- Where
- Northern Alberta and southern
Northwest Territories, Canada - Coordinates
- 59.3833° N
112.9833° W - Biome
- Boreal plain, delta wetland,
salt plains and gypsum karst - Area
- c. 44,800 km² — larger than Switzerland
- Established
- 1922, to protect wood bison
- Status
- UNESCO World Heritage 1983
World’s largest Dark Sky Preserve - Best visited
- June–September; winter for aurora
Boreal forest, black spruce, wet ground underfoot and mosquitoes with a work ethic. Two roads go in and the rest is looked at from aeroplanes. Something enormous was built here by animals and nobody noticed for years, which I find both humbling and extremely funny.
The short answer
Wood Buffalo National Park straddles the border between northern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories and is the largest national park in Canada, at roughly 44,800 square kilometres — larger than Switzerland, and by most reckonings the second largest national park in the world after Northeast Greenland. It was established in 1922 to protect wood bison, and UNESCO inscribed it in 1983. It contains the only natural nesting habitat of the whooping crane, the largest free-roaming herd of wood bison anywhere, the Peace-Athabasca Delta, and the largest beaver dam known on Earth. It is also the world’s largest dark sky preserve. Around four thousand people visit each year.
Why it's worth knowing
Most remote places are known by the people who go there. This one is largely known by instruments.
Two roads enter the park, one from Alberta and one from the Northwest Territories, and between them they touch a fraction of it. The rest — boreal swamp, fen, bog, black spruce, salt flat, gypsum karst, permafrost island, and the northern limit of the continent’s central plains — is observed from aircraft and from orbit. As Yale Environment 360 put it, without people looking from planes and helicopters and satellites photographing it, very little would be known about large parts of the park at all.
The beaver dam makes the point better than any statistic.
In 2007 a researcher comparing 1970s NASA Landsat imagery against recent Google Earth pictures noticed a line in the forest near the park’s southern boundary. It was a beaver dam, roughly 850 metres long — half a mile — holding back a lake of around seventeen acres. It is the largest beaver dam known anywhere, it was built over decades by successive generations of beavers, and nobody had ever mentioned it, because nobody had been there.
Yale Environment 360 reports that in the years since, exactly one person has made the trek in to see it. A structure visible from space, on a continent with six hundred million people on it, and the visitor log has one name.
That is the park. Enormous, ecologically central, internationally listed, and effectively unwatched at ground level.
The field notes
The crane that nearly went
In 1941 there were around twenty-one whooping cranes left alive in the wild. The species was, by any reasonable expectation, finished.
Where the survivors nested was not known. The wintering grounds on the Texas coast at Aransas were understood, but the summer breeding ground was a mystery until 1954, when it was located here — in remote wetland inside Wood Buffalo, in country nobody had reason to enter.
The Aransas–Wood Buffalo flock is the only naturally occurring migratory population of whooping cranes on Earth, and this is the only place it breeds. Every wild-nesting whooping crane in existence hatches within this park. Population figures vary by what is counted: the total including captive and reintroduced birds is usually given in the high hundreds, while the wild migratory flock is smaller. All accounts agree it has risen substantially from twenty-one and remains endangered.
The nesting area is closed and remote, and visitors do not see them there. Sightings, when they happen, are usually from the air on a charter flight.
Bison, and wolves that never stopped
The park was created in 1922 for the wood bison, and it holds the largest free-roaming herd in the world. What makes it scientifically unusual is subtler than the number.
This is the one place in North America where the predator–prey relationship between wolves and bison has continued without interruption. Elsewhere the bison were nearly exterminated, the wolves were extirpated, or both, and what exists now is reconstruction. Here the bison descend from the original population and the wolves that hunt them are the original wolves, and neither has had to be reintroduced to the other.
It is a control group for a continent, and it exists because the place was too remote and too wet to be worth clearing.
A delta, and a superlative worth resisting
Where the Peace and the Athabasca rivers meet in the park’s southeast, they form the Peace-Athabasca Delta — a freshwater inland delta of great size and extraordinary bird density. All four North American migratory flyways converge over it, twice a year.
Several accounts call it the largest inland delta in the world. That claim is also routinely attached to the Okavango, and this library has already noted, in its entry on the Okavango, that the superlative does not hold up to checking. It is not resolved here either. What can be said without qualification is that this is one of the largest freshwater inland deltas anywhere, and that as a bird nursery it has few equals.
The delta is also the park’s point of tension. It is fed by rivers that rise far upstream, past dams, oil sands operations and industrial withdrawals, and its condition has been the subject of sustained monitoring and dispute. A World Heritage site cannot protect its own water supply if the water arrives from somewhere else.
The darkest place with a sign on it
Wood Buffalo is designated by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada as a Dark Sky Preserve, and it is the largest in the world. At this latitude that means two quite different things depending on when you come.
In summer the nights barely darken, and the reward is the delta and the light rather than the sky. In winter, the dark is total and prolonged, and the aurora is overhead rather than on the horizon — Fort Smith sits close to the auroral oval, and the town has built a dark-sky festival around it.
The designation is not decorative. There is almost nothing here to generate light: two roads, two small communities at the edges, and forty-four thousand square kilometres of unlit ground.
- Come in winter for the dark, or summer for the delta. They are different places.
- Take the road to the salt plains and stand on them.
- Look up, properly, for at least an hour.
- Accept that you will not see a crane.
- Bring more insect protection than seems reasonable.
A satellite image. The park’s most celebrated structure was not found by anyone standing near it — it was found in 2007 by a person at a desk, comparing NASA Landsat photographs from the 1970s against recent Google Earth imagery and noticing a line in the forest that should not have been there. It is the only object in this library that was discovered by looking at a picture.
Tally, in the marginFound by a man at a desk looking at two pictures. Nobody was anywhere near it.
Getting there
How to get there. The park is remote but it is reachable by road all year, which surprises people. The main gateway is Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, on the park’s eastern edge — drivable from Edmonton in a long two days, or flown into from Yellowknife and Edmonton. The Alberta side is entered from Fort Chipewyan, which has no all-season road: it is reached by air, or by winter road when the ice takes.
Most park roads are on the east side, near Fort Smith, with pull-offs, interpretive trails, a campground and cabins. The Salt Plains viewpoint and Pine Lake are the accessible highlights. Everything beyond that is bush, water or air charter.
When to go. June to September for the delta, the bison and the trails, accepting that mosquitoes in a northern wetland in July are a serious proposition rather than a nuisance. Late winter for the aurora, when the dark is long and the sky is regularly active. Spring and autumn bring the flyway migrations over the delta.
What you will not see. The whooping cranes, in all probability — the nesting grounds are remote and closed, and charter flights are the usual way anyone sees them. And the beaver dam: it lies near the southern boundary with no trail to it, and reaching it means a long approach through wet boreal ground. That it is famous does not make it accessible.
Practical notes. Fuel and supplies are limited and distances are long. Bears are present and the standard northern precautions apply. Bring more insect protection than you think is reasonable, and then bring more.
Mark this place
Common questions
How big is Wood Buffalo National Park?
Roughly 44,800 square kilometres, making it the largest national park in Canada and, by most reckonings, the second largest in the world after Northeast Greenland. Published figures vary slightly between sources — 44,741, 44,802 and 44,807 km² all appear. It is larger than Switzerland.
Where is the world’s largest beaver dam?
Near the southern boundary of Wood Buffalo National Park, about 200 km north of Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. It runs roughly 850 metres — about 2,790 feet — and holds back a lake of around seventeen acres. It was identified in 2007 from satellite imagery, when a researcher compared 1970s NASA Landsat pictures with recent Google Earth images, and it was built over decades by successive generations of beavers.
Has anyone actually visited the beaver dam?
Very few people. Yale Environment 360 reports that in the years since its 2007 discovery, one person is recorded as having trekked in to see it. There is no trail; the approach is a long crossing of wet boreal ground with no road access.
Why is Wood Buffalo important for whooping cranes?
It contains the only natural nesting habitat of the whooping crane anywhere. The Aransas–Wood Buffalo flock is the sole naturally occurring migratory population of the species, wintering on the Texas coast and breeding here. The nesting ground was not located until 1954, thirteen years after the wild population had fallen to around twenty-one birds.
How many whooping cranes are there now?
Substantially more than the roughly twenty-one alive in the wild in 1941, though figures differ by what is counted: totals including captive and reintroduced birds are usually given in the high hundreds, while the wild migratory flock that nests at Wood Buffalo is smaller. The species remains endangered on every count.
Can you visit Wood Buffalo National Park?
Yes, and it is accessible by road year-round, which is unusual for a park this remote. Fort Smith in the Northwest Territories is the main gateway, with park roads, trails, a campground and cabins on the eastern side. Fort Chipewyan on the Alberta side has no all-season road and is reached by air or by winter road. The park receives around four thousand visitors a year.
Is Wood Buffalo a dark sky preserve?
Yes — the largest in the world, designated by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. There is almost no artificial light within its boundaries. In winter the dark is long and the aurora is frequently overhead rather than on the horizon; in summer, at this latitude, the nights barely darken at all.
What is the Peace-Athabasca Delta?
A large freshwater inland delta in the southeast of the park, where the Peace and Athabasca rivers meet. All four North American migratory flyways converge over it. Some accounts call it the world’s largest inland delta, a claim also made for the Okavango and not well supported for either; it is safest described as one of the largest anywhere. Its condition depends on water arriving from far upstream, which has made it a focus of long-running monitoring and dispute.