Wood Buffalo Country

Wood Buffalo National Park is a northern world all its own, a driveable wilderness at one end of the Mackenzie Highway. Wood Buffalo is one of the largest parks on earth - at 44,807 square kilometers - an enormous Boreal wilderness that was set aside to protect wood bison.

Nature, on a grand scale, is an apt description of Wood Buffalo country. There are wood buffalo here, the largest land mammal in North America, often seen along the park roads. Wood Buffalo National Park is also famous for karst, created by groundwater dissolving gypsum bedrock. Karst landscapes include caves, sinkholes, and underground waterways.

Wood Buffalo also includes salt flats, unique in Canada. This strange spectacle is created as spring water brings dissolved salt to the surface, covering large areas, and forming pans and mounds up to two metres high.

Wood Buffalo is also the nesting ground of the endangered whooping crane, and the site of a recovery project for these amazing and beautiful birds.

The Slave River, the original highway to the North, forms the eastern boundary of the Park, and cascades down a series of sharp drops that form some of best kayaking rapids in the world. The town of Fort Smith is located at the northern end of the rapids, and offers hotel and campground accommodation. Drive yourself, or travel with a local airline or an outfitter into the magical world of Wood Buffalo Park, or test your skills against the best kayakers in the world, on the Slave River.

Wood Buffalo National Park - Northwest Territories/Alberta, Canada