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Canada World Heritage SitesCanadian Rocky Mountain ParksAlberta and British Columbia
Some of the best-known mountain scenery on Earth is concentrated in a set of seven parks in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Indeed, in much of the world, mention of Canada evokes images of snow-capped peaks and chateauesque hotels in parks named Banff or Jasper. More than nine million people annually visit the seven preserves along the Alberta-British Columbia border. There are four national parks in the ensemble — Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay. They account for most of the preserve’s 22,990 square kilometres. Adjoining them are three British Columbia provincial parks — Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine and Hamber. Banff, built around the Cave and Basin Hot Springs found by CPR workers building the transcontinental railway in the early 1880s, became Canada’s first park preserve in 1885, and the birthplace of Canada ’s national park system. In the following half-century,
the park was expanded to encompass a wealth of natural wonders: jagged
peaks and conifer-clad slopes, silt-laden
glacial streams and turquoise lakes, the vast Columbia Icefield and
the complex Castleguard Caves. The Burgess Shale, in Yoho, contains
one of the world’s
most significant finds of soft-bodied, Middle Cambrian-age marine fossils,
with about 150 species, including some bearing no resemblance to known
animals.  Parks Canada Web sites: Province of British Columbia Web sites:
World Heritage Centre Web site:
The Yoho-Burgess Shale Foundation Web site:
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