Many visitors to Glacier National Park in Montana continue farther north to Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park. After all, the parks together form Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the world’s first international peace park.

In a few years, those visitors will be greeted by a new reception center in central Waterton as part of a larger, multimillion-dollar investment program in the park, which has seen growth of more than 50 percent since 2000. Parks Canada will consult on the design of the new facility in 2016, with construction starting in 2018 and expected completion in 2019.

“This is the most important of all the new projects in Waterton Lakes National Park,” Ifan Thomas, field unit superintendent of Waterton Lakes National Park, said in a release. “This reception center will welcome Canadians and visitors from around the world, and provide them with opportunities to learn about the park’s cultural and environmental significance and its international status as part of the world's first international peace park and World Heritage Site.”

Built in 1958, the existing Waterton Lakes visitor reception center is small (600 square feet) and no longer meets the needs of the park’s visitors, which totaled 477,000 in 2015-16. It is also situated in a wildlife corridor and at a congested parking lot and trailhead for the Bears Hump Trail, the most popular trail in the park.

The new townsite location offers magnificent views in all directions that reinforce the park’s ecological, cultural and historical significance. Parks Canada says it will maximize the opportunity to connect with the greatest number of visitors by offering orientation and a full range of interpretive programs from early morning to evening.

“This will be a great improvement in visitor services, and people will be able to walk to this location from wherever they are in the townsite,” Brian Reeves, the chair of Improvement District #4, said in a release.

The need for a new visitor reception center and direction for its location in the community were confirmed in both the Waterton Community Plan (2000) and the Waterton Lakes National Park Management Plan (2010). Parks Canada investigated a number of potential locations for the new visitor center. Options were narrowed to two locations: adjacent to the Parks Canada operations compound on the entrance road, and the central townsite location.