ESSENTIALS - British Columbia: Including the Alaska Highway - page 750

can be a good deal for longer-term travel or for families or two couples traveling together.
The smallest vans, capable of sleeping two people, start at $150 per day with 100 free kilo-
meters (62 miles) per day. Standard extra charges include insurance, a preparation fee (usu-
ally around $50 per rental), a linen/cutlery charge (around $60 pp per trip), and taxes. in-
cluding Cruise Canada (480/464-7300 or 800/671-8042, www.cruisecanada.com ) and Go
West (604/528-3900 or 800/661-8813, www.go-west.com ) . In summer, expect to pay from
$170 per day for your own home-on-wheels. Remember to figure in higher ferry charges
for crossing to Vancouver Island with an RV.
Recreation
The great outdoors: British Columbia certainly has plenty of it. The province encompasses
some 948,600 square kilometers (366,250 square miles) of land area and a convoluted
coastline totaling 25,000 kilometers (15,500 miles). With spectacular scenery around every
bend, millions of hectares of parkland, and an abundance of wildlife, the province is an out-
doorsperson's fantasy come true.
PARKS AND PROTECTED AREAS
Visitors and locals alike enjoy over 800 protected areas totaling 11.7 million hectares (29
million acres) throughout British Columbia. From old-growth coastal rainforests to glaci-
ated peaks, and ranging in size from less than one hectare to over a million hectares (2.5
million acres), these parks provide almost unlimited recreation opportunities.
National Parks
British Columbia holds 7 of Canada's 44 national parks. The most accessible is also the
newest, Southern Gulf Islands National Park, which was created in 2003 by piecing to-
gether existing provincial and marine parks scattered throughout the archipelago. Pacific
Rim National Park protects a stretch of Vancouver Island's rugged west coast, offering
long beaches, remote islands, and the famous West Coast Trail to explore. In the east of
the province, Kootenay and Yoho National Parks form a part of the UNESCO Canadian
Rocky Mountains Parks World Heritage Site; the two spectacular parks lie just across the
Continental Divide from the more famous Banff and Jasper National Parks in neighbor-
ing Alberta. Also protecting a mountainous landscape are Glacier and Mount Revelstoke
National Parks along the Trans-Canada Highway. The most remote of British Columbia's
national parks is Gwaii Haanas on Haida Gwaii. No roads access this park, which encom-