Editing Crowsnest Pass (section)

==Transportation==
{{Main|Crow Rate}}

Before the arrival of Europeans, Indigenous people used this major breach through the Front Ranges for seasonal migrations, and also for trade between mountain and plains cultures.

The [[Canadian Pacific Railway]] (CPR) built the [[Crowsnest Route]] line from [[Lethbridge]], Alberta, to Kootenay Landing, British Columbia, through the Crowsnest Pass between 1897 and 1898. This line was built primarily to access mineral-rich southeastern BC via an all-Canadian rail route, and to assert Canadian (and CPR) sovereignty in an area that U.S. railroads were beginning to build into. It also opened up coal deposits in the Crowsnest and Elk River valleys, which were important to mineral smelting operations and assisted the CPR in its conversion of locomotives from wood to coal. The CPR sought and received construction funding from the federal government, partially in exchange for a freight subsidy on prairie farm exports and equipment imports which came to be called the "Crow's Nest Pass Agreement".

"The [[Crow Rate]]", as the subsidy agreement came to be referred to, was eventually extended from CPR's Crowsnest Pass railway line to apply to all railway lines in western Canada, regardless of corporate ownership or geography, creating artificially low freight rates for grain shipments through the [[Great Lakes]] ports. The rate also correspondingly limited industrial growth in the western provinces as it was cheaper to produce items in eastern Canada and ship them west under the Crow Rate. This subsidy was finally abolished in 1995.

The first motor vehicle to cross the Canadian Rockies did so via Phillipps Pass in 1910, about 1&nbsp;km north of Crowsnest Pass, and in 1917 a road was blasted around the shores of Crowsnest Lake and across Crowsnest Pass, renamed Interprovincial Highway Three in 1932. It is also known as the [[Crowsnest Highway]].

On August&nbsp;7, 1919, Captain Ernest Hoy flew a [[Curtiss JN-4]] "Jenny" through Crowsnest Pass, the first flight across the Canadian Rockies.