetation collide.
- The only large, unsettled, low-elevation valley in southern Canada.
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park – the world’s first peace park – has a funny,
shape, 
like a heart missing a hump. The missing piece? B.C.’s remarkable Flathead Valley.
History made a mistake. The Flathead Valley, a low-elevation corridor popular with migrating beasts, quietly lies in wait to join the peace park at its borders. With startling biodiversity, this Flathead jewel offers a vital piece to a breathtaking Rocky Mountain ecosystem known as the “Crown of the Continent”.
But many covet such jewels. The Flathead Valley finds itself at grave risk today from the B.C. government’s mining plans.
The solution? Canada and B.C. need to create a national park in the Flathead Valley to provide it with the fullest protection available in this country. The Flathead – a remote valley
that humans 
never settled – remains suitable for World Heritage and United Nations
Biosphere Reserve status, like the peace park at its borders.
The expanded international peace park would be a protected area of global consequence and a passionate, longtime dream of CPAWS. With climate change, the Rocky Mountains need to keep intact migration corridors for large beasts and pure waters to breathe life into ecosystems. The Flathead Valley keeps hearts beating in this rugged terrain – it couldn’t be more vital.
Please help to protect the Flathead Valley. Stop the coal mine proposed at the headwaters of the Flathead River. Please add your voice.
Flathead Map
CPAWS - British Columbia Chapter