# Banff — the park that began as a quarrel over a hot spring Canonical: https://sockmonkey.com/places/banff (this is a plain-text copy of that page) Source: https://sockmonkey.com/places/banff Publisher: SockMonkey.com (https://sockmonkey.com) Part of: The Field Guide - https://sockmonkey.com/places/ Cite as: SockMonkey.com - sockmonkey.com Last reviewed: 25 October 2026 Part of Canada - **Where:** Rocky Mountains of Alberta, west of Calgary - **Coordinates:** 51.1784° N, 115.5708° W - **Area:** 6,641 km²;, began as a 26 km² reserve - **Founded:** Hot Springs Reserve 1885;, Rocky Mountains Park 1887 - **Resident:** Banff Springs snail, endangered;, a few springs at Banff, nowhere else - **Status:** UNESCO World Heritage, 1984, Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks - **Best visited:** June to September for lakes;, winter for snow ## The short answer Banff National Park covers 6,641 square kilometres of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, beginning about 110 kilometres west of Calgary, with the towns of Banff and Lake Louise inside it. Parks Canada calls it Canada’s first national park. It grew from a 26-square-kilometre Hot Springs Reserve set aside in 1885 around the Cave and Basin springs, which the Rocky Mountains Park Act of 23 June 1887 enlarged to 665 square kilometres. With Jasper, Yoho, Kootenay and three provincial parks it forms the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1984. The park lies in Treaty 7 territory, and Parks Canada records that the lands and waters were used for millennia by Indigenous peoples for sustenance, ceremony, trade and travel. ## Why it's worth knowing Canada’s national parks started as an argument about who owned a bath. In 1883 two brothers, William and Tom McCardell, and a fellow Canadian Pacific Railway worker, Frank McCabe, wrote to the government claiming the hot springs at what is now the Cave and Basin. Parks Canada’s account is that the government, which needed revenue to finish the railway and saw what medicinal waters could do for tourism, denied the claim. Other claimants appeared, the dispute went legal, and in 1885 the government settled it by reserving 26 square kilometres around the springs. Two years later the reserve became Rocky Mountains Park, the first national park in Canada. The water that started it all is now off limits. The Cave and Basin is the main home of the Banff Springs snail, Physella johnsoni, listed as Endangered under the Species at Risk Act. The federal species assessment confines it to the upper reaches of fewer than five thermal springs on Sulphur Mountain, most of the surviving snails at the Cave and Basin, and names soaking, swimming, trampling and dipping hands and feet as threats recorded at every site. Parks Canada’s Cave and Basin page names six springs where the snail is found: the Upper Hot, Kidney, Middle, Cave, Basin and Vermilion Lakes springs. Since 2002 a superintendent’s order has closed the springs and their outflow streams at the Cave and Basin to entry. The bath that people fought to own in 1883 now belongs, in effect, to a snail with a shell no longer than 11 millimetres. People who want to soak still can: the Banff Upper Hot Springs, about five kilometres away on the same mountain, is a public pool run by Parks Canada. ## The field notes ### The snail The Banff Springs snail is a small aquatic snail with a globe-shaped shell that coils to the left, up to about 11 millimetres long in living animals by the federal status report’s measurements. It lives only in the warm water of the springs and their outflow streams. Snails as small as three millimetres can already breed. Its threats are local and physical: people climbing into the springs, and the springs themselves drying. The federal assessment notes that springs have run dry more often in recent years and links this to climate change. Parks Canada fences and signs the habitat, watches it, and prosecutes under the Canada National Parks Act when people go in; the recovery report for 2018 to 2022 records fewer incursions and fewer prosecutions as awareness has grown. ### The cave, the basin and the pool The Cave and Basin is the lowest of a group of sulphur springs on the flank of Sulphur Mountain, heated from an estimated three kilometres down. The railway workers first climbed down into the cave through its skylight on a felled tree; a tunnel was driven in for visitors in 1886. A bathhouse followed, then a naturally heated swimming pool, and the pools stayed open to swimmers for most of the twentieth century. They closed for good in the early 1990s. The buildings are now the Cave and Basin National Historic Site, with exhibits on the springs and the park. From 1915 to 1917 the Cave and Basin was also the site of an internment camp. During Canada’s first national internment operations, from 1914 to 1920, immigrants from countries at war with Canada, many of them Ukrainian, were held in camps, and Parks Canada records that the Banff camp moved from Castle Mountain to the Cave and Basin in November 1915 and closed in July 1917. Internees built many of the early structures at the site. A Parks Canada exhibit beside it tells their story. ### Whose mountains Parks Canada places the park within the territories of Treaties 6, 7 and 8 and the Métis homeland, with its main part in Treaty 7, signed in 1877 by the Siksika, Piikani and Kainai of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Stoney Nakoda and the Tsuut’ina. It describes the Cave and Basin as a sacred and spiritual place where people have gathered for generations and where ceremonies are still held. The park’s founding closed the land to them. Hunting by Indigenous peoples was prohibited from 1890, and together with other federal policies this kept them from travelling, harvesting and practising their culture in the park; the Stoney Nakoda were removed from it between 1890 and 1920. Since 2018 the Banff Indigenous Advisory Circle, made up of the Treaty 7 Nations and the Métis Nation, has advised Parks Canada. **A relic from Banff** A Banff Springs snail. A small snail, its shell no longer than 11 millimetres and coiling to the left, living in the warm outflow of a handful of thermal springs at Banff and nowhere else on Earth. Most of the survivors are in the springs at the Cave and Basin, the place where Canada’s national parks began, and the whole spring system there is closed to people for their sake. You will probably not see one. The water where they live is the water railway workers tried to claim in 1883. ## Getting there How to get there. Calgary International Airport is the usual gateway. The town of Banff is about 128 kilometres west of Calgary by the Trans-Canada Highway, which runs on through the park to Lake Louise and into British Columbia. Everyone stopping in the park needs a Parks Canada pass, daily or the annual Discovery Pass. Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. Moraine Lake Road is closed to personal vehicles all year. In 2026 Parks Canada’s shuttle to Moraine Lake ran from 1 June to 12 October, every 30 minutes from the Lake Louise Park and Ride; every seat had to be reserved, reservations opened on 15 April 2026, and more seats were released two days before each departure. When Parks Canada’s shuttle page was read on 12 October 2026, the last day of that season, it gave no 2027 dates. Licensed commercial operators also run to Moraine Lake. The springs. The Cave and Basin National Historic Site, at the edge of the town, is open to visitors, but the springs and their streams are closed to entry to protect the snail. Parks Canada lists the site as open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. between 15 May and 15 October, and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday to Monday, between 16 October and 14 May, closed on 25 December and on listed days for upkeep, among them 14 to 17 December 2026 and 15 to 18 March 2027 (its hours page, modified 1 September 2026). Soaking is at the Banff Upper Hot Springs, a public pool on Sulphur Mountain, which Parks Canada says is the only one of the springs still open for public use. When to go. The Moraine Lake shuttle season, which ran from June to mid-October in 2026, is a fair guide to when the high lakes are open, and midsummer is the busiest time. Winter brings skiing and frozen lakes. Elk and bears are wild at every season. Parks Canada’s Banff wildlife page says wildlife may be present anywhere in the park, including the townsites; that feeding, enticing or disturbing wildlife in a national park is illegal, with fines up to $25,000; that bear spray should be carried all year; and that bear, cougar, wolf and coyote sightings go to Banff Dispatch. ## The national park The parkPart of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site.Source: Parks Canada (Banff National Park) · read 5 November 2026 In numbersMore than 6,000 square kilometres of mountain wilderness.Source: Parks Canada (Banff National Park, stewardship and management) · read 5 November 2026 Established1885, which makes Banff Canada's first national park.Source: Parks Canada (Banff National Park Management Plan, 2022) · read 5 November 2026 All 41 national parks → ## Common questions #### Why is Banff Canada's first national park? Because of a dispute over hot springs. In 1883 Canadian Pacific Railway workers William and Tom McCardell and Frank McCabe claimed the Cave and Basin springs at Banff; the government refused and, in 1885, reserved 26 square kilometres around them. The Rocky Mountains Park Act of 23 June 1887 enlarged the reserve to 665 square kilometres as Rocky Mountains Park, Canada’s first national park, now Banff National Park. #### Why is swimming banned at the Cave and Basin in Banff? The springs and outflow streams at the Cave and Basin National Historic Site in Banff have been closed to entry by a superintendent’s order since 2002, to protect the endangered Banff Springs snail, which lives there and in only a few other springs on Sulphur Mountain. Visitors who want to soak can use the Banff Upper Hot Springs, a public pool run by Parks Canada. #### What is the Banff Springs snail? The Banff Springs snail, Physella johnsoni, is a small aquatic snail with a left-coiling shell up to about 11 millimetres long, found only in a few thermal springs in Banff National Park, most of the surviving snails at the Cave and Basin. The federal assessment counts fewer than five springs where it lives; Parks Canada names six where it is found, including the Vermilion Lakes springs. It is listed as Endangered under Canada’s Species at Risk Act; people entering the springs and springs drying are its main threats. #### Do you need a reservation to see Moraine Lake in Banff? Yes, in effect. Moraine Lake Road in Banff National Park is closed to personal vehicles all year. In 2026 Parks Canada ran shuttles from the Lake Louise Park and Ride from 1 June to 12 October, and every seat had to be reserved; licensed commercial operators are the other way in. Parks Canada opened 2026 reservations on 15 April and released more seats two days before each departure; its shuttle page gave no 2027 dates on 12 October 2026. #### Whose land is Banff National Park on? Parks Canada places Banff National Park within the territories of Treaties 6, 7 and 8 and the Métis homeland, with most of it in Treaty 7, signed in 1877 by the Siksika, Piikani and Kainai, the Stoney Nakoda and the Tsuut’ina. Indigenous hunting in the park was banned from 1890. The Banff Indigenous Advisory Circle has advised Parks Canada since 2018. #### What happened at the Cave and Basin during the First World War? During Canada’s first national internment operations of 1914 to 1920, the internment camp for Banff National Park moved from Castle Mountain to the Cave and Basin in November 1915 and closed in July 1917, according to Parks Canada. Internees, many of them Ukrainian immigrants, built some of the park’s early structures. A Parks Canada exhibit beside the Cave and Basin tells their story. #### How big is Banff National Park? Banff National Park covers 6,641 square kilometres of the Rocky Mountains in Alberta, according to Wikipedia. It began in 1885 as a reserve of 26 square kilometres around the Cave and Basin hot springs and became Rocky Mountains Park, 665 square kilometres, in 1887. It is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site, inscribed by UNESCO in 1984. #### Do you need a pass to visit Banff? Yes. Everyone stopping in Banff National Park needs a Parks Canada pass, either a daily pass or the annual Discovery Pass, which also covers Jasper, Kootenay, Yoho and several other national parks. The town of Banff is inside the park, about 128 kilometres west of Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway. What to pack: the Road trips kit, cold and high ## Related places The Icefields Parkwayabout 160 km away · both tagged mountains Glacier National Parkabout 310 km away · both tagged lakes Wood Buffalo National Parkalso in Canada · same region North Cascades National Parkabout 490 km away · both tagged mountains Grand Teton National Parkboth tagged lakes · same region ## Sources and notes Written and checked by SockMonkey.com · last reviewed 25 October 2026 - How a hot spring became Canada's first national park: [Parks Canada](https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/ab/caveandbasin/culture/heritage-legacy) - The hot springs and their snail: [Parks Canada](https://parks.canada.ca/lhn-nhs/ab/caveandbasin/culture/thermale-thermal) - The Banff Springs snail, endangered: [the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, via Canada's Species at Risk Public Registry](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/species-risk-public-registry/cosewic-assessments-status-reports/banff-springs-snail-2018.html) - The Moraine Lake and Lake Louise shuttle: [Parks Canada](https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/visit/parkbus/louise) - Wildlife rules: [Parks Canada](https://parks.canada.ca/pn-np/ab/banff/visit/faune-wildlife) - Background: Wikipedia's article on Banff National Park - Travel advisory: the US State Department puts Canada at Level 1 (read 13 November 2026).