The Icefields Parkway: measuring distance in millennia rather than miles
On Highway 93 North, Canada's ancient glaciers still carve indelible stories into an antediluvian landscape.
There are roads you drive, and then there's the Icefields Parkway—a 232-kilometre meditation through the Canadian Rockies where each bend in the highway reveals another chapter in Earth's autobiography.
We came this way via Prague, on a round-the-world ticket, heading west at the outset from Sydney. The Czech capital was part of a fortnight spent in Eastern Europe, followed by a few days in London. After that came a week in New York, before landing in Calgary, where we hired a car and kept going west. Nightfall loomed. Early season snow sprinkled in the beam from the headlights as we approached Banff.
After a long day in transit (the alarm was set for 3.30am), what’s the most magical phrase in the world you’d love to hear?
“You’ve been upgraded,” said the receptionist at the Banff Springs Hotel. What bliss. Our original Fairmont Room now came with valley and golf course views.
We’d planned 2 full days. Mostly R&R stuff. Kicking back, hanging out around the hotel, the mountains and the town. It had been a hectic month or so up until then, and Banff suited this restful quest perfectly. One of many highlights was finding the last North Face summit jacket of a soon-to-be discontinued Summit series model in my size and preferred colour. It was meant to be!
After Banff it was back on the road to fulfil a bucket list item: a drive on a section of the Icefields Parkway. Jasper was our final destination with the hire car. From there is was the Rocky Mountaineer to Vancouver.
I guess the Parkway officially starts from Lake Louise, where another Fairmont lodging awaited our credit card. But on leaving Banff (following Highway 1A, at the suggestion of the hotel’s concierge, instead of the Trans-Canada Highway), you soon realise that time behaves a little differently in this ancient landscape. The drive unfolds at a measured pace, like a carefully edited narrative, due in part to the single-lane roadway with its 60km/h speed limit.
Plenty of cyclists keep your focus on the road. But in between the lycra crews, you gape in awe at the surrounds, then pull over at one of the numerous roadside stops with its spectacular views of wooded hillsides topped by massive rugged peaks. In autumn the air is crisp. Snap a pic. Visit a bathroom. Then back on the road. Rinse and repeat, all the way to Lake Louise.
No upgrade this time at the Fairmont. But that’s okay. Grab a canoe, hike a trail, ride a horse, eat a feast. Another 2 days of mountain bliss. Then it was time to officially hit the Icefields Parkway.
We’d planned a slow, single day’s drive to Jasper. Overnight stays along the way are possible, but there are not a lot of options, which might be deliberate; perhaps a reminder that we are guests in this wilderness.
Arriving at Bow Lake and its stillness feels ancestral. The water holds perfect reflections of Crowfoot Mountain. Then a slight wind kicks in and a ripple sends the reflection into a wavering landscape painting. I’d read that the nearby historic Num-Ti-Jah Lodge offers rustic comfort and profound silence. We did not put that to the test, so headed further north.
Peyto Lake emerges like a geometry lesson carved into the wilderness – a triangle of impossible turquoise fed by glacial melt. The short hike to the viewing platform offers a lesson in perspective. What appears as a modest slope from the parking area reveals itself as a magnificent amphitheater of rock and ice, with the lake as its centrepiece.
The Columbia Icefield might mark the journey's philosophical heart. Here, the Athabasca Glacier extends its cold tongue toward the road, an ancient ice river moving at its own geological pace, but in the wrong direction: in 2023 it experienced more ice melt than in any of the previous 10 years. Signs mark its retreat – a sobering timeline of climate change written in the landscape itself.
Onward. The drive continues, and the rumble of water signals the approach of Sunwapta Falls. Unlike the more introspective stops so far, the falls are a heaving demonstration of nature’s dynamic power. Water cascades over jagged rocks, creating a sound that conveniently drowns out everyday concerns, if only for a moment. It’s an experience that underscores the diversity of the parkway: here, the sublime calm of lakes and glaciers meets the raw energy of waterfalls.
Tips for the trip
The practical concerns of this journey are straightforward but crucial. Fill your tank at Lake Louise or Jasper. Services are thin on the ground. The Saskatchewan River Crossing prices reflect their monopoly on convenience. Cell/mobile service is spotty at best, a fact that initially causes anxiety but eventually feels like liberation. Pack for weather changes regardless of season; the mountains make their own meteorology. How timely was my North Face find back in Banff?
But beyond these logistics lies the parkway's deeper invitation: to move at a pace that allows wonder to overtake any schedule. To stop at unmarked pullouts where the light catches a waterfall just so. To watch afternoon clouds build themselves into castles above peaks that were ancient when the last ice age ended.
Near journey's end, the road descends toward Jasper through a valley that feels increasingly hospitable to human presence. The mountains step back, the trees grow taller, and glimpses of the town appear between breaks in the forest. You've traveled more than distance; it’s more like having crossed a threshold in time, carrying with you a new understanding of how mountains mark their days.
I’d argue the Icefields Parkway demands more than passive observation. It asks us to pause, to adjust our internal clocks to geological time, if only for a short while, to find our place in a landscape that measures change in millennia. In return, it offers a rare certainty: that some journeys can never be fully captured, only experienced, one kilometre at a time.