Icefields Parkway

Icefields Parkway

Cascading mountains, meandering rivers, blue-green lakes, majestic glaciers……. cruising up and down Icefields Parkway redefines driving. You do not feel the rush trying to get to B from A, you wish the road never ends. I felt the only reason going to Jasper is to drive Icefields Parkway and back. We spent 2 days doing just that (Day 4 and Day 6). Both days were cloudy. Mountain summits peaked out of flowing clouds as if playing pee-ka-boo with us. It was 2 days of “I Spy”, finding beautiful lakes, rugged mountains, skinny trees beyond what we had planned for. We saw 2 black bears, 1 brown bear and many elks during the drive.

I bet you have seen this kind of bridges often, CT-15 has many many of them. What’s so interesting about these is that they are actually animal crossings. These bridges, later I found there are also tunnels, let the wildlife have a natural crossing free of the traffic that created many collisions, after all we human intruded into their habitats. It’s a pretty smart idea that Banff National Park has pioneered. You can learn more about this program on Parks Canada’s website.

Construction of Parkway started in 1931 as part of a depression-era public works project to put men to work, and took 9 years to complete. Today over a million people experience parkway every year.

Kudos to the Parks Canada for maintaining the parkway in such great shape, one does not have to worry about potholes and bumps us cold-climate-residents so accustom to (and sick of).

My favorite map of the parkway