Canada's National Parks From the Pacific Rim to Newfoundland

Start on the Pacific side. Gwaii Haanas protects 138 islands in the southern part of Haida Gwaii and is managed jointly with the Haida Nation, whose people have lived here for thousands of years. Its name means Islands of Beauty in the Haida language.

On the west coast of Vancouver Island, this reserve is split into three units: Long Beach, the Broken Group Islands and the West Coast Trail. It covers about 511 square kilometers and protects the Cheewhat Giant, the largest known tree in Canada.

Turn north to the Yukon. Glaciers and icefields cover roughly 83 percent of Kluane, which holds Mount Logan, at 5,959 meters the highest mountain in Canada. Together the park and reserve protect about 22,013 square kilometers.

Cross into the Northwest Territories, where the South Nahanni River runs through four canyons with walls reaching about 1,000 meters. Virginia Falls drops 90 meters, and in 1978 Nahanni was among the first places inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Back south in the Rockies, Yoho was established on October 10, 1886 and now forms part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site. The Burgess Shale fossil deposit, found here in 1909, reshaped understanding of early multicellular life.

Kootenay, established on April 21, 1920, grew out of an agreement to build the Banff-Windermere Highway, with land along the road set aside as parkland. It covers about 1,406 square kilometers and contains Radium Hot Springs, the Paint Pots and the Rockwall Trail.

Leaving the mountains for the Alberta parkland, Elk Island lies about 35 kilometers east of Edmonton. It is Canada's largest fully enclosed national park and has played a major role in conserving plains bison, alongside wood bison.

In Manitoba, Riding Mountain sits on the Manitoba Escarpment and covers about 2,969 square kilometers. It was set aside because grasslands, upland boreal forest and eastern deciduous forest meet here, in contrast to the surrounding prairie farmland.

Point Pelee reaches into Lake Erie as the southernmost point of mainland Canada. It was the first Canadian national park created specifically for conservation, and at 1,564 hectares it is the smallest. It is known for bird migration, especially in May.

Along the north shore of Prince Edward Island, this park runs about 60 kilometers of coast with sand beaches, dunes, wetlands and saltmarshes that shelter nesting piping plovers. It also holds Green Gables, the farmhouse that inspired the Anne of Green Gables novels.

On Newfoundland's west coast, Gros Morne exposes deep ocean crust and mantle rock at the surface, a rare display of plate tectonics. Its peak rises 806 meters, and UNESCO named the park a World Heritage Site in 1987.

End at the far northeast. Torngat Mountains National Park covers about 9,700 square kilometers, the largest national park in Atlantic Canada, and is co-managed by Parks Canada and the Nunatsiavut government. It protects caribou, polar bears and peregrine falcons.