Lake Louise & Moraine Lake (40)

Just as the weather forecasters had predicted, it was indeed a glorious day for us to visit Lake Louise. The sun was shining brightly and the expected temperature was again around 21°C.

The drive there was only about 45 minutes and shortly before we saw directions to Lake Louise, we saw the turn off to Moraine Lake. We had been told about Lake Louise and that it was a “must” visit, so drove straight ahead to see Louise first – however, when we arrived at the car park we had a huge problem trying to find a spot.

As it was a beautiful sunny Saturday, there were hundreds and hundreds of cars parked and a huge number still trying to find a park. Unfortunately, due to the width and length of our Chev we have to find that “special” spot, generally 1 ½ car lengths are needed and a little extra room between for our width – an impossible task on that day.

Accordingly, we went to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise, only a few hundred metres away and paid for a park – not too bad really at $10 for the day. We still had no idea in which direction lay Lake Louise so we walked about the ground floor of this lovely hotel in search of a place to have a coffee and morning tea. As we neared the café, a floor to ceiling glass wall greeted us and there she was, Lake Louise with Mt Victoria about 8 km behind her, complete with a snow capping.

An absolutely fantastic view! Then we looked at the cost of their morning tea and decided it was a great idea to go outside and explore….very expensive prices to match their very expansive view!

Lake Louise, the body of water that the Stoney Indian people knew as Ho-run-num-nay, the “Lake of the Little Fishes,” lies in a valley close to some of the higher peaks in the Canadian Rockies. It is the highest village in Canada at 1,730 metres and the first non-native to behold the lake was Tom Wilson, who, led by a Stoney guide reached its eastern shore in 1882.

Wilson named it Emerald Lake due to its rich colour. Two years later in 1884, the Geographic Board of Canada renamed the lake after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848–1939), the sixth child (and fourth daughter) of Queen Victoria.

It seemed appropriate as the mountain behind the lake (Mt Victoria) was already named after her mother, Queen Victoria. Canada has also bestowed another honour after Princess Louise, naming this state Alberta, from Louise’s surname. Princess Louise lived in Canada for five years while her husband was the Governor General of Canada, however, she never visited Lake Louise.

The lake is fed by glacial melt from six mountains and the temperature, even in the midst of summer doesn’t rise above 10°C. It is 2km long, ½ a kilometre wide, depth is about 70 metres and during winter the entire lake freezes over to a depth of about 1 metre.

The lake’s colour varies throughout the year from a vivid blue to an emerald green. It is caused by minute particles of rock that have been pulverised beneath the glaciers and carried down into the lake by meltwater streams.

Moraine Lake

Unfortunately, due to the overburdening number of cars, Grace was the only one of us to have a look at Moraine Lake. Traffic was parked on one side of the road (many of them illegally parked almost blocking half the narrow road) for almost a kilometre from the lake.

By the time we had slowly negotiated our way down to the actual, quite small car park at the lake, it was just too far to try to drive back up in an attempt to see the lake for ourselves. So, I sat closely behind some parked cars and put the emergency flashers on. Grace hopped out, camera in hand and we waited for her return.

She said it was nowhere as beautiful as Lake Louise (luckily) – at least we had some photos to look at, so headed back up the mountain. There was a pull out with good mountain views about half way back to the intersection of Lake Louise and here, so we stopped to have a picnic lunch beside the road.

We did have a friendly, curious little visitor but as we offered no food, left us quite quickly.

There was another lake for us to look at about 15 minutes from Banff, Lake Minnewanka (I’m not too sure how to correctly pronounce the name and I’m not going there now!) however I couldn’t find it in the Tom Tom.

So, off home we travelled, slightly sunburnt but happy.