Canada Paint Pots

The Paint Pots in Kootenay National Park are an extraordinary natural spectacle and a sacred place to the indigenous people of the area. The ground under the water is coloured orange. The colour, from yellow to ochre to orange, comes down a hill with the water, where it has drowned and uprooted a number of trees. We followed the short stream uphill and came to a spring pond, next to another smaller one. Here, the clay soil mixes with the emerging water: the Paint Pots. The First Nations used the coloured earth pulp as a dye for clothing and tipis, for war paint and for rock paintings.

A hiking trail through a forest leads to the site. A mountain river has to be crossed on a bridge and finally you walk on a wooden plank path over an area that is under water.