Yoho National Park
Yoho National Park, adjacent and north of Kootenay, is reachable by taking Route 1 west from Banff toward Lake Louise. One of Canada’s highest waterfalls is here, 1,248-foot (381-m) Takakkaw. Wildlife includes black and grizzly bears, elk, moose, coyotes, wolves, snowshoe hares. Bald and golden eagles soar over owls, migratory birds, and a Columbian ground squirrel colony at Waptka Lake Viewpoint. Yoho shows some of the same fire effects as Kootenay.
Fossil remains of more than 120 marine animal species have been found in Burgess Shale at Walcott’s Quarry—some, though soft-bodied, so well preserved that scientists know what they were eating when they died 500 million years ago. Yoho has campgrounds, also accommodations at Field village.
Mount Robson Provincial Park, adjoining Jasper on the west, has the Canadian Rockies’ highest peak—12,972-foot (3,956-m) Mount Robson; also mountain goats on rock slides at Yellowhead Lake, moose at Moose Lake, mule deer and black bears throughout the park, and in August–September enormous scarlet chinook salmon fighting upstream past rapids and waterfalls in the Fraser River to lay eggs after a 600-mile (1,000-km) journey from the sea.
Advertisement