Canada: The Distances I Did Not Believe Until I Drove Them
I looked at a map of western Canada, saw Vancouver and Banff, and thought: that is a week. The drive between them is 850 kilometres through mountain passes, which is roughly London to Vienna. Canada does this to people.
The distances
| Route | Distance | Driving time |
|---|---|---|
| Vancouver → Banff | 850 km | ~10h |
| Banff → Jasper (Icefields) | 290 km | 3h + all day with stops |
| Calgary → Banff | 130 km | 1h30 |
| Vancouver → Whistler | 120 km | 2h |
| Jasper → Vancouver | 800 km | ~9h |
What I eventually did was fly into Calgary and out of Vancouver, which turned two long drives into one. That is the shape I would recommend to anyone — the Rockies are close to Calgary, not to Vancouver, and an open-jaw ticket costs about the same as a return.
The Icefields Parkway
The road from Lake Louise to Jasper is three hours of driving and a full day of trip. Glaciers directly above the road, Peyto Lake, Athabasca Falls, and the Columbia Icefield where you can walk on the glacier.
Two practical things nobody told me: there is essentially no fuel between Lake Louise and Jasper, and no mobile signal for most of it. Fill up before you start and download offline maps.
It was the best day of the trip and I nearly rushed it because it looked like a transfer on the map.
Park passes
Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay all require a Parks Canada pass. A daily rate exists, but the Discovery Pass covering a year works out cheaper from about seven days, and crucially it covers a whole vehicle rather than each person.
Buy it at the park gate or in advance. I bought daily passes for four days before realising, which was a small and entirely self-inflicted waste.
Wildlife, and the bear jams
I saw elk on day one, a black bear on day three and a grizzly at distance on day five. All of them from the road.
The local term for what happens next is a bear jam — people stopping in the traffic lane, getting out, walking toward the animal. It is dangerous for everyone including the bear, which gets habituated and eventually relocated or destroyed.
Pull fully off the road, stay in the vehicle, keep well back. On trails, carry bear spray in the Rockies and know how to use it — it is sold everywhere and rented at some visitor centres, and the advice is to make noise while walking so you never surprise anything.
Where I stayed and what it cost
Banff townsite accommodation is expensive and books out months ahead in summer. Canmore, twenty minutes outside the park boundary, was roughly 40 percent cheaper and had better restaurants.
| Item | 9 days, two people |
|---|---|
| Rental car | CAD 780 |
| Fuel | CAD 310 |
| Accommodation | CAD 1,850 |
| Parks pass | CAD 145 |
| Food | CAD 900 |
Canada is not cheap, and the mountain towns in July are the expensive end of it. Shoulder season — late May, or September — is meaningfully lower and, for the Rockies, arguably better: fewer people, and the larches turn gold in late September.
What I would change
Fewer places. I did Vancouver, Whistler, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper and Calgary in nine days. Three of those were mostly driving.
Book Lake Louise and Moraine Lake access ahead. Private vehicle access has been increasingly restricted, with shuttle systems that need reserving. I turned up and could not get in on the day I wanted.
Start earlier. The parking lots at the popular lakes fill by 7am in summer. The mornings I got up at 5:30 were the ones with the photographs and no crowds.