Monday, May 29, 2017

Top 10 Sites in North Central Rockies Forests, Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks

Here is a possible list of the top 10 sites in the North Central Rockies forests of Canada. This focuses on the World Heritage site and nationally designated properties.
  1. Banff Springs Hotel National Historic Site. This grand Chateau-style railroad hotel was built in 1888 for Canadian Pacific Railway. It was rebuilt and expanded between 1911 and 1928, with various sympathetic additions continuing, and is at the gateway to Banff National Park. 
  2. Radium Hot Springs, Kootenay National Park, the largest hot springs pool in Canada.
  3. Arctomys Cave, Mount Robson Provincial Park, the deepest cave in North America north of Mexico.
  4. Burgess Shale Fossil Beds, Yoho National Park, the best record of the Cambrian explosion and the ancestors of all of today's multicellular body plans.
  5. Kicking Horse Pass National Historic Site, Yoho National Park, spiral tunnel railroad features used to gain elevation, on the first railroad across Canada, dating to 1885.
  6. Rogers Pass National Historic Site, Glacier National Park, on the first railroad across Canada.
  7. Meadows in the Sky Parkway, Mount Revelstoke National Park, 26-km roadway to Mount Revelstoke.
  8. Barkerville National Historic Site, largest living history site in western North America at a gold rush town, the largest placer gold deposit ever discovered at the time (1862).
  9. Mount Robson Provincial Park, Valley of a Thousand Falls.
  10. Columbia National Wildlife Area and Columbia Provincial Wildlife Area, waterfowl refuges in the Rocky Mountain trench.