With the majestic Canadian Rocky Mountains in the background, a car heads down Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park. The 2,600-square-mile (6,734-square-kilometer) park, with its dramatic snow- and ice-capped peaks, was first created to protect hot springs found in a cave by three railroad workers in 1883.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, the National Geographic book America's Great Hideaways, 1986)