Hidden Gems of Alberta’s Conservation Network: Exploring 60 Protected Areas for AWA’s “What’s Your 60?” Challenge

April 20, 2026

Enjoying paddling and solitude on the canoe circuit at Lakeland Provincial Park. Photo © L. Wallis

Wildlands Advocate article by Lindsey Wallis, AWA Adventures for Wilderness Coordinator

Read the PDF version here.

Our canoe glided through water as smooth as glass. Paddles dipped into obsidian and came out dripping drops of diamond from the blade. Sandhill cranes called far above, making their fall journey south. A pair of loons duetted just off our bow — a private concert. It was early September, but the sun was warm on my face, and the birch leaves were just beginning to turn, splashing gold against the dark green conifers along the shoreline.

My friend Sarah and I were taking a girls’ week, logging off for a multi-day canoe adventure in Lakeland Provincial Park. A moment of connection — with each other and the wilderness — before diving back into the grind and an Alberta winter. One of the 76 Provincial Parks in Alberta, Lakeland protects several interconnected lakes and the surrounding mixed wood forest, including a number of areas of old-growth forest. It is home to more than 200 species of birds and is recognized as a dark sky preserve.

Lakeland was number 55 of my 60 Alberta protected areas that I visited as part of my “What’s Your 60?” challenge in 2025, celebrating AWA’s 60^th anniversary. I wanted to use this opportunity to branch out from my “favourites” and learn more about Alberta’s rich ecological diversity. As I travelled around the province, I discovered hidden gems, learned more about our protected areas network, and met many other folks out enjoying these places.

Alberta’s network of protected areas is complicated. The province has over 460 parks and protected areas managed provincially, spread across eight different categories. Wilderness Areas and Ecological Reserves have the most stringent restrictions. Access to them is restricted to foot, and the key objectives of these areas are stated to be “to preserve and protect natural heritage.”

Then we have our Wildland Provincial Parks, Provincial Parks, and Provincial Recreation Areas. Each type has slightly different regulations, but all identify providing opportunities for recreation “compatible with environmental protection” as a key objective. There are also Heritage Rangelands and Natural Areas, which can vary widely in scope and use, depending on management of the specific area. Finally, the Willmore Wilderness Park is governed by its own act.

Add in five National Parks and four National Wildlife Areas, which are managed by the Federal Government; a myriad of municipal protected areas; and a patchwork of private land protected under conservation easements, sometimes managed by land trusts or fish and game associations and which may or may not be accessible to the public, and it’s easy to see how one could get confused about Alberta’s protected areas!

My year started with hiking in January in Canada’s oldest national park, Banff National Park. One of the crown jewels of Canada’s park system, it is facing increasing pressures from an explosion of visitation over the last few years, both in town and in the backcountry. The winter trails were relatively quiet, and the snow-capped peaks stunning. It’s no wonder more than four million people a year visit this park, which is managed by Parks Canada, a federal entity.

Closer to home — virtually at our door — is Fish Creek Provincial Park. Despite being in the middle of Calgary, it is a provincial park. This park protects a portion of the Bow River and the Fish Creek watershed. I grew up playing and picnicking in this park, and now we bike through it as we come home from school, benefitting from connecting to nature after a busy day. We often spot deer, coyotes, or perhaps a muskrat or beaver as a bonus! Other Calgary parks are municipally owned and can vary from natural areas like the Weaselhead to the more manicured nature of Bowness or Edworthy Park.

Until this challenge, I hadn’t really paid attention to the different areas I enjoyed for recreation or who was managing them. Working with a group of high school students from Cochrane, we got to explore the Cochrane Ranche Historic Site, not technically a park, but a provincially-designated historic resource. It not only protects historic buildings, but also portions of native prairie surrounding the ranch. Nearby, the Mount Saint Francis Retreat owns land on the “big hill,” set aside for conservation. They have worked with local mountain bikers to create hiking and biking trails that the public can enjoy on this section of private land.

Lindsey enjoying ALL the seasons with her favourite hiking buddy in Banff National Park. Photo © L. Wallis

Many of my adventures this year took me to Kananaskis Country. Kananaskis Country is not a protected area, but instead a patchwork of Provincial Parks, Wildland Provincial Parks, and Provincial Recreation Areas (PRA) connected by unprotected Forest Land Use Zones (FLUZ). While I was hiking, climbing, and swimming in Kananaskis I visited 11 separate protected areas. They vary greatly. Peter Lougheed Provincial Park is a vast park with well-marked trails, fully equipped camping, and a visitor centre. Plateau Mountain Ecological Reserve has zero amenities, or even a trailhead, its goal being to protect the ecological treasures on this unglaciated plateau. And then there are the many different Wildland Provincial Parks and PRAs. Some, like Strawberry PRA, are essentially only a small area containing an unserviced campground. For the average visitor, the only indications of the protected area are small yellow signs marking the boundaries.

Many of Alberta’s PRAs are just small parcels of land that provide access to public land not included in the protected area network. Sometimes, PRAs are there to protect our favourite places from us. In the case of West Bragg, as it’s affectionately known, and many others around the province, a PRA designation is to help keep a popular area from being loved to death. The establishment of a PRA can allow the construction of things like washrooms, parking facilities, and campgrounds to mitigate the impacts of many users.

West Bragg is a popular destination for skiers, hikers, and bikers. What many folks don’t know is that the West Bragg Creek Provincial Recreation boundary barely extends past the parking lot. None of the trails we enjoy there are protected. This is why so many people are stunned about the logging being allowed in places around West Bragg Creek and the Highwood. If you look on a map, the Provincial Recreation Areas are only a small postage stamp around facilities like parking lots, campgrounds, and picnic areas, which are used to access the surrounding FLUZs.

During the Snow Goose festival in April, my colleague Sara and I used the evening after our tabling event to see what birds were migrating through. We were in the Beaver Hills Biosphere Reserve, a UNESCO designation that doesn’t grant protected status but does acknowledge the important ecological attributes of the area. The biosphere reserve is a patchwork of public and private land, some with formal protections, some not. We visited the Beaver Hill Natural Area, a small parcel of land protecting the lake.

As I continued my exploration of Alberta’s protected areas, it was clear that Albertans love water. We’re drawn to it. We love to recreate in, around, and on the water. Many of our parks and recreation areas are centred around lakes or rivers. Almost every puddle in Central Alberta has a Provincial Recreation Area and a dock.

My daughter Karina’s “What’s Your 60?” challenge was to swim in 60 natural Alberta bodies of water, which led us to explore many of the tiny PRAs beside central Alberta lakes. These PRAs serve to reduce the impact of camping and the need for restrooms at these sites that have been popular with fishermen since long before the creation of Alberta’s protected areas. Some lakes, like Lee Lake and Birch Lake, were Conservation Areas, managed by the Alberta Conservation Association or Fish and Game Associations, either on public or private land.

Frank Lake is a popular stop for birders, especially during migration season, which was when we visited. Dozens of species can easily be observed on and near the lake. This conservation area is managed by Ducks Unlimited and is an internationally recognized Important Bird Area (IBA). Frank Lake is a great example of hunting and fishing groups working together to protect an area for specific game species, with additional benefits for many other species and ecological processes.

A few parks have been created by the donation of private land to the province, with the understanding that they be protected as parks in perpetuity. Antelope Hill Provincial Park in eastern Alberta is one of these. A relatively small parcel, it belonged to Gottlob Schmidt, who donated the 960-acre parcel of native grassland to the province when he passed in 2018.

When we think of protected areas, we often think of vast tracts of wilderness, but these small parcels can be vital refuges for wildlife and important places where locals can get out to enjoy nature. JJ Collett Natural Area was created from donated land in 1974 and is a good example of this type of park. It is also stewarded by a volunteer group, which is responsible for the maintenance and preservation of the park.

The province used to have a formal program of protected area stewards, supported through the Stewards of Alberta Protected Areas Association (SAPAA). Though SAPAA still exists and is trying to revitalize itself as an organization, the official stewardship programs, along with their funding, have been axed by the province. AWA remains a volunteer steward of both Plateau Mountain Ecological Reserve and the Beehive Natural Area.

Sometimes, landowners or conservation organizations take on the heavy lifting of purchasing land and protecting it. The Clifford E. Lee Nature Sanctuary was purchased in 1977 by the Clifford E. Lee Foundation and was subsequently transferred to the Canadian Nature Federation and is currently managed by a volunteer management committee.

Similarly, there are a number of Land Trusts, the most well-known being the Nature Conservancy of Canada, which either own properties outright, or work with landowners to create conservation easements on their land. The Waldron Ranch is more than 30,000 acres, and the largest remaining block of private land along the Eastern Slopes. The ranching co-op that owns the ranch will continue to graze it, but the easement means these acres of native grassland are safe from subdivision or development, in perpetuity. AWA is concerned about a recent change to the Land Trust Grant Program, which now will only fund easements that are 50 years long.

While many people think of our mountain parks, Alberta has protected areas across the province and throughout the different ecoregions, but not all our ecoregions are evenly represented by our protected area network. Aspen parkland, grassland, and foothills are woefully under-protected compared to the Rocky Mountains and even the government’s own targets for these areas. Government documents show the targets to be five percent of the subregion protected, but the number for these regions hovers around one percent.

As our population grows and the desire to be in nature and wild places increases, we will be forced to grapple with difficult decisions over the goals of our parks and protected areas. On one hand, if we don’t set limits and put conservation first, we run the risk of loving these places to death. But, if we cordon them off as museum pieces, we run the arguably greater risk of alienating people from the land. Once we lose that connection, we will also lose the value of these places to the populace and subsequently the desire from Albertans to protect them.

Parks List (side bar)

Banff National Park
Fish Creek Provincial Park
Sibbald Lake PRA
Cochrane Ranche Historic Site (Provincial Historic Resource)
Bowness Park
Mt Saint Francis Retreat Lands
Beaver Lake Natural Area
West Bragg Creek Provincial Recreation Area
Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park
Bow Valley Wildland
Bob Creek Wildland
Black Creek Heritage Rangeland
Chain Lakes Provincial Park
Frank Lake Conservation Area (Partnership with Ducks Unlimited)
Edworthy Park
Rochon Sands Provincial Park
Ribstone Creek Heritage Rangeland
Gooseberry Lake Provincial Park
Antelope Hill Provincial Park
Killarney-Reflex Lakes Heritage Rangeland
Dilberry Lake Provincial Park
Milk River Badlands Conservation Site (Owned by Alberta Conservation Association and Alberta Fish and Game Association)
Milk River Natural Area
Red Rock Coulee Natural Area
Hargrave Coulees Natural Area
Elbow-Sheep Wildland
Don Getty Wildand
Lee Lake (Leased by and conserved by Alberta Conservation Association)
Lundbreck Falls PRA
Strawberry PRA
Crimson Lake Provincial Park
Twin Lake Provincial Park
Fish Lake PRA
Chambers Creek PRA
Goldeye Lake PRA
Dry Haven PRA
Aylmer PRA
Cow Lake Natural Area
Mitchell Lake PRA
Phyllis Lake PRA
Tay River PRA
Swan Lake PRA
Birch Lake Conservation Site (provincial public land managed by ACA and the Province)
Beehive Natural Area
Writing on Stone Provincial Park
Plateau Mountain Ecological Reserve
Weaselhead Flats
JJ Collett Natural Area
Chain Lakes Habitat Area (managed by Lacombe Fish and Game Association)
Clifford E. Lee Nature Sanctuary (owned by CWF and managed by a volunteer committee)\
Wabamun Lake Provincial Park
Isle Lake Natural Area
Aspen Beach Provincial Park
Glennifer Reservoir PRA
Lakeland Provincial Park
Evan-Thomas PRA
Spray Valley Provincial Park
Peter Lougheed Provincial Park
Kinbrook Island Provincial Park
Waldron Ranch
Onefour Heritage Rangeland Natural Area
Cooking Lake-Blackfoot PRA