Pink Mountain, British Columbia

The park's primary role is to protect a significant palaeontological site containing examples of large marine fossils from the Mesozoic Era, including the largest ichthyosaur ever discovered.

[1] The 1,000+ (down from a high of about 3,500 some years ago) bison are not naturally occurring, but descendants of an escaped herd of 50 from those imported by local guide and outfitter R. Lynn Ross in 1971.

Ross, a guide-outfitter, owned an extensive guiding tenure stretching from his ranch west to the summit of the northern Rocky Mountains and encompassing Mt.

His clients included hunters from Europe (especially Germans, who sought a trophy moose, the largest member of the deer family and whose antlers often surpass 2 meters in width), the United States of America and Mexico.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Ross offered free grazing to a neighbouring rancher to the southeast, across Halfway River, for a herd of about 35 Scottish Highland cattle, a picturesque, long-haired breed with wide horns that do well in cold climates.

Situated at the confluence of the Halfway River and Quarter Creek (formerly Two-Bit Creek, named for a famous chief of the Blueberry First Nations), the natural meadows filled with wildlife and rivers with bull trout and grayling had been a traditional spring beaver hunting and summer camping and rendezvous site for First Nations, until the Rosses homesteaded it.

He had been in trouble previously with the Forest Service for setting wild fires (which improve moose habitat at the expense of caribou, which require intact mature forest in winter[2]) on Crown land and with agricultural authorities for grazing more horses on Crown Land than his permit allowed.

The bison escapade ran afoul of the Wildlife Branch and in 1996 Ross finally lost his guiding license and tenure over it.