Soaring mountains, glacial lakes, old-world architecture, ancient burial sites – these are just some of Canada’s natural and cultural beauties that have been made UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Among the 18 on the list, we’ve come up with some of the most striking.

Seven huge parks combine to create the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks, which sprawl across British Columbia and Alberta. Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho national parks – along with Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine and Hamber provincial parks – offer some of Canada’s most breathtaking canyons, glaciers, lakes, peaks and waterfalls. Lake Agnes in Banff is only one of many.

Medicine Lake is within Jasper National Park and isn’t actually a lake. Melting glaciers and mountain snows fill the area before it can drain itself. Once autumn comes, you’ll find only a few pools of water left.

Moraine Lake is within Banff National Park’s Valley of the Ten Peaks and is fed by glaciers. The area is full of hiking trails, including the popular Rockpile Trail, although many visitors prefer to get around by canoe.

Deep in the badlands of Alberta is Dinosaur Provincial Park, home to one of the most impressive collections of dinosaur fossils in the world. Its vivid red landscapes are a dramatic sight as they rise from the seemingly endless flat prairies.

These hoodoos are among the weird and wonderful rock formations found throughout Dinosaur Provincial Park. They were created by countless centuries of wind and rain erosion.

Clinging to Newfoundland’s rugged west coast, Gros Morne National Park combines fjords, mountains, forests, beaches and cliffs. Take one of its coastal or inland hiking trails and look out for moose and caribou.

A boat trip is one of the most satisfying ways of exploring Gros Morne National Park, where small craft chug through pristine lakes.

Built between 1826 and 1832, the Rideau Canal winds through the heart of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, and eventually ends up 126 miles later in Kingston. Built as a safeguard against the Americans during the War of 1812, it soon became one of the region’s biggest pleasure areas. Nowadays, it’s full of walkers, cyclists, in-line skaters and boaters.

Come winter, the Rideau Canal freezes over and everyone gets their skates on. In fact, it’s in Guinness World Records as the biggest ice-skating rink in the world.

When 17th-century French colonists arrived in what was then called Acadia along Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy, they set about turning useless marshes into fertile farmland by building dykes. Unfortunately, when the British conquered Acadia in the early 18th century, more than 6,000 of the settlers were expelled in what became known as the Grand Dérangement.

The Acadians were scattered in various territories including Louisiana, where they created Cajun culture. A memorial park was created in the 1920s to commemorate the expulsion, which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow immortalised in his epic poem Evangeline.

Long before Columbus sailed to the New World, the Vikings had already been and gone in the 11th century. At l’Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site in Newfoundland, you can see evidence of the first European settlers in North America.

Head to the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula to see the archaeological site that was excavated in the 1960s. It now features reconstructed Norse houses in timber-framed turf buildings.

Fossil hunters will want to make their way to Miguasha National Park tucked into a bay on the southern side of Quebec’s Gaspé peninsula. It has one of the best collections of fish fossils from the Devonian period – some 350 million years old. You can see many of them on display in the park’s museum.

Head north to the Northwest Territories and Nahanni National Park, where the South Nahanni River has a drop twice the height of Niagara Falls. Known as Virginia Falls, it’s one of this vast park’s most popular sights and needs to be booked in advance to prevent overcrowding.

Hikers follow the granite trails through valleys and dramatic mountain passes. The park’s alpine peaks and meadows make it a magnet for mountain enthusiasts.

From June to September, you can canoe through Nahanni’s lakes and rivers. Some offer white-knuckle white-water rafting, while others will give you a more tranquil experience.

Step back to the 18th-century at Lunenburg in Nova Scotia, one of the best-preserved British colonial settlements in North America. Nearly three-quarters of the original colonial buildings are still there.

Stroll along the waterfront to the Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic to discover what life was like in this fishing port centuries ago.

Take a walking tour of Lunenburg’s narrow streets filled with vividly coloured houses, or let a horse-drawn carriage do the work for you.

On Anthony Island off the coast of British Columbia is a unique sight: the remains of a 19th-century Haida village consisting of 10 longhouses and 32 memorial poles. It had been a thriving village of 300 Haida in the 19th century, but disease destroyed the community.

SGang Gwaay’s totem poles reveal the artistry and spirituality of the Haida people, who had lived on SGang Gwaay for thousands of years. It’s the largest collection of Haida totem poles in their original location, in spite of the fact that 15 had been taken away to museums in the first half of the 20th century.

A mere 50 years after Columbus stumbled upon the New World, 16th-century mariners from Spain’s Basque region were making the perilous journey to the Labrador coast in search of whales. Before long, they established a major whaling port in the tiny village of Red Bay. The village has since become a national historic site thanks to the discovery of sunken Basque vessels and other artefacts.

Founded by the French explorer Samuel de Champlain in 1608, Québec City is one of Canada’s most exquisite. Its old city – Vieux Québec – still has some of its old fortifications from when it was Fort Saint-Louis.

Towering over Old Québec's Upper Town (Haute-Ville) is Château Frontenac, an opulent grand hotel built in the 19th century to bring in the well-heeled tourists travelling on the Canadian Pacific Railway.

Old Québec's Lower Town (Basse-Ville) is filled with pretty cobbled streets, attractive shops and restaurants – all very French in style.

The world’s first international peace park was created back in 1932 when Alberta’s Waterton Lakes National Park merged with its Montana neighbour, Glacier National Park. It’s an enchanting mixture of mountain and prairie, giving it an exceptionally rich diversity of flora and fauna.

In the midst of the park's wilderness is the stately sight of the Prince of Wales Hotel, built in 1926 by the American Great Northern Railway. It was named in honour of the future King Edward VIII in the vain hope that he would stay there during his Canadian tour.

Canada’s largest national park sweeps across northern Alberta and into southern Northwest Territories. Wood Buffalo National Park has thousands of miles of untouched meadows and forests, as well as salt plains and the world’s largest inland freshwater delta. The superlatives don’t end there: it’s also home to the world’s largest free-roaming herd of buffalo.

Scientists reckon that the fossils on the coastal cliffs of Mistaken Point are at least 560 million years old. On the south-eastern tip of Newfoundland, this ecological reserve dates from the Ediacaran Period and is thought to contain the oldest abundant and diverse large fossils in the world.