RV Lifestyle From sea to sea, Canada is a land filled with fascinating places and amazing adventures. Withmountainous trails and isolated islands, as well as a diversity of flora and fauna, Canada offers residents and visitors alike a chance to see the wilderness as it might have been nearly 150 years ago when Canada first became a nation. Visitors who explore and enjoy Canada’s national parks this year will get the added benefit of a free Discovery Pass admission that waives entrance fees at 46 national parks and 171 historic sites throughout the country. Travellers can acquire their free pass to the parks through the Parks Canada website. The New York Times named Canada as the number-one place to visit in 2017, in part because of the free admission to Canada’s national parks and historic sites during the 150th-anniversary year. National parks are among Canada’s – and the world’s – natural jewels. These wild places, located in every province and territory, range frommountains and plains, to boreal forests and tundra, to lakes and glaciers, and much more. National parks are located on the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic coasts, across the interior mountains and plains and Great Lakes, reaching as far north and south as Canada extends. They include such world-renowned names as Banff and Jasper, Cape Breton Highlands and Fundy, Pacific Rim and Yoho. National Geographic Traveler magazine has put the Banff area on its “Best of the World” list of 21 must-see places in 2017. Picture yourself in a mountain getaway surrounded by towering peaks, untouched wilderness and turquoise lakes tucked into alpine valleys. Founded in 1885 after the discovery of the Cave and BasinHot Springs, Banff is Canada’s first and most famous national park. The park is a Rocky Mountain wonder, a place of blue glacial lakes and alpine meadows, massive mountains and glaciers, canyons and waterfalls, mineral hot springs and abundant wildlife (from elk to bighorn sheep to black and grizzly bears), and breathtaking grandeur. Banff National Park encompasses Banff and Lake Louise, Mount Norquay, Cascade Mountain, Johnston Canyon, more than a thousand glaciers, Peyto Lake, Moraine Lake and the Valley of the Ten Peaks. Lake Louise is a glacial lake named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta and is famous for its stunning emerald water that reflects the surrounding glaciers which formed it. Other major attractions include Banff Hot Springs Hotel, Banff Gondola, Upper Hot Springs, Bow River Loop, Banff Park Museum, Chateau Lake Louise, Lake Louise Gondola, and Icefields Parkway. Jasper National Park combines some of themost spectacular scenery in the Canadian Rockies with ease of access and less-crowded conditions than Banff, its sister park to the south. CANADA 26 | www.snowbirds.org
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