BANFF – They are perhaps the most difficult wild animals to see in Banff National Park. Their ancestors were overhunted from the area more than 125 years ago before the mighty plains bison, North America’s largest land mammal, were reintroduced to a secluded area of the mountain park on Alberta’s western edge.
Jeff Douglas has spent the past three years searching for the massive yet elusive creatures. A hiking guide from Canmore, Douglas went to extreme lengths, setting foot on every single trail in Canada’s flagship national park hoping to catch a glimpse of the majestic beasts.
“The whole idea of this trip started because of trying to see bison and it just snowballed,” said Douglas.
As owner and guide of Mountain Goat Adventures, Douglas had been familiar with most of the trails in Banff, but in the spirit of the new project he re-did every single one – approximately 50 major trails and more than 150 in total.
An astonishing feat of bushwhacking, trail-finding and solo adventuring, he hiked more than 2,000 km through old horse trails, connectors, short missions and forgotten decommissioned favourites to check off the list of trails. Douglas came across elusive wolverines, lynx, cougars, grizzly bears and basically every animal in Banff’s backcountry, except for one.
“Searching for bison and only finding hoof prints for a few years, [I] was [like], ‘Dammit. I’m going to get them,’” said Douglas.
Though after his first trip into the park at the start of the project, a near 200km, multi-day backcountry expedition in August 2022, Douglas quickly realized that what he was doing was bigger than his initial vision.
“I didn't have a Plan B if I didn't see them, except try again at a later point,” said Douglas. “I was just trying to explore. … Trying to find a colour that hasn’t been described yet would be one of the terms that I would think that I would use in order to get to see this place.”
The project
Inside of Douglas’ home in Canmore, there is a six-foot tall map of Banff National Park, with coloured Sharpie etches marking every trail that the adventurous guide has completed, like the Ya Ha Tinda and one of his favourite hikes, the Pipestone Pass.
The bison’s original home range was way out in the middle of nowhere in the Panther Valley, which Douglas had set sights on.
In 2017, Parks Canada translocated 16 plains bison from Elk Island National Park to Banff National Park. Of the pioneering herd, 12 pregnant cows and four bulls were reintroduced into Banff’s remote backcountry as part of a $6.4 million pilot project. In less than a decade, the herd’s numbers have grown to more than 100.
Bison can weigh up to 2,000 lbs and stand nearly six feet tall. With dark brown fur and shaggy coats, bison have muscular shoulders, large heads and curved black horns.
But would they be there on that particular day that Douglas had found time to make a multi-day backcountry trip? But bison or not, completing every trail in Banff was going to be something very few people ever have done.
Douglas primarily fast-packed for the big task, which combines lightweight gear packing and the speed and endurance of trail running.
He wore running shoes and carried a 30-litre backpack, which is normally about 10 lbs, but he regularly would clock in at the 12 or 13 lbs mark to give himself a few more “luxuries” in the backcountry such as a little stove for some morning coffee and a foam sitting pad.
He carried backcountry essentials as well, like a sleeping bag, GPS texting device to give daily updates to his wife, and bear spray.
As the fastpacking trips would entail, Douglas would quickly go through the trails on foot, trying to cover 50 km per day on longer trips. There was one time he completed a trail using backcountry skis, which was his only winter trip for the project.
“I’ve done a lot of backpacking, but never with that little of gear and that fast paced and I really enjoyed it,” he said.
Over the months, the project transformed again, with Douglas beginning to make photo documents of rustic warden cabins, old bridges and signs bronzed by age that he stumbled across. It didn’t serve a real purpose other than just a fun thing to do out on the trails. However, he had some interesting finds.
“On one of my trips I found an old warden cabin that was never dismantled and it’s completely dilapidated and there was a sign there from J.B. Harkin,” said Douglas.
Harkin was the first commissioner of the national parks in 1911, serving for 25 years. Calling it a neat piece of history, the rusted sign referred to the nation as the Dominion of Canada, a term stopped being used in the early 1960s. In other areas, Douglas has also found signs that measure distance in miles and not kilometres. Canada switched to the metric system in the 1970s.
“Some of this stuff is old,” he said.
“Again, I just wanted to see bison and then it just morphed into completing every trail and then I just started taking pictures of every piece of infrastructure that I had come across on my way.”
An angry bear
Douglas has been in the adventure tourism business for nearly two decades. As a certified guide with the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, he holds a high ethical standard for camping and hiking when in the backcountry, making sure he had the right permits and permissions and taking extra caution while in bear country.
“I scared the hell out of a bunch of bears and one bear scared the hell out of me,” said Douglas.
While in the final days of completing every trail, Douglas had an encounter with an adult grizzly bear in a way he had never experienced before. There were no cubs, so Douglas would have thought things would go smoothly for an experienced guide.
“I knew it was there, I saw footprints, and you’re obviously doing a lot of bear calls. This isn’t my first rodeo,” said Douglas.
But he said the big bear “stood its ground” and “made noises I’ve never heard a bear make before” in the heart-pounding encounter. Douglas made sure to stay 80-100 metres away from the grumpy bear, being pushed off the trail while making bear calls, only to receive a resentful snarl back from the bruin.
“All these animals have seen a human before, they know we are the most dangerous creature roaming around here … but this thing was angry,” he said.
Douglas got pushed further off the trail in the remote area as the grizzly stayed put, watching the hiker’s every move.
“It was quite frustrated by my presence, which is kind of surprising because it heard me for minutes before, so it was just having a bad day, which I get. I have those too,” he said.
For some, an encounter like that might be the end of future hiking trips, but Douglas’ wife, Dominique Lagloire-Galipeau, isn’t worried about her husband stumbling upon potentially dangerous wildlife or being alone in the rugged backcountry for days. In fact, it has been a feature of their relationship since the beginning.
“There is always a risk, but a lot of jobs have risks. We learned to live with it,” she said in an email.
“Jeff had the opportunity and the desire to take this on. It gave him purpose and brought him joy. As his partner, I was happy to watch him dedicate himself to something this unique and demanding. We don’t know if anyone else has ever done this, but they are certainly a rare breed.”
Although Douglas didn’t find bumping into pissed-off grizzly bears or daily isolation as the hardest part about it all, but rather navigation: finding the safest path of least resistance and outdated maps and trails.
“One of the hardest things to overcome is seeing on the map that there is a trail and then trying to find it,” he said with a laugh. “In the more remote parts of the park … on the map there is a trail, but it just means a human can navigate it, is what I think those maps actually mean.”
An ‘emotionally overwhelming’ moment
There were times over the nearly three years when Douglas thought to himself, “What the hell am I doing?”
It usually poked in the back of his thoughts during bad lightning storms, sideways rain or when bushwhacking through what felt like 50 kilometres of dense mountain alder, a bushy shrub.
Although, he said part of the project’s challenge was overcoming difficulties. But toward the end of completing all the trails in Banff in spring 2025, and probably close to 2,400 km of hiking at that point, what had become the most difficult thing was finding the bison.
During his final big trip into the remote backcountry of the Panther Valley, there was no Plan B if he didn’t see the elusive beasts during this trip. He would simply try again at another point.
“If I didn’t get to see them, I wouldn't feel less accomplished, and the same if I didn’t do every trail,” said Douglas.
After three days of solo backpacking in spring during his final big multi-day trip, Douglas descended a terraced grassy slope in the eastern area of Elkhorn Pass. It’s way out there in the backcountry and Douglas had not seen another person for at least 72 hours.
Nearly three years into the project, Douglas looked out into the open field area and saw large dark brown animals in the distance. The shaggy coats, the muscular shoulders, it was unmistakable what they were.
Describing it as an “emotionally overwhelming” moment, Douglas said he is pretty sure he cried after his journey had found its conclusion in the secluded backcountry – or at least he thought it was just him and the bison.
“As I descended … more started to get exposed and I just realized there was this huge herd and I got down to a point where I was 100 metres, maybe 200 metres away from me and I don’t want to get close to these things. I don’t want to be that guy. I want to be respectful of the place that I feel so fortunate in order to call this home and I get to do these things. So I sat down on a rock for probably 45 minutes and watched them. I didn’t even pull out my phone, I just wanted to be present,” he said.
After carpenter ants made their presence felt, crawling all over the hiker, Douglas had an “it’s time to start moving” moment but was surprised to bump into another person in the middle of nowhere. It was a Parks Canada employee, who was equally as astonished to see another person out there.
The bison enthusiasts agreed that they were the first person either of them had seen in three days. Then the employee asked Douglas to help count all the bison. Douglas got up to 89, while the employee counted 119 bison.
“It was quite special the way it ended by my last major multi-day trip by bumping into this huge herd,” Douglas said.
After completing every kilometre of Banff trails on May 10, 2025, Douglas walked away with an “icing on the cake” moment.
Realizing how special this journey and moment were, the guide said he wants magical places like Banff National Park to stay wild.
“I’m not ready for people to build bridges across the Clearwater so that your average backpacker can get there. I still think these places need to stay hard to get to,” said Douglas.
The long project that morphed into something bigger, from seeing elusive wildlife to rediscovering historical infrastructure, gave Douglas a deeper connection with the landscape and the need to keep the rugged wilderness a place to be respected by those privileged enough to be surrounded by it.
