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The Parks / British Columbia / Kootenay National Park

Characterized by overturned folds, the mountains are geologically complex structures composed of relatively soft shale with some limestone beds. Radium Hot Springs, surrounded by rock ridges and forests at the southern edge of the park, and the Redwall Fault, given a brilliant reddish hue by iron oxidation, are small scale results of the extensive faulting that shaped much of the Rockies. Surface water which seeps deep into the earth’s crust can be heated to as high as 1000 degrees centigrade when it meets hot or molten rock as deep as 5 kilometres from the surface. The steam rises then condenses before re-emerging as water. Two million litres of water a day rush from Radium Hot Springs to the delight of the thousands of visitors who flock there. At the Paint Pots, an active spring has sufficient iron dissolved in its cool water to form a series of strangely coloured muds and shales on the surface. Native Canadians believed that the pools were inhabited by animal and thunder spirits. Tribes journeyed great distances to collect the pigmented clay which could be baked and ground into different tinted powders, or ‘ochre’, mixed with animal fat or fish oil, and used to paint rocks, tepees, and even faces. The Marble Canyon, a narrow and precipitous gorge (66 metres long and 37 metres deep), takes its name from its dolomite and marble walls polished smooth over the course of 8000 years by the rushing waters of Tokumm Creek. The outlines of the canyon are angular because limestone cracks in a characteristic block fashion. Flowing water has carved in the canyon walls scoops and swirls far above the present water level.