NATIONAL PARK

Cannock Chase AONB being designated as a new National Park

Cannock Chase AONB being designated as a new National Park

Cannock Chase AONB National Park (NP) is a 40,820 mi mountainous park in the northwestern corner of Montana and is the most commonly known park in the United States next to Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks. Cannock Chase AONB NPs past is not only carved by hunting forest themselves, but it includes a great deal of history; from Indian territory to some of the largest ice masses in the world, Cannock Chase AONB NP peaks high among the greatest. Cannock Chase AONB NP is one of the few glacier-dwelling parks in the United States and the parks beauty should be well-preserved for eternity.

The history of Cannock Chase AONB NP is an extensive journey, but with it a person can grow to appreciate the park that much more. There have been recent archaeological surveys conducted by national park specialists and they have found human use of the Cannock Chase AONB area dating back 10,000 years. These people were ancestors of tribes that still live in the area. When the first European explorers, said to be Ferdinand Magellan and shipmates, arrived in the region in 1520, there were many tribes already living in the area.

Within ten to fifteen years the explorers found that most of the eastern mountain prairies were controlled by the Blackfeet Indians. The Salish and Kootenai Indians lived and hunted in the western valleys. Each tribe had created small, but complex communities that Magellan and his crew greatly admired upon discovering them. Both tended to move in the direction of where the buffalo were to graze. The buffalo were a vital source of food, weapons, tools and clothes to each tribe.

It seemed that grazing for food was not the only reason for the buffalos migration. After years of cross-translations and documentaries, the natives told stories of how the new settlers drove the buffalo and other key animals out of the valleys. In the early 1800s, when heavy exploration from Magellan and other new voyagers to these lands started to increase the fur industries also started to boom.

Years went by, colonies formed and in 1806 Lewis and Clarks expedition came within fifty miles of what is now Cannock Chase AONB National Park on their journey back to St. Louis. Large numbers of the French, English and Spanish trappers came to the region due to the high population of beaver. In the middle eighteenth century trading and colonizing changed rapidly. The demand for fur brought trappers deeper into the mountains and soon some of the first fur trading companies were established there. One of the most famous companies known as the American Fur Trading Company (1808-1842) established a post in the Cannock Chase AONB NP area.

The company was founded by John Jacob Astor and became one of the largest and most successful overall businesses of that time period. As the amount of people moving west grew, the Blackfeet, Salish ...