From a distance, the Cypress Hills must have looked like a mirage to early pioneers. Imagine slowly making your way across the prairie on horseback or foot, the flat, dry grasslands stretching away to the curve of the Earth. Suddenly, far ahead on the horizon, this 1,000-square-mile plateau – an oasis of conifer forest and aspen groves – rears from the flatness, 2,000 feet above the prairie that encircles it.

The Cypress Hills were once part of a much larger plateau, but the preglacial ancestors of the Milk and South Saskatchewan Rivers eroded away most of it. They left only the part in the meddle that lay beyond the reach of either river.

You will find some grasses and shrubs typical of the prairie – which, added to the montane flora, make this one very diverse place. The fauna is diverse as well, though less so than it was before the area’s bison, wolves, grizzlies, and black bears were hunted out.