Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site
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How it came to be
Archaeological finds at Vermilion Lakes near Banff show human activity about 10,300 years ago. In 1883 railway construction workers came upon hot springs, and in 1885 Prime Minister John A. Macdonald set aside 26 km2 around them as a reserve. In 1887 it was enlarged to 674 km2 as Rocky Mountains Park, Canada's first national park, renamed Banff National Park in 1930.
On 30 August 1909 Charles Walcott of the Smithsonian Institution found the Burgess Shale in Yoho. Its Cambrian fossils, from about 540 million years ago, preserve soft-bodied sea creatures, and by 1924 Walcott had collected more than 65,000 specimens.
The Burgess Shale was listed on its own in 1980 and folded into the 1984 inscription of Banff, Jasper, Kootenay and Yoho national parks. In 1990 three British Columbia provincial parks, Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine and Hamber, were added.
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