Prince Albert National Park

The park covers around three hundred and ninety thousand hectares where aspen parkland gives way to boreal forest, with a free-ranging plains bison herd, the only one inside its historic range in Canada. Archibald Belaney, an Englishman who reinvented himself as the Indigenous conservationist Grey Owl, lived at a cabin on Ajawaan Lake from 1931 writing books that made him internationally famous for beaver conservation; his English birth was revealed the day after he died in 1938. The cabin, with a beaver lodge built into its wall, is reached by a twenty-kilometre hike or by canoe. Waskesiu is the townsite on the main lake.

What you actually see

• Grey Owl's cabin - the Ajawaan Lake cabin with a beaver lodge in the wall.
• The bison herd - free-ranging plains bison in the southwest of the park.
• The boreal lakes - Waskesiu, Kingsmere and canoe routes between them.
• The transition forest - aspen parkland meeting boreal spruce.

When to go

June to September for canoeing, hiking and the townsite; the park runs cross-country skiing in winter with most services shut. Bison viewing needs a back road and patience.

Honest expectations

Grey Owl's cabin is a twenty-kilometre hike each way or a paddle, not a drive. Bison are in a remote corner and often not seen. Mosquitoes in June and July are heavy.

Nearby

Prince Albert lies south; Lac La Ronge is north.