Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park - LethbridgeNewsNOW

By Dori Modney

UNESCO adds Writing-on-Stone to Alberta’s list of World Heritage Sites

Jul 7, 2019 | 9:09 AM

OTTAWA — It’s surprising it wasn’t added sooner but, an announcement on Saturday (July 6) will bring greater notoriety to another Alberta gem.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) announced that Writing-on-Stone/Áísínai’pi Provincial Park had been added the list of World Heritage sites, during the 43rd session of the World Heritage Committee in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The Government of Alberta had prepared the nomination in partnership with the Blackfoot Confederacy and with ongoing support from the Government of Canada. It coincides with 2019 being designated the International Year of Indigenous Languages by the United Nations.

The park is home to the most significant concentration of protected First Nations petroglyphs (rock carvings) and pictographs (rock paintings) on the Great Plains of North America. Some of which date back 2,000 years.

Petroglyphs at Writing-on-Stone – credit Provincial Parks

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Martin Heavy Head, a member of the Mookaakin Cultural and Heritage Society and a Blackfoot Confederacy Elder, underscores the importance of the announcement.

“The designation of Writing-on-Stone/Áísínai’pi as a UNESCO World Heritage Site provides the Blackfoot Confederacy a basis for its future generations as to the strength and truth of our continuing relationship to this land and to our traditions, ceremonies and cultural practices.”

Áísínai’pi is the Blackfoot word for ‘it is pictured/written’. The park is an ancient and sacred cultural landscape where Indigenous peoples have created rock art for millennia. Thousands of petroglyphs and pictographs at the location make up the greatest concentration of rock art on the Great Plains of North America. It represents the important phases of human history in North America, including when Indigenous peoples first came into contact with Europeans.

As well as the native rock art, the park encompasses significant landforms, archaeological heritage, and dramatic views that follow grassland off into the horizon. In Blackfoot traditions, Sacred Beings dwell among the cliffs and hoodoos, and the voices of the ancestors can be heard among the canyons and cliffs.

The park was placed on Canada’s Tentative List for World Heritage Sites in 2004, when it received federal designation as Áísínai’pi National Historic Site of Canada.

More than 60,000 people visit Writing-on-Stone each year. The park offers a visitor centre, camping sites, trails, guided Interpretive walks and information on native rattle snake habitat

Milk River meanders through Writing-on-Stone Park – LethbridgeNewsNOW

Worldwide, there are over 1,000 sites on the World Heritage List and Alberta can now boast six of those are in this province. Make sure to get out and visit at least one of these sites this summer.

Alberta’s six UNESCO World Heritage Sites are:

• Writing-on-Stone/Áísínai’pi
• Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump
• Dinosaur Provincial Park
• Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park
• The Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks
• Wood Buffalo National Park