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Centred on the wide Thomsen River valley on Banks Island, Aulavik National Park (set aside 1992, 12 200 km2) has an Inuvialuktun name that means "where people travel." The name was suggested by one of the elders of Sachs Harbour, the only community on the island.

One of the largest of 48 parks in Newfoundland and Labrador, Barachois Pond Provincial Park (established 1962, 35 km2), is located at the head of St George's Bay, 70 km south of Corner Brook along the Trans-Canada Highway.

Nestled in the lush forests of central Newfoundland, Notre Dame Provincial Park (established 1959, 113 ha) borders on the serene waters of Junction Pond.

Located on the Avalon Peninsula, Butter Pot Provincial Park (established 1958, 2833 ha) is 36 km southwest of St John's, Newfoundland, along the Trans-Canada Highway.

The period of intense park building (1880-1914) was stimulated by an interplay of 4 factors. The first was a belief that the city dweller's increasing separation from nature caused physical, mental and moral distress. Parks were seen as healing antidotes to this urban malaise.

Petroglyphs Petroglyphs Provincial Park is the site of one of Canada's archaeological and cultural treasures. On a flat expanse of rock are some 900 carvings or PETROGLYPHS of symbolic shapes and figures, likely carved by Algonquian-speaking people.

Rondeau Provincial Park (established 1894, 33 km2) provides environmental protection and recreation on one of 3 peninsulas jutting south into Lake ERIE. It lies 120 km east of Windsor and 115 km southwest of London.

Near the south end of Lake WINNIPEG some 160 km north of Winnipeg is Hecla Provincial Park (established 1969, 865.4 km2).

Point Pelee National Park (established 1918) is a protected area at the tip of Point Pelee, a long peninsula extending into the western end of Lake Erie, south of Leamington, Ontario. Middle Island — Canada’s southernmost piece of land located southwest of Point Pelee — was added to the park in 2000. At 15 km2, Point Pelee National Park is Canada’s second smallest national park. It’s also the southernmost tip of Canada’s mainland, located further south than northern California.

  Elk Island National Park (established 1913, 194 km2) is a sanctuary of rolling woodlands and meadows dotted with lakes, bogs and ponds, 48 km east of Edmonton.

Nunavik, the portion of land within the province of Quebec located north of the 55th parallel, covers approximately 500,000 km² (representing more than one-third of Quebec’s territory). For approximately 4,000 years, Indigenous people have inhabited Nunavik, including Inuit who have made the region their homeland. Today, over 13,000 people live in Nunavik’s 14 villages spread along the Ungava Bay, Hudson Strait and Eastern Hudson Bay coasts.

Ukkusiksalik National Park, Nunavut, size 20,885 km², established in 2003, is located on the northwest side of Hudson Bay. It was first proposed as a National Park in 1978 because of the spectacular inland sea, Wager Bay, and the surrounding area. The name Ukkusiksalik in Inuktitut means "the place where soapstone to make pots and oil lamps is found."

Dinosaur Provincial Park (established 1955, 70 km²) lies along the Red Deer River in southeastern Alberta. The park is the primary fossil site of the more than 100 different species of dinosaurs found in Canada. In 1979, the park was declared a United Nations World Heritage Site. (See also Dinosaurs and Canada.)

Kinngait (Cape Dorset), Nunavut, incorporated as a hamlet in 1982, population 1,441 (2016 census), 1,363 (2011 census). The hamlet of Kinngait is situated on Dorset Island, off the southeast coast of the Foxe Peninsula of Baffin Island, 395 km southwest of Iqaluit. Known for a period as Cape Dorset, in 2020 the hamlet returned to its original Inuktut name, Kinngait, meaning “mountains.”

Canada’s national parks are protected areas established under federal legislation to preserve Canada’s natural heritage. They are administered by Parks Canada, a government agency that evolved from the world’s first national parks service, the Dominion Parks Branch, established in 1911. The National Parks System Plan, developed in 1970, divided Canada into 39 natural regions and set the goal of representing each region with at least one national park. Canada now has 48 national parks and national park reserves in 30 of these regions. In total, the parks cover more than 340,000 km2, which is over 3 per cent of Canada’s landmass. They protect important land and marine habitats, geographical features and sites of cultural significance. National parks also benefit local economies and the tourism industry in Canada.

(This is the full-length entry about National Parks of Canada. For a plain-language summary, please see National Parks of Canada (Plain-Language Summary).)

Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park is located in southern Alberta, just north of the Canada-US border. To the Siksikaitsitapi (Blackfoot Nation), the site is known as Áísínai’pi, which means “it is pictured” or “it is written” in the Blackfoot language. The park features thousands of rock paintings and carvings created by the Siksikaitsitapi, most of which date to 1050 BCE. Established as a provincial park in 1957, Áísínai’pi was designated a National Historic Site in 2004, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

This article is from our Toronto Feature series. Features from past programs are not updated.

This article is from our Toronto Feature series. Features from past programs are not updated.

This article is from our Toronto Feature series. Features from past programs are not updated.