An Alberta provincial park was part of what's now Banff National Park | Daily Hive

This Alberta provincial park was part of what is now Banff National Park

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Before it became Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, the land it sits on was actually once part of Banff National Park.

According to Alberta Parks, in the early 1900s, sections of Kananaskis Country were included within Rocky Mountains Park, which is now known as Banff National Park, as part of a much larger protected area in the eastern Rockies.

At the time, the national park system was still in early development, and Rocky Mountains Park covered a much larger region than it does today.

In 1911, the park was reorganized under new federal legislation, and its boundaries were significantly reduced, resulting in a much smaller Banff National Park, which helped shape the region.

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In 1930, the land that would later become Kananaskis Country was transferred to the Government of Alberta, marking a shift from federal to provincial control of the area.

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Two decades later, nearby protected areas began to take shape, including Bow Valley Provincial Park in 1959 and Bragg Creek Provincial Park in 1960, as interest in conserving and managing the region’s landscape grew.

In 1972, the Alberta Wilderness Association proposed a wilderness area west of Calgary across the Elbow, Sheep and Kananaskis valleys. That same year, the Environment Conservation Authority identified the region as important for watershed protection and its potential for resource development, tourism and recreation.

At the same time, more Calgarians were wanting to head into the mountains, putting more pressure on the area. The Banff-Cochrane MLA and Minister of Highways at the time, Clarence Copithorne, saw the need to manage that. He proposed road improvements in the Kananaskis Valley to help handle traffic.

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Those plans faced public backlash, and Calgary architect Bill Milne pushed for public input. The government received more than 48,000 responses about the future of the area. Most people supported creating a large protected space instead of expanding road access.

Premier Peter Lougheed flew over the region in a helicopter, and that’s all it took to convince him the area needed to be protected.

In 1978, Lougheed officially created Kananaskis Country and Kananaskis Provincial Park, and in January 1986, the park was officially renamed to Peter Lougheed Provincial Park, honouring the former premier’s conservation efforts and vision for creating Kananaskis Country.