Canada as a ski destination
Canada skis in two places at once. British Columbia took 34.5% of the country's 19.5 million skier visits in 2024/25 and Quebec 33.4%, on mountains with almost nothing in common: the Coast and Interior ranges of the west against the short, cold hills within an hour of Montreal and Quebec City. National visits rose 8.6% on the season before, and 2.57 million Canadians bought a lift ticket.1
- Ski areas
- 250+
- Skier visits, 2024/25
- 19.5 million
- Active participants, 2024/25
- 2.6 million
- British Columbia share of visits
- 34.5%
- Quebec share of visits
- 33.4%
What it is known for
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Two centres of gravity, not one
British Columbia took 34.5% of national skier visits in 2024/25 and Quebec 33.4%, so Canadian skiing has two roughly equal halves rather than a single heartland. Western Canada as a whole recorded 9.8 million of the 19.5 million national visits, 7.1 million of them in British Columbia and the Yukon and 2.7 million across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.1
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The industry's money sits in the west
Western Canadian ski areas generated C$2.67 billion of economic activity in 2023/24 and supported 21,698 jobs, of which British Columbia accounted for C$2.1 billion and Alberta C$493 million. That was slightly down on the C$2.73 billion recorded in 2022/23.1
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A market that is getting older
The average age of a Canadian skier or snowboarder rose to 42.9 in 2022/23, which the Canadian Ski Council attributed to declines in the under-17 and 18 to 34 groups. Over 18 seasons the core segment, defined as five continuous seasons of participation, fell 7 percentage points to 57% of visits.2
Resort guides
96 of the 1,311 ski areas mapped in the SkiAllDay app are in Canada, together 2,928 km of downhill terrain and 558 lifts. A cross-border area counts in every country it touches. The guides below are the ones written up so far.
| Resort | Pistes | Vertical | Lifts | Piste / lift km | Lift min / ski hr | North-facing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Banff Sunshine Village Alberta / British Columbia (Banff National Park) | 109 km | 1,070 m | 13 | 2.69 | 28 | 53% |
| Big White British Columbia (Okanagan, near Kelowna) | 105 km | 777 m | 17 | 3.22 | 32 | 6% |
| Lake Louise Ski Resort Alberta (Banff National Park) | 139 km | 991 m | 13 | 3.19 | 33 | 22% |
| Mont-Tremblant Laurentians, Quebec | 81.9 km | 645 m | 14 | 2.64 | 35 | 23% |
| Panorama British Columbia (Purcell Mountains, near Invermere) | 112 km | 1,300 m | 10 | 6.45 | 16 | 71% |
| RED Mountain Resort British Columbia (Kootenays, near Rossland) | 120 km | 890 m | 8 | 4.33 | 40 | 25% |
| Revelstoke Mountain Resort British Columbia | 55 km | 1,713 m | 5 | 6.05 | 11 | 36% |
| Silver Star British Columbia (North Okanagan, near Vernon) | 115 km | 760 m | 10 | 7.02 | 15 | 38% |
| Sun Peaks British Columbia (Thompson-Nicola, near Kamloops) | 135 km | 882 m | 13 | 6.30 | 17 | 27% |
| Whistler Blackcomb British Columbia (Sea to Sky, Coast Mountains) | 200 km | 1,609 m | 36 | 3.58 | 21 | 69% |
Piste, vertical and lift counts are the operators' own figures. The last three columns are measured from each resort's lift and piste network — see any resort page for how. Piste per lift km describes how sparse a lift network is, not how good it is: sort on it to find long runs off few lifts, or on lift minutes per ski hour to find quick laps.