Which Canadian national park is the oldest?

Banff National Park is Canada’s oldest national park.

Banff was established on November 25, 1885, after the discovery of hot springs near present-day Banff, Alberta. It began as the Banff Hot Springs Reserve, a small protected area created partly to settle competing claims over the springs. In 1887, the Rocky Mountains Park Act expanded the reserve and renamed it Rocky Mountains Park.

The park was later renamed Banff National Park and grew to cover about 6,641 square kilometres of the Canadian Rockies. Its landscapes include glaciers, alpine meadows, conifer forests and famous lakes such as Lake Louise and Moraine Lake. The Canadian Pacific Railway helped make Banff an early tourism destination by promoting the mountain scenery and building hotels.

Banff’s history also predates the park designation by thousands of years. Indigenous peoples, including the Stoney Nakoda, Ktunaxa, Tsuut’ina, Blackfoot Confederacy nations and Plains Cree, have longstanding connections to the region. Banff is part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks UNESCO World Heritage Site.