50 free Banff National Park trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Banff National Park trivia quiz covers Canada's first national park from the railway workers who stumbled on the hot springs in 1883 to today's three million visitors a year. It asks how the park got its Scottish name, which prime minister set aside the first 26 square kilometres, why the Canadian Pacific Railway built the Banff Springs Hotel and Chateau Lake Louise, who built the early roads (First World War internees and Depression relief crews), and how three Winter Olympic bids all failed. It also covers the landscape and wildlife: the Bow River, Lake Louise's rock-flour turquoise, the 'Twenty Dollar View' at Moraine Lake, the Icefields Parkway and Bow Summit, the Columbia Icefield and its three-ocean apex, retreating glaciers, grizzlies, elk imported from Yellowstone, the reintroduced bison, the lost caribou, wildlife overpasses and the endangered Banff Springs snail. Every answer is checked against Wikipedia's articles on the park, its lakes and hotels, and each explanation adds one further fact. Good for Canadian geography classes, road-trip planning and pub quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Canadian province is Banff National Park?
Alberta
It sits on Alberta's western border with British Columbia, with Yoho and Kootenay national parks just over the divide.
Q 02In what year was Banff established as Canada's first national park?
1885
It began as the tiny Banff Hot Springs Reserve and was the third national park in North America, after Yellowstone and Mackinac.
Q 03What natural feature prompted the creation of the park after railway workers found it in 1883?
Thermal springs
Rival claims to develop the springs led Prime Minister John A. Macdonald to set them aside as a public reserve.
Q 04Which prime minister set aside the first 26 sq km around the Cave and Basin springs in 1885?
John A. Macdonald
The Rocky Mountains Park Act of 1887 then expanded it to 674 square kilometres.
Q 05Under what name was Banff known officially from 1887 until 1930?
Rocky Mountains Park
The 1930 National Parks Act renamed it after the Canadian Pacific Railway station, itself named for Banffshire in Scotland.
Q 06The name Banff comes from a region of which country?
Scotland
The CPR station was named after Banffshire; the town of Banff has since been incorporated as a municipality within the park.
Q 07Which company built the Banff Springs Hotel and Chateau Lake Louise to attract tourists?
Canadian Pacific Railway
The original 1888 Banff Springs Hotel was a five-storey wooden building for 280 guests; it burned down in 1926.
Q 08What flows through the town of Banff, tumbling over falls on its outskirts?
Bow River
Bow Falls lies on the edge of town; the whole valley is known as the Bow Valley.
Q 09What is the total area of Banff National Park?
6,641 sq km
It peaked at 11,400 square kilometres in 1902 before grazing and logging interests had the eastern foothills cut out in 1911.
Q 10Which city is the closest major one to Banff, about 128 km to the east by road?
Calgary
Its international airport is the nearest with long-haul flights; Edmonton is 401 km away.
Q 11Which national park borders Banff to the north, linked to it by the Icefields Parkway?
Jasper
The parkway crosses into it at Sunwapta Pass, 2,035 metres up.
Q 12How long is the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to its northern end?
230 km
Around 100 glaciers can be seen from it, and it was completed to the Columbia Icefield by Depression-era work crews in 1940.
Q 13Bow Summit on the Icefields Parkway holds what distinction?
Highest point crossed by a public road in Canada
It stands at 2,088 metres, just before the road follows the Mistaya River down to Saskatchewan Crossing.
Q 21How many of Banff's 365 glaciers disappeared between 1985 and 2005?
29
The park's glaciated area fell from 625 to 500 square kilometres in those two decades.
Q 22What is the tallest peak lying entirely within Banff National Park?
Mount Forbes
At 3,612 metres it is just six metres lower than Mount Assiniboine, which sits on the park's border.
Q 23Which mountain beside the Banff townsite is the classic example of a 'dip slope' peak?
Mount Rundle
Mount Louis is the textbook 'dogtooth' peak, and the Sawback Range's near-vertical strata erode into saw-tooth shapes.
Q 14After whom is Lake Louise named?
A daughter of Queen Victoria
Princess Louise Caroline Alberta was married to the Marquess of Lorne, Governor General from 1878 to 1883; the province is named for her too.
Q 15What gives Lake Louise its turquoise colour?
Rock flour from glacial meltwater
The Stoney Nakoda called it Ho-run-num-nay, Lake of the Little Fishes; CPR worker Tom Wilson first named it Emerald Lake.
Q 16Which body of water in the Valley of the Ten Peaks was on the Canadian $20 bill from 1969?
Moraine Lake
The scene is still called the 'Twenty Dollar View'; the lake sits about 15 km from Lake Louise.
Q 17What is the largest natural lake in Banff National Park?
Hector
It lies on the Icefields Parkway north of Lake Louise; Lake Minnewanka, the biggest by area, was enlarged by a dam.
Q 18Which icefield, the largest uninterrupted glacial mass in the Rockies, straddles Banff's northern border?
Columbia
Its Snow Dome is a hydrological apex: meltwater flows to the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic oceans.
Q 19Snow Dome, atop the park's great northern icefield, sends meltwater to how many oceans?
Three
The Saskatchewan Glacier, about 13 km long, is the icefield's main outlet into Banff and retreated 1,364 metres between 1893 and 1953.
Q 20Which long-studied Banff glacier has lost 70% of its volume since records began?
Peyto
It retreated about a kilometre between 1999 and 2021 and could lose 80-90% of its remaining mass by 2100.
Q 24Which group built much of Banff's early road infrastructure during the First World War?
Wartime internees
Most were Ukrainians; the main camp was at Castle Mountain and moved to Cave and Basin in winter, where a memorial pavilion opened in 2013.
Q 25Which conscientious-objector group largely populated Banff's alternative service camps in World War II?
Mennonites from Saskatchewan
Camps were set up at Lake Louise, Stoney Creek and Healy Creek.
Q 26When did the Banff Springs Hotel become a year-round operation, making Banff a winter destination?
1968
Winter tourism had begun with the first Banff Winter Carnival in 1917, complete with an ice palace built by internees.
Q 27Which ski resort in the park was developed by the Brewster family in the 1930s?
Sunshine Village
Mount Norquay got the park's first chair lift in 1948; the Brewsters had also run Banff's first outfitting and motorcoach businesses.
Q 28How many times did Banff bid unsuccessfully to host the Winter Olympics?
Three
The 1964, 1968 and 1972 Games went to Innsbruck, Grenoble and Sapporo; environmentalists killed the 1972 bid, sponsored by Imperial Oil.
Q 29Which future prime minister, then environment minister, withdrew support for Banff's 1972 Olympic bid?
Jean Chretien
When Calgary hosted in 1988, the cross-country events went to Canmore, just outside the park's east gate.
Q 30What year did Banff join the UNESCO list with the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks?
1984
CPAWS later lobbied UNESCO to revoke the status over the Sunshine Village expansion.