Slave River Road — Fort Smith to Fort Resolution via Pine Lake Access

Fort Smith sits on the banks of the Slave River at the Alberta border, and it’s the southern gateway into Wood Buffalo National Park — the largest national park in Canada and one of the last places on earth where free-roaming wood bison exist in wild herds. The road network south and west of Fort Smith includes the Pine Lake Road, a maintained gravel route dropping 60 km into the park interior to Pine Lake campground, plus rougher tracks pushing into the boreal lowlands toward the salt plains and bison range. The salt plains near Pine Lake are a genuinely surreal landscape — mineral deposits create white flats that look completely out of place in the northern forest. Bison wander freely across roads here, and that is not a figure of speech.

Most of the Pine Lake Road is manageable in a stock SUV when dry, but the backcountry tracks branching off it demand high clearance and 4WD — muskeg is always close in Wood Buffalo. A Parks Canada entry permit is required. Fuel in Fort Smith before heading in; there’s nothing inside the park. Late June through September is the practical window — spring thaw makes the soft sections genuinely impassable. The route toward Fort Resolution adds distance and requires checking current road status with the GNWT, as portions are seasonal. What you get is bison, wolves, boreal silence, and one of the most underrated park interiors on the continent.