Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park 5

Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is an interprovincial park straddling the southern Alberta-Saskatchewan boundary, located southeast of Medicine Hat. It is Canada's first and only interprovincial park.The park consists of two protected areas, the 345km2 west block, that straddles the Alberta/Saskatchewan boundary between Alberta Highway 41, the townsite of Elkwater, Saskatchewan Highway 615, Saskatchewan Highway 271 and Fort Walsh, and the centre block, an additional area of 58km2 in Saskatchewan, west of Saskatchewan Highway 21.GeographyThe Cypress Hills plateau rises up to 200 metres above the surrounding prairie, to a maximum elevation of 1468m at "Head of the Mountain" at the west end in Alberta, making it Canada's highest point between the Canadian Rockies and the Labrador peninsula. Eastward across the boundary is the highest point in Saskatchewan, at 1392m. The "West Block" of the Cypress Hills spans the provincial boundary. Battle Creek runs through the central part of the park. Although the hills seem relatively low, in a larger geographic context the plateau does rise gradually from many kilometres away so that the total elevation gain from Medicine Hat is approximately 600 metres.