Cave and Basin National Historic Site, Banff

The Cave and Basin National Historic Site is what gave birth to the Banff National Park, and Canada's 1st national park. In 1883, two Pacific Railway workers discovered the caves, descending through the skylight entrance into the cave using a felled tree.

Take your riding boots off and have a soak. The caves are located at the site of thermal hot springs along the Sulphur Mountain Thrust Fault below Devonian limestones, the water is heated geothermally from an estimated depth of three kilometres.

You can take a short walk down a tunnel past thermal pools into a large hot spring cave with a waterfall flowing from the ceiling filling the jade-green hot spring for only C$3.90 per adult.