Alberta is Canada at its best. For many people the beauty of the
Canadian Rockies , which rise with overwhelming majesty from the
rippling prairies, is one of the main reasons for coming to the country.
Most visitors confine themselves to the four contiguous national parks -
Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay - enclaves that straddle the southern
portion of the range, a vast area whose boundaries spill over into
British Columbia. Two smaller parks, Glacier and Mount Revelstoke , lie
firmly in BC and not, technically, in the Rockies, but scenically and
logistically they form part of the same region. Managed with remarkable
efficiency and integrity, all the parks are easily accessible segments
of a much wider wilderness of peaks and forests that extend north from
the Canada-US border, before merging into the ranges of the Yukon and
Alaska.
If you're approaching the Rockies from the east or the US, you have
little choice but to spend time in either Edmonton or Calgary, the
transport hubs for northern and southern Alberta respectively. Poles
apart in feel and appearance, the two cities are locked in an intense
rivalry, in which Calgary comes out top in almost every respect.
Situated on the Trans-Canada Highway , less than ninety minutes from
Banff National Park, it is more convenient whether you plan to take in
Yoho, Kootenay, Glacier or Revelstoke, or push on to southern British
Columbia and the west coast. It also has far more going for it in its
own right: the weather is kinder, the Calgary Stampede is one of the
country's rowdiest festivals, and the vast revenues from oil and natural
gas have been spent to good effect on its downtown skyscrapers and civic
infrastructure.
Edmonton is a bleaker city, on the edge of an immense expanse of boreal
forest and low hills that stretches to the border of the Northwest
Territories and beyond. Bypasses by the Canadian Pacific Railway, which
brought Calgary its early boom, Edmonton's main importance to travellers
is as a gateway to the Alaska Highway and the Arctic extremities of the
Yukon, as well as to the more popular landscapes of northern British
Columbia. The Yellowhead Highway and Canada's last transcontinental
railway link Edmonton to the town of Jasper and its national park in
about four hours.
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