Bow Pass
The Icefields Parkway can
be neatly divided into two passes and their
approaches. Bow Pass is the southern summit
of these two, traversing the highest road
altitude between Lake Louise and
Saskatchewan River Crossing. It is also the
highest point on the Icefields Parkway. A
ride over the pass is described in more
detail on this
page, under the heading "la promenade
des glaciers - the Icefields Parkway".

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01.(km00,1440m)
START-END SOUTH: Castle Junction, west
of Banff
02.(km29,1560m) STAET-END SOUTH
ALTERNATE: Highway 1 to Yoho National
Park diverts on left.
03.(km69+1/2,2068m) TOP: Bow Pass
04.(km103+1/2,1400m) START-END NORTH:
Saskatchwan River Crossing |
Approaches
From South. This road is a wide
highway with a shoulder the size of almost
another road. The shoulder is however
sacrificed for a climbing lane for cars on the
way to Bow Lake.

From North. Again it is surprising,
just how few turns this highway has to make to
reach a pass surrounded by glaciers.
Tours
Extended Tour. The
Icefields Parkway is where vacationing bicycle
tourists converge in the summer. While the
rest of the continent may be ruled by
stinking, polluting ATVs, and noisy 4wd
trucks, Bow Pass is filled with cycle tourists
from around the world, touring in pairs,
groups or solo. There is a youth hostel
network along the road. However, campground do
not make special provisions for cyclists. The
800hp camping rigs with motorized lifts and
awnings, satellite dishes and noisy propane
electricity generators still rule this
continent.
History
Exploration by military and official
expeditions: The Palliser Expedition. (<Kicking
Horse Pass|) The period prior to the civil
war was a time when many of the northern
Montana passes became officially mapped.
This also prompted a push for more
exploration to the north in the Canadian
Rockies. Far less populated and still under
British control, many of the commonly used
passes during fur trading days were all but
forgotten. Meanwhile Canada and the American
states had settled on the 49th parallel as
their boundary. For the majority of Columbia
River bound Canadian travelers, this made it
necessary to cross into the US in order to
get across the Rocky Mountains. This
situation had to be remedied, especially if
there was ever going to be a Canadian
transcontinental railroad.
The result was the Palliser Expedition. Its
independent group of British,
Scottish-French halfbreeds and one American
managed to split into three groups and
rediscover many "new" passes. But their most
important discovery was really caused by an
accident, when a a horse plunging into a
river caused injury, the loss of food, and a
desperate search for a quick way back. This
resulted in the discovery of aptly named
"Kicking Horse" Pass. Nobody knew it at the
time, but Kicking Horse Pass would later
become the answer to the real lasting impact
of the Palliser Survey: the route for a
Canadian transcontinental railroad.
A recorded crossing over Bow Pass was an
anticlimactic afterthought during that same
fall in 1858. One of the three group leaders
of the Palliser expedition, John Hector had
an Indian guide. His name is recorded
as "Nimrod", because Hector could not
pronounce it. According to Marshall
Spraque's "The Great Gates", Nimrod guided a
number of members of the Palliser Expedition
under James Hector over Bow Pass down the
Mistaya River to the North Saskatchewan and
winter quarters at Fort Edmunton. The next
June Hector would go Frazier River hunting
again. His Indian guide eventually vanished
into thin air, and Hector redsicovered
another "new" passes from the fur trader
days that is still a trail today, Howse
Pass.

Modern Highways (<Sunwapta
Pass|) The Icefields Parkway was a
late result of the road building frenzy
that followed WW1 in both the US
and Canada. The first Canadian Rockies
Pass to be crossed by a highway was
Vermillion Pass in 1923. Kicking Horse,
Crowsnest, Yellowhead and Sinclair
followed. Finally Canada's first
commissioner of Public Parks planned a
route north along the main range from
Banff. Sunwapta Pass was crossed first
and the early version of the highway was
completed in 1940.
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