Scenic Road Trips

UNESCO Trail (7-14 days)

Five of Canada’s Thirteen UNESCO World Heritage Sites are found in Alberta. Take this driving tour and experience Alberta's natural abundance.

In order to see all five United Nations UNESCO World Heritage Sites, start in the far southwest corner of the province in Waterton Lakes National Park.

The park was crowned the world’s first International Peace Park in 1932 when it joined Glacier National Park. It’s also a model of environmental co-operation. Girdled by a chain of deep glacial lakes, it offers an unbelievable variety of high-altitude day hikes and horseback riding adventures, with plenty of wildlife viewing opportunities.

Points of interest include: Akamina Parkway, Red Rock Parkway, Red Rock Canyon, Cameron Falls, Cameron Lake, Waterton Shore Line Cruises.

Head north on Highway 6 to Pincher Creek, then east on Highway 3 to Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Its bragging rights are well-earned—as it’s the largest, oldest and best preserved of all bison jumps in the world.

At the base is a vast graveyard with thousands of years worth of bones from butchered bison piled 10 metres (32 ft.) high. The jump represents an exceptionally ingenious hunting technique used by Plains Indians up to 10,000 years ago. In recognizing the site’s cultural and historical importance, UNESCO declared the jump a World Heritage Site in 1981.

Back on Highway 3 head east to Taber, and then north on Highway 36. From there it’s just a skip to a lunar world, swollen with coulees and hoodoos and other mystical things. Dinosaur Provincial Park has some of the most extensive dinosaur bone fields in the world, now protected under the UNESCO designation. Daily summer interpretive programs and digs walk you back through time.

From there, head west on Highway 544 and then a short distance south on Highway 36 before reaching Highway 1 which will take you directly west to Calgary or make a beeline to Banff and Jasper National Parks—two spectacular Rocky Mountain parks that are part of four adjacent parks which together have been declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Banff and Jasper offer endless outdoor opportunities to camp, hike, canoe, cycle, camp, golf, play tennis, go horseback riding or just laze around a steamy hot pool.

From Jasper, head east on the scenic Yellowhead Highway to Edmonton and call it a grand road trip. Top your holiday off by spending a day in Edmonton, Alberta's Festival City, or continue North to Wood buffalo National Park.

Devoted UNESCO fans could squeeze in our last UNESCO site, Wood Buffalo National Park (the second largest national park in the world).

This vast chunk of lonely boreal forest and shallow lakes is home to the world’s largest free-roaming herd of wood bison (more than 2,100 remain) and is the last natural nesting habitat of the rare whooping crane (183 individuals were counted in 1999). It was for these reasons Wood Buffalo National Park was deemed a UNESCO site in 1983. Numerous outfitters in Fort Smith offer adventure and nature-based holidays in the Park.
Miles from nowhere, in the far northeast corner of Alberta, most tourists either drive north through Peace River country into the Northwest Territories to the park’s closest hub, Fort Smith, or they fly from Edmonton or Calgary.

Things to know: Park Information Centre in Fort Smith, 45,000 sq. km of Boreal Forest, Free roaming wood bison,Salt Plains Overlook/Trail, Gypsum karst topography. Hike the Karstland Trail, visit Sweetgrass Station.

UNESCO Trail

Alberta's UNESCO Trail
Total Distance: 1890 km/1181 mi

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