Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
47 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 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which Canadian province is Banff National Park?
Alberta
Banff National Park lies in southwestern Alberta, along the Continental Divide that forms the province's western boundary; the Trans-Canada Highway runs through the park and its townsite.
Q 02In what year was Banff established as Canada's first national park?
1885
Banff was established in 1885, when the federal government reserved 26 square kilometres on the slopes of Sulphur Mountain for public use; it was Canada's first national park, enlarged in 1887 and again in 1902.
Q 03What natural feature prompted the creation of the park after railway workers found it in 1883?
Thermal springs
Thermal springs on Sulphur Mountain, reached through a cave by railway workers in 1883, prompted the reserve; competing private claims to the springs pushed Ottawa to keep them in public hands.
Q 04Which prime minister set aside the first reserve around the Cave and Basin springs?
John A. Macdonald
John A. Macdonald, Canada's first prime minister, had his government reserve the springs to block private claims; that small reserve was the seed of Canada's national park system.
Q 05Under what name was Banff known officially from 1887 until 1930?
Rocky Mountains Park
Rocky Mountains Park was the name given by the 1887 Act that enlarged the reserve to 674 square kilometres; the 1930 National Parks Act renamed it Banff National Park.
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 Canadian Pacific Railway opened the Banff Springs Hotel in 1888 and the first chalet at Lake Louise in 1890, following William Van Horne's plan to import tourists since it could not export the scenery.
Q 08What flows through the town of Banff, tumbling over falls on its outskirts?
Bow River
The Bow River runs through the town of Banff and drops over Bow Falls beside the Banff Springs Hotel; it rises at Bow Glacier and eventually joins the South Saskatchewan River system.
Q 09What is the total area of Banff National Park?
6,641 sq km
Banff National Park covers 6,641 sq km; it peaked at about 11,400 square kilometres in 1902 before the eastern foothills were removed in 1911 to favour grazing and logging interests.
Q 10Which city is the closest major one to Banff, about 128 km to the east by road?
Calgary
Calgary lies about 128 km east of Banff along the Trans-Canada Highway, and Calgary International Airport is the nearest with long-haul flights; Edmonton is roughly 400 km away.
Q 11Which national park borders Banff to the north, linked to it by the Icefields Parkway?
Jasper
Jasper National Park adjoins Banff's northern boundary; the Icefields Parkway crosses from Banff into Jasper at Sunwapta Pass, 2,035 metres above sea level.
Q 12How long is the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise to its northern end?
230 km
The Icefields Parkway runs 230 km from Lake Louise to its northern terminus; the original gravel road, built by Depression-era relief crews, opened in 1940 and was rebuilt and paved in 1961.
Q 13Which pass carries the Trans-Canada Highway over the Continental Divide out of Banff?
Kicking Horse Pass
Q 21What is the tallest peak lying entirely within Banff National Park?
Mount Forbes
Mount Forbes, at 3,612 metres, is the highest summit wholly inside the park and was first climbed in 1902; Mount Assiniboine, at 3,618 metres, is taller but stands on the provincial boundary.
Q 22Which mountain beside the Banff townsite is the classic example of a 'dip slope' peak?
Mount Rundle
Mount Rundle is the textbook dip-slope mountain: its layers tilt southwest, giving a long smooth back and a sheer northeast face over the town of Banff; it was named for Methodist missionary Robert Rundle.
Q 23Which group built much of Banff's early road infrastructure during the First World War?
Wartime internees
Kicking Horse Pass, at 1,627 metres on the Continental Divide west of Lake Louise, carries the Trans-Canada Highway and the original transcontinental rail line; the Spiral Tunnels lie just beyond it.
Q 14After whom is Lake Louise named?
A daughter of Queen Victoria
A daughter of Queen Victoria, Princess Louise, was married to the Marquess of Lorne, Governor General of Canada from 1878 to 1883; the lake was renamed in her honour in 1884.
Q 15What gives Lake Louise its turquoise colour?
Rock flour from glacial meltwater
Rock flour from glacial meltwater gives the colour: fine silt ground by the Victoria Glacier stays suspended in the water and scatters blue-green light, so the lake is brightest in late summer when melt peaks.
Q 16Which body of water in the Valley of the Ten Peaks was on the Canadian $20 bill from 1969?
Moraine Lake
Moraine Lake, in the Valley of the Ten Peaks, appeared on the back of the 1969 Scenes of Canada $20 note, and the viewpoint from its rockpile became known as the Twenty Dollar View.
Q 17What is the largest natural lake in Banff National Park?
Hector
Hector Lake, named for Palliser Expedition geologist James Hector, lies beside the Icefields Parkway north of Lake Louise; Lake Minnewanka is larger by area only because a 1941 dam raised it about 30 metres.
Q 18Which icefield, the largest uninterrupted glacial mass in the Rockies, straddles Banff's northern border?
Columbia
The Columbia Icefield covers about 325 square kilometres along the Continental Divide, feeding the Athabasca and Saskatchewan glaciers among others; its ice is up to 365 metres thick.
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
Peyto Glacier, photographed by Walter Wilcox in 1896 and measured continuously since 1966, has one of Canada's longest glacier records; it has lost about 70 percent of its volume and feeds the turquoise lake below.
Wartime internees, mostly Ukrainian Canadians held as enemy aliens under the War Measures Act, were camped at Castle Mountain from 1915 and laid out roads and bridges, including the route toward Lake Louise.
Q 24Which conscientious-objector group largely populated Banff's alternative service camps in World War II?
Mennonites from Saskatchewan
Mennonites from Saskatchewan made up most of the conscientious objectors in the Alternative Service camps set up in the park from 1941, at Lake Louise, Stoney Creek and Healy Creek, where they cut trails and fought fires.
Q 25Which 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 26Which city beat Banff to host the 1972 Winter Olympics?
Sapporo
Sapporo won the right to host the 1972 Winter Olympics at the 1966 IOC session in Rome, beating Banff's bid by 32 votes to 16; they were the first Winter Games held in Asia.
Q 27Castle Mountain bore the name of which American general from 1946 until 1979?
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight D. Eisenhower was honoured when Mackenzie King's government renamed Castle Mountain 'Mount Eisenhower' in 1946; the original name was restored in 1979, with one tower kept as Eisenhower Peak.
Q 28What year did Banff join the UNESCO list with the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks?
1984
Banff joined the list in 1984, when UNESCO inscribed the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site covering four national parks; adjoining provincial parks were added by a later extension.
Q 29Roughly how many tourists does Banff National Park receive each year?
More than three million
More than three million people visit Banff National Park each year, with Parks Canada counting about 4.1 million in 2018-19, the most of any Canadian national park; many more drive through on the Trans-Canada Highway without stopping.
Q 30At what figure did the 1996 Banff-Bow Valley Study recommend capping the population of the town of Banff?
10,000
The study proposed a ceiling of 10,000 residents for the town of Banff; Heritage Minister Sheila Copps accepted the cap in 1996 and ordered the airstrip, buffalo paddock and cadet camp removed to reopen wildlife corridors.