Explore Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada's Boreal North

World's Largest Bison Herd, Whooping Cranes, and Canada's Biggest Dark Sky Preserve

At 44,807 square kilometres, Wood Buffalo National Park is larger than Switzerland, larger than Denmark, and larger than every other national park in Canada. It sprawls across northeastern Alberta and into the southern Northwest Territories in a vast, largely roadless expanse of boreal forest, salt plains, gypsum karst, and river delta that has been described by UNESCO as the most ecologically complete and largest example of the Great Plains-Boreal grassland ecosystem of North America. Established in 1922 to protect the last surviving bison herds following the near-total slaughter of the 19th century, the park was designated a World Heritage Site in 1983. Today it maintains the largest free-roaming bison herd in the world, with the only place on the planet where the ancient predator-prey relationship between timber wolves and wood bison continues unbroken over time. It is also the only natural nesting habitat on Earth for the endangered whooping crane, which has been brought back from a population low of 15 birds in 1940 to over 500 in the wild today.

The gateway to the park is Fort Smith, a small community of roughly 2,500 people in the Northwest Territories accessible by road from northern Alberta on Highway 5 or by scheduled air service from Edmonton. The park’s visitor centre in Fort Smith provides orientation and a starting point for the accessible day-use areas, including the Salt River Day Use Area, where salt springs bring brine to the surface through the clay, creating open brine flats and meadows of salt-tolerant grass unlike any landscape in Canada. The Pine Lake Campground, the park’s primary public camping facility, opens for the Victoria Day weekend and is the hub for summer visitor activity including swimming, fishing, and wildlife watching.

Wildlife watching along the roads between Fort Smith and Pine Lake is the primary accessible experience for most visitors. Bison regularly cross the highway, particularly from late afternoon through evening; sightings are realistic on most visits. Black bears, foxes, and a remarkable collection of bird species including whooping cranes, sandhill cranes, bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and great grey owls inhabit the park. In spring, red-sided garter snakes form communal dens near Fort Smith in one of the world’s northernmost such occurrences. The world’s largest beaver dam, more than 850 metres long and visible from satellite imagery, lies within the park’s interior.

For experienced wilderness travelers and natural history enthusiasts, the Peace-Athabasca Delta at the junction of the Peace, Athabasca, and Slave rivers is one of the most significant inland freshwater deltas in the world, a staging area for over a million waterfowl each fall. Fort Chipewyan, at the edge of the delta, is accessible by air, boat, or winter ice road only, and provides the closest access to the most remote and spectacular sections of the park.

Wood Buffalo is also the world’s largest dark sky preserve, designated by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 2013, with northern lights viewing available from fall through spring in the near-absence of light pollution. Visitors staying in Fort Smith or nearby can expect exceptional aurora viewing from late August through March on clear nights.

Fort Smith’s basic accommodation options are modest. Properties with full kitchens and comfortable spaces for groups to gather after wilderness days represent the most practical overnight setup in this remote gateway. Book your accommodations near Wood Buffalo National Park through Lake.com.