What is Wood Buffalo National Park?

Wood Buffalo National Park is Canada's largest national park at 44,807 square kilometres, larger than Switzerland. The park straddles the boundary between northern Alberta and the southern Northwest Territories, with about two-thirds of the park in Alberta and about one-third in the NWT. Wood Buffalo was established on December 18, 1922 specifically to protect the dwindling herds of wood bison (Bison bison athabascae). The park was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site on October 26, 1983.

The park protects the largest free-roaming bison herd in the world, currently about 5,000 to 6,000 wood bison. The herd was at the brink of extinction in the early 1900s, with fewer than 250 wood bison remaining when the park was established. Federal and provincial conservation efforts (initially controversial because they involved transporting thousands of plains bison from Wainwright, Alberta to Wood Buffalo from 1925 to 1928, leading to extensive interbreeding) eventually stabilised the population. Wood Buffalo also protects the only natural nesting grounds of the whooping crane (Grus americana), one of the rarest birds in the world (about 540 individuals globally as of 2024).

The park includes the Peace-Athabasca Delta, one of the world's largest inland river deltas at about 6,500 square kilometres. The delta is a major waterfowl staging area, with millions of geese, ducks, and shorebirds using the area during spring and autumn migrations. The delta is fed by the Peace River from the west and the Athabasca River from the south, both rising in the Rockies, and drains north to the Slave River and Great Slave Lake. The W. A. C. Bennett Dam on the Peace River in British Columbia (completed 1968) and the Bennett Dam reservoir (Williston Lake) have altered the delta's flow regime, threatening the wetland ecosystem.

Wood Buffalo is one of the world's largest dark-sky preserves (designated 2013 by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada) at 44,807 square kilometres. The park contains the Whooping Crane Summer Range National Wildlife Area, the largest of about 600 National Wildlife Areas managed by the Canadian Wildlife Service. The Mikisew Cree First Nation, the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, the Salt River First Nation, the Smith's Landing First Nation, and the Little Red River Cree Nation hold treaty rights and co-management interests in the park. Tourism is limited by the park's remoteness; access is via the town of Fort Smith, NWT (population about 2,500) or by air. The federal World Heritage Site designation has been threatened in recent years over concerns about Peace-Athabasca Delta water levels, oil-sands pollution, and bison disease management.