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The 60th parallel sign in the Northwest Territories

Adjacent to the visitor information centre, this park has a scenic picnic area overlooking the beautiful Hay River, plus seven non-powered campsites nestled amongst birch and aspen trees. Entering the Northwest Territories from Alberta, the friendly staff at the 60th Parallel are available to welcome you. The Visitor Information Centre is open from May 15 to September 15. Brochures, maps, fishing licences, camping permits, pay phone, drinking water, washrooms and fresh coffee area available. Aboriginal arts and crafts are on display in the centre. Audiovisual presentations depict the Northern way of life and what you might expect to see on your travels in the Northwest Territories.

Fisherman’s Wharf

Vendors at the Fisherman wharf in Hay River Northwest Territories

Located alongside the Hay River, as you head onto Vale Island, Fisherman’s Wharf is the place to come for local arts and crafts, market-garden produce, and fresh-caught Great Slave Lake fish – or simply to sit in the sunshine and people-watch. It operates on Saturdays in summer from 10 am to 2 pm. The fresh, fried fish served up at the market is legendary throughout the Northwest Territories and shouldn’t be missed.

Louise Falls

A four-kilometre day-hike downriver from Alexandra Falls – or upriver from Enterprise – is where you’ll find this 15-metre-high cataract in the Hay River Canyon. It’s here that Louise Falls can be viewed from one of the finest (and most popular) campgrounds in the Northwest Territories.

Together, Alexandra and Louise Falls make up Twin Falls Gorge Territorial Park – a dramatically beautiful place to enjoy a picnic and stroll the paths. To get a little closer to Louise Falls, walk down the spectacular winding spiral staircase that leads to the river below and the bottom of the falls.

Interpretive displays along the trail between Louise and Alexandra falls provide historical information about the area, and explain the cultural significance of the falls.

Pine Lake Beach

The finest beach and campground in Wood Buffalo National Park, Pine Lake features soothing sand and shallow, warm, aquamarine waters.

Pine Lake is an oasis in the middle of the boreal forest, just a short 45 minute drive from Fort Smith. Originating from three natural sinkholes, its warm clear waters make it ideal for swimming or paddling. Its sandy beaches are the perfect location to kick back and enjoy the incredible Midnight Sun views.

Non-serviced RV and tenting sites are available, along with a kitchen shelter, picnic tables, fire pits, firewood, washroom facilities, a playground and change rooms. Pine Lake Beach is open from the May long weekend to Labour Day weekend in September.

Hay River Golf Club

This manicured nine-hole course follows the curvaceous contours of Hay River’s namesake river. Grassy and aspen-shrouded, it’s a duffer’s delight. There’s also a driving range, walking trails, and a beautiful log clubhouse with a deck overlooking the water – a great place to spend the afternoon even if golf isn’t your game.

Wood Buffalo National Park

Bigger than Switzerland, this is Canada’s largest park – and maybe its most intriguing. Founded to protect the Western Hemisphere’s most hefty land animal, the rare Wood Bison, the 44,807 square-kilometre Wood Buffalo National Park comprises sweeping boreal forests, the massive Peace-Athabasca freshwater delta and the otherworldly Salt Plains.

A UNESCO World Heritage Site for its biological diversity, Wood Buffalo National Park is also an incredible spot for stargazing. Back in 2013, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada declared Wood Buffalo as the world’s largest dark-sky preserve. The classification helps protect the nighttime ecology of the park’s bats, nighthawks and owls, and also creates an unrivalled experience for visitors. Every year travellers from all over the world arrive for the annual Dark Sky Festival to peer up at oceans of stars and dancing ribbons of Aurora.

Wood Buffalo offers excellent backcountry camping as well as cozy cabin options. There’s no shortage of hikes here either, ranging from easy loops of under a kilometre to more difficult 14-km treks through field and forest trails. Wildlife in the park include wolves, black bears, the world’s last surviving whooping cranes and, of course, bison. Best of all, the park is road-accessible year round from friendly Fort Smith.

Slave River Rapids

For most of its length, the broad Slave River meanders over the boreal plains, sliding leisurely toward Great Slave Lake. However, at the point where it hits the Northwest Territories border, it’s suddenly stirred by the Canadian Shield and comes to life transforming into world-class rapids.

Beginning at Fort Fitzgerald and ending 10 kilometres downstream at Fort Smith, are four furious sets of rapids — called Pelican, Rapids of the Drowned, Mountain Portage and Cassette, respectively. With waves as tall as houses, the dizzying whirlpools and gushing channels provide a playground for first-class kayakers, while also protecting the world’s northernmost white pelicans, who nest on midstream islands.

Visitors can watch the rapids from the safety of various lookouts along the shore, or they can get a feel for the river’s incredible might by attending the annual Slave River Paddlefest — a celebration of whitewater fun. Just be sure to contact local paddling outfitters for guidance before tackling any of the more challenging rapid routes.

Fort Resolution National Historic Site

Here, on this rectangular peninsula jutting northward into Great Slave Lake, the Northern fur-trade got its foothold. Parks Canada has designated this 8.8-hectare expanse – long the site of a Hudson’s Bay Company post – as a national historic site. It and other trading posts in the region began operating as early as 1791.

The first was built by Cuthbert Grant Sr. of the North West Company, who had to move his Slave Fort trading post twice before settling near the mouth of the Slave River. In 1819, Aualay McAulay of the Hudson’s Bay Company built a competing post nearby, which he named Fort Resolution. After the union of the two companies in 1821 the two forts were merged and their structures moved to a small peninsula facing the Resolution Islands. The merged Fort Resolution became the Hudson’s Bay Company’s principal post on the lake, and remains an active community.

Though almost no trace of the original trading post now remains, visitors can enjoy the view of the lake and the Resolution Islands, imagining the hubbub here when Dene from throughout the Mackenzie Delta arrived to trade.

Twin Falls Gorge Territorial Park

One of the most popular parks in the Northwest Territories, Twin Falls boasts a wealth of attractions. The park, 75 kilometres north of the Alberta border, stretches along the rim of Twin Falls Gorge, encompassing the 32-metre-high Alexandra Falls, where the Hay River plunges into a deep limestone canyon and then, a few kilometres later, where it drops again, off the three-tiered Louise Falls.

Visitors to the park can enjoy several dizzying overlooks that permit safe viewing of the falls, as well as a dramatic 138-step spiral staircase leading down to the lip of Louise Falls. An easy, forest-shrouded three-kilometre hiking trail (complete with interpretive signage) links the two falls, and picnic tables and kitchen shelters are found at both cascades.

At the Louise Falls Campground, also part of the park, you’ll enjoy well-spaced campsites nestled among the jackpines, plus washroom and shower facilities, tapwater, a kitchen shelter, picnic tables, firewood, a playground, and plenty more interpretive signs explaining the significance of this area to the local Dene culture.

The Salt Plains

A shimmering crystalline desert awaits you near Fort Smith. Extending over 200 square kilometres of otherworldly landscape are the distinctive Salt Plains of Wood Buffalo National Park.

Salt from ancient seas bubbles up to the surface here in springs, leaving behind mounds up to two metres high in some places. On a hot day, the surface moisture will evaporate, creating a shiny white crust of salt crystals as far as the eye can see.

Deposited many millions of years ago, the salt was once harvested by Indigenous peoples to preserve meat and fish. Today, it draws wildlife like bison, who enjoy the enormous salt lick. The area also has a range of unique salt-tolerant plant life.

The plains are just one of the reasons Wood Buffalo was declared a World Heritage Site. Drive down from Fort Smith to see for yourself. Join park staff for a free interpretive guided tour.

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60th Parallel Territorial Park