On this page
- 2027 status by park and product
- 2026 launch dates for reference
- When a launch date moves
- Get the dates by email or in your calendar
- BC Parks, Alberta Parks and the shuttle release on a rolling clock
- Copy a plan for your park, then add your camp nights
- What to have ready for launch morning
- How a launch morning works
- 2027 camping and shuttle launches
- Not listed on the national schedule yet
- National schedule checked
- 25 October 2026, on the Parks Canada reserve page
- When the last schedules went up
- By 14 November in 2024; between 17 November and 3 December in 2025
- How 2026 opened
- Park by park. In Banff, Jasper, Yoho and Kootenay, campgrounds and backcountry opened on different days, and the shuttle in April
- 2026 launch time
- 8 am local time, 8:30 am in Newfoundland and Labrador
- Where you book
- reservation.pc.gc.ca, or 1-877-737-3783 (1-519-826-5391 from outside North America)
Tip
Booking a provincial park instead? BC Parks, Alberta Parks and Ontario Parks open each date on a rolling window, and the free camping reservation calculator gives the exact morning for your dates.
2027 status by park and product
| Booking | 2027 national schedule | What to prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Banff and Lake Louise campgrounds | Not listed yet | Choose campground nights and backups. Open the Banff plan, then add your camp nights. |
| Jasper campgrounds | Not listed yet | Choose nights around your drive. Open the Jasper and Icefields Parkway plan. |
| Backcountry permits | Not listed yet | Choose an overnight route and permit type. These can launch separately from frontcountry camping. |
| Lake Louise and Moraine Lake shuttle | Not listed yet | Choose your travel day. A campground reservation does not reserve a shuttle seat. |
National schedule checked 25 October 2026 at Parks Canada. Check your park’s official page too: a park may announce a product before the national table changes.
2026 launch dates for reference
Launches go park by park, each at a set time in the park's own time zone. Some parks share a morning, and some open campgrounds and backcountry together while others split them. The national schedule still lists 2026, so the table below shows those historical dates. That is history, not a forecast: several 2026 launches moved at short notice, so do not plan around those dates coming back.
| Park | Product | 2026 launch (history) | Time zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| Banff, including Lake Louise and the Banff side of the Icefields Parkway | Frontcountry campgrounds | 12 February 2026, 8 am (moved from 23 January) | Mountain |
| Banff: Lake Louise and Moraine Lake | Parks Canada shuttle | 15 April 2026, 8 am, for 40 percent of the season's seats; the rest at 8 am two days before each travel date | Mountain |
| Banff, Yoho and Kootenay | Backcountry | 26 January 2026, 8 am | Mountain |
| Jasper | Frontcountry campgrounds | 27 January 2026, 8 am | Mountain |
| Jasper | Backcountry | 28 January 2026, 8 am | Mountain |
| Yoho | Frontcountry campgrounds | 20 January 2026, 8 am | Mountain |
| Yoho | Lake O'Hara camping | 10 February 2026, 8 am (moved from 22 January) | Mountain |
| Kootenay | Frontcountry campgrounds | 20 January 2026, 8 am | Mountain |
| Waterton Lakes, Elk Island, Wood Buffalo | Campgrounds | 3 February 2026, 8 am (moved from 21 January) | Mountain |
| Pacific Rim | Green Point campground | 29 January 2026, 8 am (moved from 16 January) | Pacific |
| Pacific Rim | West Coast Trail | 5 February 2026, 8 am (moved from 19 January) | Pacific |
| Riding Mountain, Grasslands | Campgrounds | 30 January 2026, 8 am | Central |
| Bruce Peninsula | Cyprus Lake and backcountry | 2 February 2026, 8 am | Eastern |
| Fundy | Campgrounds and backcountry | 6 February 2026, 8 am | Atlantic |
| Cape Breton Highlands, Prince Edward Island | Campgrounds | 9 February 2026, 8 am | Atlantic |
| Kejimkujik | Campgrounds and backcountry | 11 February 2026, 8 am | Atlantic |
| Gros Morne | Campgrounds and backcountry | 11 February 2026, 8:30 am | Newfoundland |
Checked 6 October 2026 against the Parks Canada reserve page and park pages, with a few 2026 dates confirmed from news reports at the time. IT outages on 16, 19 and 21 January 2026 led Parks Canada to postpone the launches set for those days, and several later launches moved too. A 2027 column goes in once Parks Canada publishes its schedule.
When a launch date moves
A posted date is not final. In January 2026, IT outages led Parks Canada to postpone the launches set for 16, 19 and 21 January, and several later launches moved too. These are the moves we have on record. When a 2027 date changes, the change is added here and the email list gets the new date beside the old one.
| Park and product | Was | Moved to |
|---|---|---|
| Banff National Park: frontcountry camping | 23 January 2026 | 12 February 2026 |
| Yoho National Park: Lake O’Hara overnight camping | 22 January 2026 | 10 February 2026 |
| Pacific Rim National Park Reserve: the West Coast Trail | 19 January 2026 | 5 February 2026 |
| Chilkoot Trail National Historic Site: the Chilkoot Trail | 19 January 2026 | 5 February 2026 |
| Waterton Lakes National Park: frontcountry camping | 21 January 2026 | 3 February 2026 |
| Elk Island National Park: frontcountry camping | 21 January 2026 | 3 February 2026 |
| Pacific Rim National Park Reserve: Green Point camping | 16 January 2026 | 29 January 2026 |
| Glacier National Park (BC): frontcountry camping | 16 January 2026 | 29 January 2026 |
| Gulf Islands National Park Reserve: frontcountry camping | 16 January 2026 | 29 January 2026 |
From the 2026 schedule as checked on 6 October 2026.
Get the dates by email or in your calendar
The booking-dates list is free and needs no Treader account. Once Parks Canada posts the 2027 schedule, it sends:
- An email when Parks Canada posts the 2027 schedule, with every launch at its own time.
- A reminder about a week before each launch morning, with every launch of that week in one email.
- A second reminder on the morning itself for the parks on Mountain time (Banff, Jasper, Yoho, Kootenay, Waterton, Elk Island and the Lake Louise shuttle), about half an hour before booking opens.
- A notice when a posted date moves, with the new date beside the old one.
The launch mornings are also a calendar you can subscribe to. Copy this address into your calendar app as a subscription (in Google Calendar: Other calendars, then From URL): https://www.treader.ca/cal/parks-canada.ics. The calendar is empty until the 2027 dates are posted. After that each launch appears at its own time, and when a date moves, the event moves with it.
BC Parks, Alberta Parks and the shuttle release on a rolling clock
Not everything in the Rockies sells on one launch morning. The provincial systems open each arrival date a set time ahead, and the Lake Louise and Moraine Lake shuttle holds back most of its seats until two days before each departure. There is no single morning to miss: yours depends on your dates.
| System | What it releases | When | Where you book |
|---|---|---|---|
| BC Parks | Campsites, by arrival date | Each date opens 3 months ahead at 7:00 am PT | camping.bcparks.ca |
| Alberta Parks | Campsites, by arrival date | Each date opens 90 days ahead at 9:00 am MT | shop.albertaparks.ca |
| Parks Canada shuttle to Lake Louise and Moraine Lake | The seats held back from the launch: 60 percent of the season in 2026 | 8:00 am MT, two days before the travel date | reservation.pc.gc.ca |
Provincial rules checked in September 2026 against each booking site. The shuttle split is the 2026 season's; 2027's is not published. For a provincial site, the free camping reservation calculator turns your arrival date into the morning it opens, with a calendar file for it, and the Alberta Parks reservations guide lists the 2027 long weekend mornings.
Copy a plan for your park, then add your camp nights
A campsite is only useful if it fits a route. Settle the route now and launch morning is about picking nights, not deciding where to go while a queue counts down. Each plan below is free to open and copy. Most are sightseeing days with no campground in them, so give the trip its dates and add each night as a camp stop under the campground's own name, such as Tunnel Mountain Village I or Whistlers. Going somewhere else? Start your own route in the road trip planner.
In Trip check
Trip check, free on every plan, reads the same booking table as this guide. For each night at a national park campground it tracks, on a dated trip, it names the morning that booking opens, in the park's time zone. Until Parks Canada posts 2027 it says so and shows when 2026 opened. On Discovery, $9.99 CAD a month, with push turned on, a reminder goes out the day before a matched booking opens.
Ready-made plans by park
- Copy the Banff plan, then add your camp nights Three days in Banff. Banff campgrounds opened on 12 February in 2026. /t/three-days-in-banff-bfx2k7
- Copy the Jasper and Icefields Parkway plan Five days. Jasper campgrounds opened on 27 January in 2026. /t/jasper-and-the-icefields-parkway-in-5-days
- Copy the Yoho and Kootenay plan Three days. Both parks opened their campgrounds on 20 January in 2026. /t/yoho-and-kootenay-in-3-days
- Copy the Cabot Trail loop Four days through Cape Breton Highlands, which opened on 9 February in 2026. /t/cabot-trail-loop-in-4-days
- Copy Victoria to Tofino Four days on Vancouver Island, out to Pacific Rim. Green Point opened on 29 January in 2026. /t/vancouver-island-victoria-to-tofino-in-4-days
- Compare every Canadian Rockies route Banff, Yoho, Kootenay and Jasper plans side by side, with what to book first. /destinations/canadian-rockies
What to have ready for launch morning
- An account on the reservation site, made and tested before launch morning, and a payment card to hand. Making the account on launch morning costs you the booking.
- Your party size and any equipment size (RV length, tent count), since the form asks for them.
- Two or three fallback sites and date ranges, because first choices go within minutes.
- The launch time in your own time zone. In 2026, Banff at 8 am Mountain was 10 am in Toronto, 7 am in Vancouver and 3 pm in London.
- Park entry, which a campsite booking does not include. The Discovery Pass guide has the 2026 rates and the day count where the annual pass beats paying by the day.
How a launch morning works
On the busiest launch mornings, the reservation site runs a queue. The waiting page opens 30 minutes before booking does. At the opening time (8:30 am in Newfoundland and Labrador), everyone on that page gets a random place in line, so arriving early in that half hour does not help, and refreshing does not either. Anyone who arrives after the opening time goes to the back. Not every launch has a queue. Popular Banff and Jasper summer sites go within minutes; cancelled sites come back all season, and most campgrounds take bookings until 2 pm on the day of arrival, so a miss on the morning is not the end of it.
Common questions
- When do Parks Canada reservations open for 2027?
- The national Parks Canada reservation schedule does not list 2027 launch dates yet (checked 25 October 2026). Check the national schedule and your park’s official page for announcements. In 2026 the campground launches ran park by park from 20 January to 12 February, and the shuttle opened on 15 April. Those are history, not a forecast for 2027. Treader's free booking-dates list emails when the schedule is published, then about a week before each launch, and its launch calendar (treader.ca/cal/parks-canada.ics) fills in once the dates are posted.
- When will Parks Canada post the 2027 launch dates?
- The national reservation page does not give a publication date for the 2027 schedule. The last two schedules went up in November or early December: the 2025 schedule was on the reserve page by 14 November 2024, and the 2026 schedule appeared between 17 November and 3 December 2025. A park may announce a product on its own official page before the national schedule changes. Treat a date as confirmed only when an official Parks Canada source names the park, product and year.
- What time do Parks Canada reservations open?
- In 2026 the campground, backcountry and shuttle launches opened at 8 am local time in the park, and at 8:30 am in Newfoundland and Labrador (Gros Morne and Terra Nova). Banff at 8 am Mountain was 10 am in Toronto, 7 am in Vancouver and 3 pm in London. The waiting page opens 30 minutes earlier, and anyone who arrives after the opening time goes to the back of the queue. The 2027 times are not published yet.
- How do Lake Louise and Moraine Lake shuttle reservations work?
- They launch separately from camping. In 2026, 40 percent of the season's seats went on sale on 15 April at 8 am Mountain time, and the other 60 percent at 8 am Mountain time two days before each travel date. Personal vehicles are not allowed on Moraine Lake Road, so a shuttle, public transit or a commercial tour is the way in. The 2027 shuttle season is not published yet.
- Can a Parks Canada launch date change after it is posted?
- Yes. In 2026 the Banff campground launch moved from 23 January to 12 February, and the West Coast Trail, Lake O'Hara and Waterton launches moved too. Check the reserve page the day before your launch. This guide lists each change, and Treader's free booking-dates list emails the new date beside the old one.
- When do BC Parks and Alberta Parks reservations open?
- Neither has a launch morning. BC Parks opens each arrival date 3 months ahead at 7:00 am PT, and Alberta Parks opens each arrival date 90 days ahead at 9:00 am MT. Treader's free camping reservation calculator gives the morning for your own dates.
- Does a campsite reservation include park admission?
- No. Admission is separate: a daily fee or the annual Discovery Pass. The Discovery Pass guide has the 2026 rates and the arithmetic for when the pass is cheaper.
- What happens if the reservation site has problems on launch day?
- In January 2026, IT outages on 16, 19 and 21 January led Parks Canada to postpone the launches set for those days, and later launches moved too: Banff went from 23 January to 12 February. Check the reserve page the day before your launch.
Book it and check it
- Parks Canada reservations One account for every national park campsite, shuttle and permit. https://reservation.pc.gc.ca
- Launch schedule Where Parks Canada posts each launch date. The national table still listed 2026 when we checked on 25 October 2026. https://parks.canada.ca/voyage-travel/reserve
- Discovery Pass Annual entry pass. Order by post ahead or buy at the gate. https://parks.canada.ca/voyage-travel/admission