The second westernmost of Canada’s provinces, Alberta’s most famous region may occupy a small portion of its territory, but is massive in terms of scenery. Banff and Jasper national parks enveloped by the Canadian Rockies, offer spectacular backcountry and alpine wilderness. Banff’s hot spot is gem-colored Lake Louise; there are numerous other glacier-fed aquamarine lakes.

The town of Banff, a modern, four-season ski resort, is connected to Jasper by Icefields Parkway, passing walls of ice and waterfalls to Athabasca Glacier. Jasper is known for Columbia Ice Field. Alberta has three other national parks, including remote Wood Buffalo in the far north, the size of Switzerland and it has the world’s largest free-roaming bison herd.

Outdoor park adventures may include skiing, dog sledding, ski-joring (pulled on skis by teams of huskies), wildlife tracking, igloo building, heli-hiking, whitewater rafting, canoeing, caving and alpine lake scuba diving. Have a City Slickers-style ranch vacation or stay at a farm, winter camp, log cabin or wilderness lodge.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller exhibits 125,000 fossil specimens and 40 mounted dinosaur skeletons. Hike through badlands, bone fields and fossil beds in Dinosaur Provincial Park, or view dinosaur embryos and eggshells at Devil’s Coulee Dinosaur Heritage Museum near Lethbridge.

There are many other historical sites and museums in Alberta, including Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump near Calgary, where natives drove thousands of buffalo to their deaths for food, clothing and shelter. The two main cities are Calgary, site of the Calgary Stampede rodeo each July and capital Edmonton, which flourished during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1897. Its mall is the world’s largest, with 800 stores, 110 dining venues and tons of amusements.