from
WorldWeb.com Travel Guide
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The Frozen Landscape
at Auyuittuq 1 |
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts
we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
—yes, the national anthem
sure says a lot about Canada's
character, yet this poetic tribute could still use one more adjective, like big
or maybe huge.
Really, the place is massive.
It measures up as the second largest country in the world with borders extending
from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward
into the Arctic Ocean. Nearly 10,000,000 sq km (3,861,022 sq mi) in all, the
country encompasses ten provinces and three territories that cross sweeping
prairies, ancient glaciers and more freshwater lakes than any other country
on the planet.
However, the nation's population
is a whole other story. In terms of density, there are only 3.5 inhabitants
per square kilometer (9.1/sq mi) in Canada, a strikingly small number as far
as the modern world is concerned. And it's not that nobody wants to live here
either (quite the opposite). The country's scanty person-to-property ratio is
due in most part to its geography, a great chunk of it being located beyond
the Northern Shield, a land inhospitable and nearly inhabitable. For obvious
reasons then, the majority of the populace tend to make their homes as far south
as possible, crowding in along the U.S.
border for warmth. Yet even with this southern nesting trend, the distance between
cities in Canada can still span hundreds, if not thousands of kilometers.
So what do those crazy Canucks
do with all that extra space? They make parks
and lots of them. They make them big, like the 44,000 sq km (16,988 sq mi) Wood
Buffalo National Park, and they make them in the most unlikely
of places, like Auyuittuq
National Park out on the barren hills of Baffin Island.
Some of these parks hardly see the light of day for months on end, others feature
sun-soaked beaches and warm, peaceful lakes. Yet as much as they may differ, each
and every one provides a most valuable service. Canada's great national parks
exist primarily to protect and preserve a vast array of ecological zones that
support thousands of species. They also allow the public to explore, learn about
and enjoy the country's expansive wilderness.
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| Reflections
at Kootenay National Park 2 |
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Combined, this vast system
of protected areas represents all the distinct natural regions of the country.
In other words: to visit each one could take an entire lifetime. Therefore it's
important to collect, categorize and cull some of the very best from each of
the distinct regions and create a list of the top 10 national parks in Canada.
PACIFIC RIM NATIONAL
PARK RESERVE
Far out west, beyond the
fine city of Vancouver
and across the Georgia
Strait, the Pacific
Rim National Park stretches over 150 km (93 mi) of Vancouver
Island's western shoreline, encompassing 511 sq km (197 sq mi)
of land and water. Backed by mountains and facing the open Pacific Ocean, this
park reserve is characterized by a rugged coast, thriving temperate rainforests
and three geographically separate areas; the Long
Beach unit is named for the longest of Vancouver Island's beaches
and one of Canada's premier surf spots; the Broken
Group Islands region features over 100 islets that dot the Barkley
Sound; and the West
Coast Trail area gets its name from the 75-km (47-mi) hiking trail
that winds through the park's old-growth rain forest. The region's cool, wet
climate produces an abundance of life but it also douses the place with over
3,000 mm (118 in) of precipitation per year. This makes the park especially
popular from June to early September, when the rain lets up.
KOOTENAY NATIONAL
PARK
Set along the western side
of the Continental
Divide in B.C.'s
southern interior, Kootenay
National Park represents the south-western region of the Canadian
Rocky Mountains—a
diverse landscape that includes everything from glacier-clad mountains and crashing
waterfalls to semi-arid grasslands, limestone caves and canyons. The park rises
2,506 m (8,221 ft) from the south-west park entrance to the rocky peaks of Deltaform
Mountain. It was established in 1920, and declared a UNESCO World
Heritage Site in 1984 when it joined with six other national and provincial
parks to form the Canadian
Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site—one of the largest
protected areas in the world.
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Grazing
in Wood Buffalo National Park 3 |
BANFF NATIONAL PARK
It all began here, at the
heart of Alberta's Rocky
Mountains, when Banff
was designated the country's first National Park in 1885. It was the third of
its kind in the world, planting the seed for continued conservation of natural
places everywhere. Spanning 6,641 sq km (2,564 sq mi), the park reaches from
jagged snow-capped mountains down to turquoise lakes, over fields made of ice
and through dense coniferous forests. It's a remarkable alpine landscape, home
to Banff
Hot Springs and six world class ski
resorts, the combination of which attracts more than 4 million
visitors every year.
WOOD BUFFALO NATIONAL
PARK
Originally established in
1922 to protect the habitat of a declining wood bison population, this massive
park is now home to the largest free-roaming and self-regulated bison herd in
the world, as well as the world's only natural nesting site of the whooping
crane. It is Canada's largest park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a great
example of successful wildlife preservation. The borders of the park reach from
the extreme north of Alberta
into the Northwest Territories,
encompassing 44, 807 sq km (17,300 sq mi) of northern boreal interior plains.
This great landscape has four distinct sections. At the south and western ends,
the Caribou and Birch Uplands rise over the land, covered in spruce and lichen
tundra. The largest section is known as the Alberta Plateau and features a vast,
wild plain pocked by countless bogs, soft muskegs and huge sinkholes. The Peace-Athabasca
Delta is located in the park's southeast corner, where the Peace,
Athabasca
and Slave
Rivers all flow toward Great
Slave Lake. It is one of the largest fresh-water deltas in the
world, creating a wetland of over 4,800 sq km (1,853 sq mi) and a home for a
myriad of waterfowl and fish.
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The
Sweeping Landscape at Grasslands 4 |
GRASSLANDS NATIONAL
PARK
Saskatchewan
is not a land of towering mountain peaks, extreme ocean storms or roaring whitewater
rivers. It is a place of peaceful rolling hills, grassy fields and farmland.
In the far southwestern corner of the province, the Grasslands
National Park has become the first national park of Canada to preserve
a portion of these mixed prairie grasslands. This relatively untouched portion
of land contains a rich and complex ecosystem and sustains a variety of endangered
species, including some of the country's only remaining black-tailed prairie
dog colonies.
BRUCE PENINSULA
NATIONAL PARK
Located in the heart of
a World Biosphere Reserve, the
Bruce dramatically juts out into the waters of Lake
Huron, nearly cutting off the Georgian
Bay completely. On its west side, the 363 sq km (104 sq mi) national
park slips gently into bogs and beaches. On its east side, massive, rugged cliffs
plunge into the crystal clear waters of the bay below. At its northern tip,
the cliffs run underwater, surfacing as the Fathom
Five Islands, a separate national marine park. Amongst the park's
dramatically sculpted cliffs, shallow caves and views of the bay, stunted white
cedar trees have clung to life for over 1,000 years and yet stand less than
five feet tall.
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| The
Cliffs at Bruce Peninsula 5 |
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LA MAURICIE NATIONAL PARK
Quebec
City and Montreal
aren't too far from one another. Only 270 km (168 mi) separate the two cities.
Yet, within that small void, one of the country's 41 national parks occupies
nearly 550 sq km (212 sq mi) of land. Established in 1970, La
Mauricie National Park preserves a vast rolling plateau in the
Laurentians, the mountains that flank the northern shore of the St.
Lawrence River. It is a densely forested landscape, intersected
by a number of lakes, rolling hills and narrow valleys. It's also a transition
zone for many species heading north or south, and the point where large broad-leafed
trees give way to needle-leaf evergreens—setting a scene akin to the boreal
forest.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
NATIONAL PARK
At the end of Canada's eastern
reaches, over the Great Lakes and beyond the rolling green hills of Quebec,
Prince Edward Island
stands guard at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Here, cradled by the island's
curving east coast, an inspiring array of sandy beaches, rust-red cliffs, and
giant, shifting sand dunes are all contained within Prince
Edward Island National Park. Hardly spanning more than 40 km (25
mi) down the shoreline, this may be one of Canada's smallest parks, but it surely
is one of its busiest. People come from far and wide to be witness to the dunes
piled 18 m (60 ft) high, slowly crawling across the landscape. They come to
learn of native archaeological findings that date as far back as 1400 A.D. And
perhaps most of all, they come to visit the landmark Green
Gables House, the inspiration for the classic novel, Anne of Green
Gables.
IVVAVIK NATIONAL
PARK
Canada's northern territories
are perhaps the least understood and yet most awe inspiring of all. The further
north one travels, the more alien the landscape becomes, as a journey to
Ivvavik
National Park demonstrates. Within the northernmost corner of the
Yukon, where Arctic
and sub-Arctic meet, this vast, 16,000 sq km (6,178 sq mi) park lies in a landscape
untouched by the Pleistocene glacier. In Inuvialuktun, the language of the Inuvialuit,
Ivvavik means 'a place for giving birth' or 'a nursery'. It's a fitting name
for this park as it was designed to protect a great portion of the calving grounds
for the Porcupine caribou herd.
AUYUITTUQ NATIONAL
PARK
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Dramatic
Red Rocks of PEI National Park 6 |
Well beyond Canada's boreal forest—the green scarf on the shoulders of North
America—over the rim of Hudson's
Bay and deep in the Canadian Shield, lies Auyuittuq.
This is Canada's only national park north of the Arctic Circle. It's a frozen
land of jagged mountain peaks, deep valleys and spectacular fjords where the sun
shines through the night and darkness falls for days on end. Established in 1976,
the park protects 19,089 sq km (7,370 sq mi) of terrain, mostly untouched by humans
but alive with wildflowers, seals, polar bears and narwhals. This remote domain
presents one of the most fantastic journeys in the world, for those willing to
journey to the end of it.
PHOTOS COURTESY OF:
- The Frozen Landscape
at Auyuittuq; Baffin Island, NU, Canada
- Reflections at Kootenay
National Park; Radium, B.C., Canada
- Grazing in Wood Buffalo
National Park; Wood Buffalo, AB, Canada
- The Sweeping Landscape
and Grasslands; Swift Current, SK, Canada
- The Cliffs at Bruce Peninsula;
Bruce Peninsula, ON, Canada
- Dramatic Red Rocks at
PEI National Park; Prince Edward Island, Canada
