The worst national park

I'll be honest.  The title is a bit unfair.  The park has a goal.  It does that well.  However the goal isn't entertaining tourists.  I have been to 61 National Parks across the world and this was my only experience I would say was unpleasant however.

In 2019 I took my son, one of his friends, and my daughter north to Canada to see the incredible parks of the Canadian Rockies.  Banff and Jasper are among the best national parks in the world.  However looking at the map there is another park on the way.  Elk Island- not too far outside Edmonton. It is not a particularly scenic location.  It does protect the largest collection of ungulates in Canada.  Lots of animals in a small area? Sounds perfect.

Perhaps the fault isn't the parks.  Perhaps the problem was my plan.  Looking back if we had used the time to do a short detour and do a vehicle safari we probably would have been fine.  Perhaps even enjoyed it.  Instead I researched it and found hiking trails we might like.  So off we went.  First- the trails weren't very scenic.  No surprise- its about the animals not the scenery.

Second- we didn't see many animals.  Maybe it was bad luck.  Maybe trails are designed to stay away from the animals.  Probably a smart way to plan it.  Anyway we didn't have any great encounters.

I guess we shouldn't say we didn't have animal encounters- as long as you count mosquitos.  I've lived much of my life in places with mosquitos.  This was something else.  We had bug spray.  If it help I can't imagine what it would be like without it. 

We didn't see many mammals, but our walk took us past the droppings of many of them.  When we weren't slapping bugs away we were walking trying to avoid the piles.  It obviously smelled about what you would expect it to.  Between the bugs and poop, our senses were overwhelmed, and not in a good way.  

On the plus side when we were in the car we did see a few buffalo.  This was the first time my son's friend saw a buffalo.  It was cool seeing the wonder of the experience.  If that's all we had done I think we would have been much happier.  Fortunately this first park of the trip would be mostly quickly forgotten as we saw Jasper next.  The mosquito bites would force us to remember at least for the next few days though.