Athabasca Dunes Ecological Reserve

Athabasca Dunes Ecological Reserve, located in Wood Buffalo, offers travellers towering boreal sand dunes and rare wildlife viewing in remote northern Alberta. Your first glimpse of the Athabasca Dunes might cause a double take, as pale sand waves rise unexpectedly from the surrounding boreal forest. This landscape, more reminiscent of a desert, stretches roughly 8 km long and 1.5 km wide, with dunes reaching 12 m high. Kames—ridges of sand formed by retreating glaciers—are among the largest in the world here, standing about 60 m tall. The dunes slowly shift south each year, filling small lakes, overtaking jack pine stands and leaving a stark, open plain in their wake. Set within Maybelle River Wildland Park, about 200 km north of Fort McMurray, the reserve is also a haven for birdwatchers, with chances to see loons, nighthawks and terns, as well as pine martens, moose and mink in the surrounding wilderness.