Best National Parks in Canada

Banff National Park is the reason most people come, and the busiest park in the country. The town of Banff sits 90 minutes west of Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway, with the gondola up Sulphur Mountain, the hot pools and the lake boat cruises at Lake Minnewanka all within 15 minutes. Johnston Canyon, on the Bow Valley Parkway, is a catwalk walk past waterfalls that takes about two hours return to the Upper Falls; go before 8.30am or the trail is nose to tail.

An hour west, Lake Louise and Moraine Lake are the two most photographed lakes in Canada. The road to Moraine Lake has been closed to private cars since 2023, so you reach it on the Parks Canada shuttle (reserve online; seats release in spring and again 48 hours ahead), the Roam transit bus from Banff or a licensed tour. Lake Louise has paid parking that fills by sunrise in summer, and the same shuttle serves it. From the lake, the trails to the Lake Agnes teahouse (about 7 km return) and the Plain of Six Glaciers are the classic half-day hikes.

Moraine Lake’s water is at its brightest blue from late June, when the glacier melt arrives, and the lake is usually frozen until early June. The road closes for winter from mid-October.

The Icefields Parkway runs 232 km from Lake Louise to Jasper past glaciers, waterfalls and lakes, and it is a sight in itself. Stop at Bow Lake, the wolf-head outline of Peyto Lake a short walk from the road, and the Columbia Icefield, where buses drive onto the Athabasca Glacier. There is no fuel on the 230 km between Lake Louise and Jasper apart from Saskatchewan River Crossing, and no mobile signal for long stretches. Allow a full day.

Jasper National Park is larger and quieter than Banff, with more wildlife on the roadsides: elk, bighorn sheep, black bears and, with luck, caribou. The boat cruise on Maligne Lake to Spirit Island is the famous trip, and Athabasca Falls is a short walk from the parkway. Jasper is also a dark-sky preserve, so look up on a clear night. A wildfire in July 2024 burned part of the town and large areas of forest; the town and the main sights have reopened and nearly all trails are open again, but a few areas remain closed, so check the Parks Canada site before you go.

Across the Continental Divide in British Columbia, Yoho packs a lot into a small park: the green water of Emerald Lake with canoe rentals, Takakkaw Falls dropping off a cliff at the end of a summer-only road, and the Burgess Shale fossil beds, which you can see only on a guided hike booked through Parks Canada. Lake O’Hara is Yoho’s alpine prize, a basin of lakes and ridge trails reached only by a Parks Canada bus from mid-June to early October; seats go by an online lottery in early spring, or you walk the 11 km access road.

Kootenay National Park follows Highway 93 south from Castle Junction to Radium Hot Springs. Marble Canyon is a 30-minute walk over bridges above a narrow limestone gorge, and the Paint Pots are ochre pools a short walk further on. Together with Banff, Jasper and three provincial parks, Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine and Hamber, they form the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage site. Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, is the backdrop for the Berg Lake Trail.

Further west, Glacier National Park at Rogers Pass and Mount Revelstoke, where a summer road climbs to wildflower meadows, are wetter, steeper and far less visited. Waterton Lakes, in Alberta’s southwest corner, joins Glacier National Park in Montana as the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park.

Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on Vancouver Island has three parts. The Long Beach unit, between Tofino and Ucluelet, is 16 km of surf beach backed by temperate rainforest, with boardwalk trails through giant cedars and a year-round surf scene. The Broken Group Islands in Barkley Sound are a sea-kayaking archipelago. The West Coast Trail is a 75 km backpacking route along the old shipwreck coast, with ladders, cable cars and beach crossings timed to the tide, open from May to September by reservation and taking most hikers six to eight days.

Tofino is about four to five hours from Vancouver by ferry and road, or a short flight. In the island’s centre, Strathcona is British Columbia’s oldest provincial park, and MacMillan Provincial Park on the Tofino road protects Cathedral Grove, a stand of Douglas firs several hundred years old.

On the mainland, Garibaldi Provincial Park, near Whistler, has the hike to the glacial blue of Garibaldi Lake, and Joffre Lakes has three turquoise lakes stacked below a glacier. Both need a free BC Parks day-use pass in summer, released online at 7am two days ahead, and Joffre closes for periods each year at the request of the local First Nations.

Gwaii Haanas covers the southern islands of Haida Gwaii, an archipelago off northern British Columbia that is jointly managed by Parks Canada and the Haida Nation. There are no roads. You visit by boat or floatplane, on a multi-day sea-kayak or boat tour from Sandspit or Daajing Giids (formerly Queen Charlotte), after a mandatory orientation session, and visitor numbers are capped by reservation. Haida Watchmen live at the main village sites in summer and show visitors round.

The goal for most is SGang Gwaay (Ninstints), a World Heritage site where weathered mortuary and memorial poles still stand at the forest edge above the beach. The season runs from May to September. Plan months ahead; licensed operators have limited departures.

The Prairie parks are quieter. Elk Island, about 45 minutes east of Edmonton, is a fenced park where you see plains and wood bison from the road. Riding Mountain in Manitoba and Prince Albert in Saskatchewan are lake-and-forest parks with bison herds and, at Prince Albert, the cabin of the naturalist Grey Owl, a 20 km hike or paddle in. Grasslands protects native prairie with black-tailed prairie dogs and some of the darkest skies in Canada.

The northern parks are the wildest in North America and need real planning. Kluane in the Yukon holds Mount Logan, at 5,959 m the highest peak in Canada, and the largest non-polar icefields in the world; you see them on a flightseeing trip from Haines Junction, west of Whitehorse. Nahanni, in the Northwest Territories, is reached by floatplane from Fort Simpson; Virginia Falls drops about 90 m, roughly twice the height of Niagara, and the South Nahanni River is a classic two to three-week canoe trip. Wood Buffalo has the world’s largest free-roaming herd of wood bison and the only nesting grounds of the whooping crane.

In Nunavut, Auyuittuq on Baffin Island has the Akshayuk Pass trek below Mount Thor, reached from Pangnirtung by boat or snowmobile, and Torngat Mountains in northern Labrador runs a summer base camp with Inuit polar bear guards. Wapusk protects one of the world’s largest polar bear denning areas, and Churchill on Hudson Bay is where you see bears from tundra vehicles in October and November.

Algonquin Provincial Park, three hours north of Toronto, is the classic Canadian canoe park: more than 2,000 km of canoe routes, portages between lakes and a good chance of moose along Highway 60 in May and June. Day visitors stick to the short trails off Highway 60; the park’s real character is out on the water, on an overnight trip with an outfitter’s canoe. The maples peak in late September and early October, and the fall-colours weekends are the busiest of the year.

Bruce Peninsula, four hours from Toronto on Georgian Bay, has limestone cliffs, clear water and the Grotto sea cave, and parking at Cyprus Lake must be booked in summer. The boat from Tobermory goes to Flowerpot Island in Fathom Five National Marine Park. Point Pelee, the southern tip of mainland Canada on Lake Erie, is one of the best places in North America for the spring songbird migration in May and the monarch butterflies in September. Killarney has white quartzite ridges above blue lakes, and Lake Superior Provincial Park has the Agawa rock paintings on a lakeside ledge. Pukaskwa is the wild north shore of Lake Superior.

In Quebec, Forillon sits at the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula near Gaspé, with whale watching and the walk to Land’s End. La Mauricie, between Montreal and Quebec City, is a lake-and-canoe park, and Mingan Archipelago on the north shore has limestone monoliths and puffins. Most of Quebec’s “parcs nationaux”, such as the parks near Mont-Tremblant and Percé, are provincial parks run by Sépaq, with their own fees.

Gros Morne National Park, on Newfoundland’s west coast, is a World Heritage site for its geology. In the Tablelands, a barren tawny plateau, you walk on rock from the earth’s mantle, pushed to the surface when continents collided. Western Brook Pond is a landlocked fjord with cliffs about 600 m high, reached by a 3 km walk to a boat tour that runs from about late May to the end of September. The park is about 45 minutes north of Deer Lake airport, near Corner Brook. Terra Nova, on the east side of the island, is a park of coves and boreal forest.

In Nova Scotia, the Cabot Trail loops round northern Cape Breton through Cape Breton Highlands National Park, where the Skyline Trail ends on a boardwalk above the sea and pilot whales are often seen offshore. Drive it clockwise for the ocean side of the road. Kejimkujik has canoe routes, Mi’kmaq petroglyphs and dark skies.

Fundy National Park in New Brunswick sits on the Bay of Fundy, whose tides are the highest in the world at up to about 16 m. At Hopewell Rocks, 40 minutes from the park, you walk the sea floor around the flowerpot rocks at low tide and kayak round them six hours later. On Prince Edward Island, Prince Edward Island National Park has red sandstone cliffs, dunes and the warmest swimming beaches in Atlantic Canada, next to Green Gables. Sable Island, with its wild horses, is reached only by charter flight or ship.

Most national parks charge a daily fee, paid online, at gates or at visitor centres: about 12 dollars per adult in the Rocky Mountain parks, less in many others. Everyone under 18 enters free. If you visit for more than about a week in total, the annual Parks Canada Discovery Pass, about 84 dollars for one adult or about 168 dollars for a family or group in one vehicle, covers more than 80 national parks and historic sites. Provincial parks have separate fees and passes, and BC Parks uses free day-use passes to cap numbers at the busiest trails.

Campgrounds in Banff, Jasper, Pacific Rim and Bruce Peninsula open their summer bookings on the Parks Canada reservation site in January and February, and the best dates sell out within hours. The same system handles the Moraine Lake shuttle, Lake O’Hara, the West Coast Trail and backcountry sites. Without a car, the Rockies are workable using Roam buses and the Parks Canada shuttles, and tour buses run the Icefields Parkway, but most other parks need a rental car. For forts, Viking sites and Haida villages, see the historic sites guide; for trip planning basics, the first-timer’s guide.