Waterton - Day 4

We started the day with a nice boat ride down the Waterton Lake to Goat Haunt, which is a small ranger station in the United States.  Waterton Park and Glacier Park in Montana are the same park, and while the Canadian side has a town site and road access, the American side is fairly rugged wilderness, with trails and back country tenting.  For the boat ride, you go down the lake, get 30 minutes in America and then come back, and as long as you don't go past the ranger station, you don't have to clear customs.  You are technically in the United States, even if you aren't legally there.

Bradley was concerned about the boat ride, but the boat was big enough and the waves on the lake small enough that he was confident enough on the return trip to ride on the top of the boat.  It was interesting to see that the border is actually cleared of trees in straight line, right up the side of a mountain.

After the boat ride and lunch, we climbed into the van for a short trip through the park to Cameron Lake, which is a small mountain lake with a few hikes around it.  We did the first easy hike around part of the lake and then decided to rent kayaks, which had been a big thing that some of the kids (especially Bradley) had been looking forward to.  Unfortunately, to go alone, you had to be 14, which meant that Bradley's plans were ruined, and he didn't take it very well.  Eventually he begrudgingly agreed to go in a canoe with Sandra and I, but only because if he didn't, he'd have to stay on shore with Alex.  Evan got in his kayak and took off, as he was determined to get to the other end of the lake, which is in the United States.  Jonathan stayed close to us, but we had no idea what we were doing and were quite unable to control the canoe.  After 20 minutes of not going where we wanted and trying to crash into the shore, it looked like it was going to rain, so I gave up and headed back to the dock.

Not long after we got out, it did start raining and the wind picked up, with Evan half way to the other side of the lake.  He turned around and came back, but he was quite wet and tired when he arrived.  All in all, it wasn't quite the fun experience we were expecting.

We did another short hike, as the rain was short, but I was in pain by that point, as paddling a canoe uses muscles I don't use much.  We ended up skipping any more hikes and headed back to the hotel for supper.