It’s difficult to fathom just how massive this protected area on BC’s Pacific Coast is – at 6.4 million hectares the Great Bear Rainforest is roughly the size of Ireland. It includes both a significant chunk of the rugged coast on the mainland as well as many islands, making for an abundance of almost untouched rainforest and a misty marine atmosphere. This is also one of the only places to see ultra-rare white Kermode bears, also known as spirit bears.
While Banff is the most famous national park in the Canadian Rockies, neighbouring Jasper National Park is larger and, given its distance from the major cities of Calgary and Edmonton, feels quieter and more remote. Those looking for an easy adventure can drive the Icefields Parkway with a stop at the Athabasca Glacier (keep an eye out for bears!). Visitors can also engage in both winter and summer sports and explore landmarks like Pyramid Mountain and Maligne Canyon.
The 146-mile (235km) glacier-cut Saguenay Fjord sits north of Québec City just off the St Lawrence River. The surrounding area, including this sublime park, is a feast for the eyes with its craggy mountains, sheer cliffs and dense greenery. Kayaking along the fjord is the best way to commune with the wild splendour, but visitors can also hike along the capes and take in the refreshing marine air.
Since most of Canada's population is clustered near the southern border, the unparalleled wildernesses of the Northwest Territories are a paradise for nature lovers. The terrain at Nahanni National Park was carved out by the strength of the Nahanni River, which winds through deep canyons, creating a towering waterfall that's roughly double the height of Niagara Falls. The edge-of-the-earth feeling is compounded by sharp mountains and great granite spires.
As Canada’s largest island, Baffin is easy to pick out on a map – it’s that large crescent sitting in the Arctic Ocean between Hudson Bay and Greenland. The island’s national parks Auyuittuq and Sirmilik offer unbelievable Arctic vistas, with jagged mountain peaks and impossibly sheer rock faces inland from the icy waters. Yes, you may be lucky enough to see a polar bear here, along with narwhals, caribou and snowy owls.
Glaciers are a powerful geographical force and they’ve left their mark on much of Canada, including this UNESCO World Heritage Site on the west coast of Newfoundland. Gros Morne National Park has a huge variety of awe-inspiring natural formations, with areas like the Tablelands, a section of barren “naked earth” pushed up by plate tectonics millions of years ago. The park also features mountains, beaches and sea stacks, all ready to be explored by keen hikers.
Spectacular for both its natural and cultural elements, the island archipelago of Haida Gwaii, off BC’s west coast, is the home of the people of the Haida Nation. This protected park reserve shows off the coastal island’s marine ecosystem and some of the most spectacular rainforests. You’d be wise to explore it by kayak, paddling along as you try to catch a glimpse of whales, sea lions and porpoises. Walking among the lush moss-heavy cedar trees is a life-changing experience too.
The first area to be declared a provincial park in Ontario, Algonquin is the stuff of legends, famously acting as a muse for painter Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven. It’s easy to see why the park has captivated artists – its 2,955 square miles (7,653sq km) of forests are peppered with thousands of lakes. Canoeing along the lakes and rivers under canopies of maples is the quintessential Canadian experience, though the park is also great to explore on foot or by snowshoe.
Bison are indigenous to the Canadian prairies and after being brought nearly to the point of extinction, they still roam freely in this sanctuary. While Elk Island isn’t one of those expansive national parks that Canada is famous for, it's an extraordinary place, full of those magical bison as well as moose, deer and timber wolves. Only 35 minutes east of the city of Edmonton, the park still feels like it’s a world away, with swathes of grassy meadows and quiet wetlands.
A relatively small park on the south shore of the St Lawrence River, Parc National du Bic is a wild, protected area that provides refuge to substantial populations of both harbour and grey seals. The maritime location makes for a serene landscape, with delicate wetlands, tree-lined mountains and rocky capes and the park is also a favourite with birders, as a number of seabirds mingle with those extraordinary seals.
Churchill is an excellent example of just how massive so many of Canada’s provinces are – the northern Manitoba town is over 620 miles (1,000km) from the capital city of Winnipeg and can only be accessed by plane or train. Known as the “polar bear capital of the world,” the snow-covered area on the shores of the Hudson Bay is rife with polar bears and beluga whales. It's also a great place to glimpse the Northern Lights.
Visitors to Canada might expect to see bears, moose and birds of prey, but this isolated island, which sits a whopping 109 miles (175km) off the coast of mainland Nova Scotia, is a refuge for rare wild horses. Sable Island National Park Reserve is home to about 500 of these mystical-looking creatures roaming the island’s sandy windswept shores. The island is only accessible by air or sea, but it’s worth the journey to be among these animals.
Large swathes of golden sand aren’t necessarily what you'd expect to see in central Canada, but this 62-mile (100km) stretch of dunes on the shore of Lake Athabasca is the largest active sand surface in the country. The dunes aren’t easy to get to – you have to take a boat or float plane – but once there you’ll find mountains of sand as high as 98 feet (30m) stretching as far as the eye can see. Camping is permitted, but given the harshness of the environment, visitors must register with the park officer.
There’s a lot to BC beyond the coast, including this peaceful park in the western part of the province’s interior. Tweedsmuir offers some classic BC scenery, with picturesque snow-capped mountains, crystal-clear lakes and roaring waterfalls. All of this is a big draw for anglers, hikers, horseback riders and canoe enthusiasts, but the mountains and the water are also an ideal habitat for grizzly bears. Visitors are advised to be aware of furry predators as they bask in the park's glory.
A lot of Canada can be considered “remote,” but few places are as isolated as Ellesmere Island, which sits at the very top of the country, adjacent to Greenland. The third largest island in the country, Ellesmere is covered in mountains and snow and includes Quttinirpaaq National Park, the second most northerly national park in the world. This frozen wonderland is a haven for Arctic wildlife, with a collection of caribou, polar bears and Arctic hares that outnumber its small human population.
In its place at the absolute edge of North America, Newfoundland has some pretty gnarly topography, including the landscape at this UNESCO World Heritage Site on the southeastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula. Its marine locale and tilted and cleaved rocky coastline make it a gorgeous spot, but the area’s real claim to fame is its rich fossil beds. Traces of fossils over 500 million years old can be found, with imprints of soft-bodied oceanic creatures on the rocks.
Canada’s smallest province isn’t large enough to have any areas that can truly be considered “remote,” but PEI is home to some beautifully wild terrain in the form of its Red Sands Shore. Not far away from a trove of art galleries, shops and restaurants, you’ll find cliffs and beaches made a brilliant red by oxidised iron in the sand. Seek out a quiet cove and you’ll feel like you’re on another (perhaps red) planet.
The otherworldly hills of the Alberta badlands are most closely associated with the town of Drumheller, but this provincial park gives visitors a more off-the-beaten-track view of this strangely enticing topography. The park’s name comes from the crop of fossils hidden among the striped hills and hoodoos, which were formed by ancient rivers 75 million years ago. Remains of over 50 species of dinosaurs have been found here, including more than 150 complete skeletons.
A sea dragon fossil and other incredible ancient discoveries made recently
Located smack-dab in the middle of Manitoba, this out-of-the-way park is the result of some tectonic activity and an upheaval of the earth, creating spectacular waterfalls. The cascading Pisew and neighbouring Kwasitchewan falls are particularly dramatic portions of the Grass River, which snakes through some fairly treacherous backcountry terrain. Those who choose to do the 14-mile (22km) hike from one set of falls to the other will see ancient ferns and mossy trees along the way.
This park is at the very tip of the Labrador peninsula, giving it the advantage of a marine Arctic climate. It's full of fortress-like mountains and twisted fjords and its name is a play on the Inuktitut word for “spirit” – you can definitely feel a sense of something special in this uniquely glacier-touched land. The park consists of 3,745 square miles (9,700sq km) of space inhabited by polar bears and caribou, making it prime hunting ground for the local Inuit community.
While mountain peaks and coastal rainforests get a lot of fanfare, the sheer as-far-as-the-eye-can-see flatness of the Canadian prairies is also an impressive sight to behold. Grasslands National Park is a breathtaking example of the overwhelming vastness of the part of the country that also acts as "Canada’s breadbasket", with a sea of rippling yellow grass and seemingly endless skies. This is a beautiful place to camp and visitors can hit the Badlands Parkway to take in more rugged topography.
Located on the shore of Georgian Bay on Lake Huron, this area features 249 square miles (645sq km) of pure wilderness. This is classic Canadiana, with hills lined with Jack pines, pink granite coastlines, mountain ridges, hiking and snowshoeing trails, plus opportunities for backcountry canoeing and kayaking on various waterways including 50 crystal clear lakes. Like nearby Algonquin Provincial Park, Killarney was a favourite of the Group of Seven painters.
Canada’s largest national park, Wood Buffalo is so big that it bleeds over Alberta’s border into the southern Northwest Territories. This vast area gets its name from its free-roaming population of wood buffalos and it’s also home to wolves and is the last known nesting site of the whooping crane. The buffalo live on an expansive boreal plain and the park is also full of water-filled craters. There’s a lot to see if you look up too: at the time of writing, Wood Buffalo is the world’s largest dark sky preserve.
Mont Tremblant has been part of the parks system for over 125 years. Six roaring rivers and over 400 lakes and streams make it a go-to destination for canoeing, with paddlers taking to the water to drink in forests full of sugar maple, yellow birch and spruce trees, all of which are particularly breathtaking when the fall colours come out. Visitors looking for a different view can take on the park’s via ferrata climbing circuit.
Known as “the hike of a lifetime,” this challenging trail in Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim National Park Reserve sits on the very western edge of Canada, giving adventurers a taste of the raw Pacific coast. Hikers have to reserve in advance to take on this 47-mile (75km) trek, which winds through imposing rainforests and along solitary white-sand beaches. The walk takes almost a week to complete, but with nothing between you and the raging ocean, it can be a truly life-altering journey.
Sitting right at Saskatchewan’s southern border, this badlands area offers a postcard-like picture of Canada’s Wild West. The landscape is a mash-up of the flat fields of the prairies and a number of rock formations including the majestic Castle Butte, which rises 230 feet (70m) out of the grasslands. Indigenous artefacts abound here; First Nations people would drive buffalo off the rock cliffs and built ceremonial circles that still remain.
Northwestern Ontario is significantly less populated than the busy southeastern part of the province, so this park has an extra sense of calm. It sits on the Sibley Peninsula at Lake Superior and features a ridge running down its southernmost point that resembles a person sleeping. The park’s boreal forest is beautifully juxtaposed by the surrounding water, with rock formations connecting the land and the sea-like lake.
Cape Breton Island is one of the gems of Canada’s East Coast and this alluring park showcases the best of it. The scenic Cabot Trail is probably the best-known part of the Highlands, but there’s also a lot of raw wilderness to behold once you get off the main road. The meeting of the mountains and the sea make for some dramatic vistas and a good mix of wildlife, with moose on the land, bald eagles in the sky and humpback whales in the surrounding Atlantic Ocean.
The Gaspé Peninsula is the southern arm of Québec that’s split off from the rest of the province by the St Lawrence River. This park was created to protect the region’s caribou herds, the only such Canadian population south of the St Lawrence. It’s an alpine region, rich with green trees and mountains intense enough for serious hikers and backcountry skiers. The peninsula’s unique climate creates a tundra-like landscape that allows for those caribou, as well as Arctic-alpine plants.
The entirety of the Yukon territory is known for its wild beauty and this national park boasts some of the area’s most staggering scenery. Kluane's biggest claim to fame is Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain, but visitors will also find the country’s largest ice field and the most diverse population of grizzly bears in all of North America. The glacial meltwaters allow for some top-notch rafting in the summer months when visitors can ride the Alsek River and take in the mountainous terrain.