Canada Backpacking

Canada Backpacking info, ideas, and photos

Backpacking at the end of the "shortcut" up the Bald Hills trail from Maligne Lake, Jasper National Park, Canada
Photo: Ames SF, through a Creative Commons Attribution License

Canada offers some extraordinary backpacking. The West Coast Trail of Vancouver Island, a strenuous 77-kilometer trail, takes the hiker along the wild and remote West Coast of Vancouver Island, and normally takes six days to hike. There's great backpacking in the Coast Range and in the Selkirks, Monashees, Bugaboos, and Caribous of BC. There's also great backpacking in the main Canadian Rockies between Banff and Jasper.

Canada's Yukon and Northwest Territories offer almost limitless backpacking opportunities. Kluane National Park, the Yukon's World Heritage Site, is home to backpacking the challenging 100-km Donjek Glacier route and the 85-km Cottonwood Trail. In the Northwest Territories, you can combine a river trip on the Nahainni River with a 3-day backpacking trip into the Cirque of the Unclimbables.