We’ve said it once and we’ll say it a million times again. Wild Rose Country is full of surprises and this one is massive.
Located just outside the town of Okotoks, you’ll find the appropriately named ‘Big Rock,’ an enormous glacial erratic that weighs an estimated 16,500 tonnes or 36.3 million lbs.
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In fact, it currently holds the Guinness World Record for being the largest of its kind, but what’s more interesting is how it got there in the first place.
According to the Government of Alberta, this massive boulder broke from a mountain formation in what is now Jasper National Park anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 years ago,
“A large rockslide crashed debris onto the surface of a glacier that occupied the present-day Athabasca River valley, and this debris, including Big Rock, was carried out of the mountains on the glacial surface,” they explain.
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“As the ice melted and the glacier retreated to the mountains, the rocky debris, including this huge erratic, were deposited across the prairies.”
Since then, it has become a place of significance to the Indigenous Blackfoot peoples, whose name for the erratic is derived from their word for rock, which is “okatok.”
It’s also become quite the tourist destination, was designated a Provincial Historic Resource, and has ‘wowed’ people all over the world, but how could it not?
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Measuring 9-metres tall, 41-metres long and 18-metres wide, Big Rock is approximately the size of a three-storey apartment building and with nothing around it but prairie – is hard to miss.
Want to see it for yourself? We’d recommend checking it out next time you’re in the area – but please, be respectful!
It really is something else and it’s important we keep it as is. Enjoy and happy adventuring!
Big Rock Erratic – Okotoks, Alberta
Where: AB-7, Black Diamond, Alberta
Before embarking on your journey to the destination above, we kindly advise you to review the provincial Air Quality Index due to wildfires. Should you choose to assist those affected by the wildfires, please do so here. Stay safe and take care, Alberta!
