Canada
Wood Buffalo National Park
Canada's largest park — bigger than Switzerland — where the only wild whooping cranes nest.
Wood Buffalo National Park is larger than Switzerland. Let that settle. At 44,807 square kilometres, it stretches across northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories, holding the only natural nesting ground of the whooping crane and one of the world's largest inland deltas.
Wood Buffalo is Canada's largest national park and the second-largest protected area in the world. The park's raison d'être was the protection of the last remaining herd of free-roaming wood bison — genetically distinct from plains bison and nearly driven to extinction in the 19th century. The whooping crane, one of the rarest birds on Earth, nests in the park's remote wetlands — fewer than 100 breeding pairs exist in the wild. The Peace-Athabasca Delta, where two of Canada's largest river systems meet, is one of the world's great inland deltas. Salt plains in the park crust white across the boreal landscape — a startling geological anomaly.
Solo
Wood Buffalo is for the solo traveller who wants to comprehend scale. Driving the park's limited road network, watching bison herds, and understanding the whooping crane conservation effort creates an experience that is humbling in the truest sense.
- At 44,807 square kilometres, it's larger than Switzerland — the largest national park in Canada and second-largest in the world.
- The only remaining natural nesting ground of the whooping crane — fewer than 100 breeding pairs exist in the wild.
- The Peace-Athabasca Delta is one of the world's largest inland deltas, visible from lookout points in the park.
- Salt plains in the park crust white across the landscape — a startling sight in the boreal forest.
Fort Smith diner food — the only town near the park — hearty Northern meals for hungry explorers.
Bison from the very herds that roam this park, served at the Pelican Rapids Inn.
Campfire cooking in genuine wilderness — your nearest neighbour is a wood bison.
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