Mount John Laurie is a
mountain
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually highe ...
in the
Canadian Rockies, located in
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
's
Municipal District of Bighorn No. 8
The Municipal District of Bighorn No. 8 is a municipal district (MD) situated in Census Division No. 15 of Alberta, Canada. It is located between Calgary and Banff National Park, north of Kananaskis Improvement District. Highway 1 (the Tran ...
.
Various names
Officially named Mount John Laurie in 1961,
it is also known as Mount Laurie, or by the
Nakoda name ''Mount Yamnuska'', or simply ''Yamnuska''.
''Yamnuska'' translates to "wall of stone" and is derived from the Stoney Nakoda word that describes steep cliffs or "the flat faced mountain."
John Lee Laurie, 1899–1959, was a founder of the
Indian Association of Alberta. The mountain's 1961 renaming came at the request of the Stoney Nakoda First Nation. Laurie, an educator and political activist, served as secretary of the Indian Association of Alberta from 1944 to 1956, promoting the causes of First Nations in Alberta.
Peak and climbing
Standing at approximately above sea level,
Mount John Laurie is the last mountain on the north side of the
Bow River
The Bow River is a river in Alberta, Canada. It begins within the Canadian Rocky Mountains and winds through the Alberta foothills onto the prairies, where it meets the Oldman River, the two then forming the South Saskatchewan River. These w ...
valley (
Bow Valley
Bow Valley is a valley located along the upper Bow River in Alberta, Canada.
The name "Bow" refers to the reeds that grew along its banks and which were used by the local First Nations people to make bows; the Blackfoot language name for th ...
) as it exits the mountains for the foothills and prairie of Alberta. Located close to
Calgary, it is a popular "great scramble". It is also a popular
rock climbing destination, with over 100 routes of all difficulty levels spread out across its face.
Geology
Mount John Laurie is the result of the McConnell Thrust Fault, which put the resistive, cliff-forming
Cambrian carbonate rock
Carbonate rocks are a class of sedimentary rocks composed primarily of carbonate minerals. The two major types are limestone, which is composed of calcite or aragonite (different crystal forms of CaCO3), and dolomite rock (also known as dolosto ...
of the
Eldon Formation on top of the much younger and weaker
Cretaceous
The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of ...
aged,
clastic Belly River Formation
The Belly River Group is a stratigraphical unit of Late Cretaceous age in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin.
It takes the name from the Belly River, a tributary of the Oldman River in southern Alberta, and was first described in outcrop ...
[McMechan, M.E., 1995, Geology, Rocky Mountain Foothills and Front Ranges in Kananaskis Country, Alberta. Geological Survey of Canada. Map 1865A, scale 1:100 000.] The fault, which sits at the base of the cliff face, represents an age difference of around 450 million years.
Spirituality
In 1987 Mount John Laurie was listed into a global network of natural spiritual places, which also included
Mount Fuji in Japan,
Stonehenge,
Mount Shasta
Mount Shasta ( Shasta: ''Waka-nunee-Tuki-wuki''; Karuk: ''Úytaahkoo'') is a potentially active volcano at the southern end of the Cascade Range in Siskiyou County, California. At an elevation of , it is the second-highest peak in the Cascades ...
,
Machu Picchu in Peru, Australia's
Uluru
Uluru (; pjt, Uluṟu ), also known as Ayers Rock ( ) and officially gazetted as UluruAyers Rock, is a large sandstone formation in the centre of Australia. It is in the southern part of the Northern Territory, southwest of Alice Spring ...
, and the
pyramids of the Yucatán.
[ (PhD dissertation)]
References
External links
{{Canadian Rockies, state=collapsed
John Laurie
John Paton Laurie (25 March 1897 – 23 June 1980) was a Scottish actor. In the course of his career, Laurie performed on the stage and in films as well as television. He is perhaps best remembered for his role in the sitcom '' Dad's Army'' (19 ...
Alberta's Rockies