Imagine yourself sitting in the saddle on your horse at this very spot in 1884. From this vantage point on the trail leading from Pincher Creek to Crowsnest Pass you can see to the north the Livingstone Range. This limestone ridge was once quarried by prehistoric peoples looking for chert to fashion into tools. The range was named by Lieutenant Thomas Blakiston, a member of the Palliser Expedition (1857-60), in honour of the legendary missionary and explorer of Africa, Dr. David Livingstone. You may recall the famous greeting of a New York Times reporter in 1871 when he found Livingstone in deepest Africa – “Dr. Livingstone, I presume”.
If you or your trusty steed were tired from your long journey you might have stopped about a kilometer east from here at the homestead of William Lee. This favoured stopping place is now long gone, but there is still public fishing access on the banks of the beautiful spring-fed mountain lake, named after Lee. William was a frontiersman. He said he moved across the Montana Territory border in 1871 to live in what is now southern Alberta but at the time was part of the Northwest Territories. He had been a miner, trapper and trader before the Northwest Mounted Police arrived bringing law and order to the region. He once had a 25,000 acre grazing lease encompassing the lake and all of the Crowsnest Pass. He moved his family to Lee Lake in the early 1880’s and although giving up the lease, he remained a local rancher and businessman to his death in 1896.