Wood Buffalo National Park is the largest national park in Canada, covering an area of 44,741 square kilometers (17,275 square miles). It is located in northeastern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories. The park is larger than Switzerland and is the second-largest national park in the world. It was created in 1922 to protect the world’s largest group of free-roaming wood bison. These bison later mixed with plains bison. Today, there are about 3,000 bison in the park. The park is also one of only two places where whooping cranes nest.

The park’s elevation ranges from 183 meters (600 feet) at the Little Buffalo River to 945 meters (3,100 feet) in the Caribou Mountains. The main office of the park is in Fort Smith, with a smaller office in Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. The park includes the Peace-Athabasca Delta, one of the largest freshwater deltas in the world, formed by the Peace, Athabasca, and Birch rivers.

The park is also known for its karst sinkholes in the northeastern area. Alberta’s largest springs, called Neon Lake Springs, are located in the Jackfish River drainage and release about eight cubic meters of water each second. Wood Buffalo National Park is directly north of the Athabasca Oil Sands.

In 1983, the area was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site because of the Peace-Athabasca Delta’s rich biodiversity and the wild bison population. It is the largest and most complete example of the Great Plains-Boreal grassland ecosystem in North America.

On June 28, 2013, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada named Wood Buffalo National Park Canada’s newest and the world’s largest dark-sky preserve. This designation helps protect the nighttime environment for animals like bats, night hawks, and owls. It also allows visitors to see the northern lights.

History

This region has been home to human cultures since the last ice age ended. Aboriginal peoples in this area lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering, following a lifestyle similar to those in the subarctic. The area where the national park now exists is located at the meeting point of three major rivers—Athabasca, Peace, and Slave—which were used as canoe routes for trade. For many years, Indigenous peoples traveled through this region frequently.

In recorded history, the Dane-zaa (once called the Beaver tribe), Chipewyan, South Slavey (Dene Tha’), and Woods Cree lived in this area. These groups sometimes competed for resources and trade. The Dane-zaa, Chipewyan, and South Slavey spoke languages from the Northern Athabaskan family, which is also spoken by other groups in the north and west of the park, who call themselves the Dene. The Cree, however, are part of the Algonquian group, which is found mostly along the Atlantic coast, in Canada, and the United States.

After a smallpox outbreak in 1781, the Dene and Cree groups made a peace agreement at Peace Point using a ceremonial pipe. This event led to the name "Peace River," which became a boundary between the Dane-zaa to the north and the Cree to the south.

Explorer Peter Pond is believed to have traveled through the region in 1785, possibly the first European to do so. Alexander Mackenzie followed three years later. In 1788, British fur traders built posts at Fort Chipewyan and Fort Vermilion. These traders used the Peace River as part of their trade routes. The Métis, descendants of European traders and Indigenous women, became another important group in the area.

For nearly 100 years, the Hudson’s Bay Company controlled the region. Unlike areas to the south, agriculture was not developed here. Hunting and trapping remained the main industries until the 20th century and are still important today. After the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, the Canadian government wanted to take control of the land to access mineral resources. It signed Treaty 8 with local Indigenous groups in 1899, gaining control of much of the territory.

The park was created in 1922 on land acquired through Treaty 8. It surrounds several Indian reserves, including Peace Point and ʔejëre K’elnı Kuę́ (Hay Camp).

Between 1925 and 1928, the government moved nearly 6,700 plains bison from Buffalo National Park to avoid overpopulation there. These bison mixed with local wood bison and introduced diseases like bovine tuberculosis and brucellosis. Park officials have tried to remove sick animals since then.

In 1957, a pure wood bison herd of 200 was found near the Nyarling River. In 1965, 23 of these bison were moved to Elk Island National Park. Today, they number 300 and are the most genetically pure wood bison left.

Between 1951 and 1967, 4,000 bison were killed, and 910 tonnes of meat were sold from an abattoir at Hay Camp. These efforts did not stop the diseases. In 1990, the government planned to replace the entire herd with disease-free bison from Elk Island, but the public opposed the plan, and it was canceled.

In 1967, local governance for the Alberta part of Wood Buffalo National Park began with the creation of an improvement district, later renamed Improvement District No. 24 in 1969.

In 1983, Canadian Forest Products Ltd. was given a 21-year lease to log 50,000 hectares of the park. The Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society sued Parks Canada for breaking the National Parks Act. Before the trial, Parks Canada admitted the lease was invalid.

In March 2019, Kitaskino Nuwenëné Wildland Provincial Park was created near Wood Buffalo National Park. The Mikisew Cree First Nation proposed protecting this area to stop industrial expansion near Fort McMurray. Oil companies gave up some leases after negotiations with the Alberta government and Indigenous groups. The park is closed to new logging and energy projects but allows existing wells and traditional Indigenous uses.

In June 2019, UNESCO raised concerns about the park’s water quality and warned that the park might lose its World Heritage status if conditions worsened. Canada announced $27.5 million to address the issues, but UNESCO has not removed the threat. The World Heritage Committee will review Canada’s plan in 2021.

Climate

In the park, summer is short, but the days are long. During summer, temperatures usually range from 10°C to 30°C (50°F to 86°F). On average, summer days are warm and dry, but sometimes the weather may be cool and wet. In July, the average high temperature is 22.5°C (72.5°F), and the average low is 9.5°C (49.1°F). Fall days are cool, windy, and dry, and snow usually falls for the first time in October. Winters are very cold, with temperatures that can drop below −40°C (−40°F) in January and February, the coldest months. In January, the average high temperature is −21.7°C (−7.1°F), and the average low is −31.8°C (−25.2°F). In spring, temperatures slowly increase as the days become longer.

Wildlife

Wood Buffalo National Park is home to many types of wildlife, including American black bears, American martens, bald eagles, Canada lynxes, great grey owls, hawks, marmots, North American beavers, Northwestern wolves, peregrine falcons, red foxes, ruffed grouses, sandhill cranes, snowshoe hares, snowy owls, Western moose, whooping cranes, wolverines, wood bisons, and the world's northernmost population of Red-sided Garter snakes. These snakes live in shared dens within the park. Grizzly bears, North American cougars, feral horses, and muskoxen have also been seen in and around the park.

Wood Buffalo Park contains the only natural nesting area for the endangered whooping crane. This area, called the Whooping Crane Summer Range, is a Ramsar site. It was identified through the International Biological Program. The range includes many connected water areas, such as lakes, marshes, bogs, streams, and ponds.

In 2007, the largest beaver dam in the world—about 850 meters long—was discovered in the park using satellite images. The dam is located at 58°16.3′N 112°15.1′W, approximately 200 kilometers from Fort Chipewyan. It was only seen by satellite and fixed-wing aircraft since July 2014.

As mentioned earlier, wood bisons in the park are hybrid descendants, created when plains bisons were moved to the park in the 1920s from Buffalo National Park. Plains bisons were more numerous and carried diseases that spread to the bisons already in the park. This, along with the mixing of the two types, threatened the survival of true wood bisons. A 1995 study found that bisons in different areas of the park have developed different levels of hybridization. The herd near the Sweetgrass Station, close to the Peace–Athabasca Delta, and the herd in the Slave River Lowlands are more similar to the original wood bisons before the 1920s. These herds are more like the original types than the preserved herds at Elk Island National Park and Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary.

Transportation

Fort Smith can be reached by road all year round through the Mackenzie Highway. This highway connects to Highway 5 near Hay River. Commercial flights are available from Edmonton to Fort Smith and Fort Chipewyan. In winter, access is also possible using winter and ice roads that travel from Fort McMurray through Fort Chipewyan.

Gallery

• Wood bison (not pure breed)
• Marmot
• American white pelicans located at Rapids of the Drowned in the Slave River
• Beaver lodge
• Pine Lake