Abraham Lake

Abraham Lake is a reminder that a reservoir can be as striking as any glacial lake. It came into being in 1972, when the Bighorn Dam, built by what was then the Calgary Power Company, held back the North Saskatchewan River on the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. The water spread along the valley for about 32 km, a narrow ribbon rarely more than three kilometres wide, at roughly 1,340 m above sea level. Although the lake is artificial, it takes its milky turquoise colour from the same fine rock flour that tints the glacier-fed lakes of Banff and Jasper, carried down by the river from the icefields upstream.

The lake is best known for what happens in winter. Plants drowned when the valley was flooded still decompose on the lake bed, and the methane they release rises in columns of bubbles. Once the surface freezes, usually by late December, those bubbles are caught mid-ascent and stack up beneath clear black ice like frozen strings of pearls or white discs. The effect is sharpest from mid-January to mid-February, when strong winds scour the snow off the ice and the bubbles can be seen, and photographed, through a surface that looks like polished glass. Mountains rise straight from the shore on both sides, so the scene is never only about what lies under your feet.

The name honours Silas Abraham, a Stoney Nakoda man who farmed and hunted on the Kootenay Plains, the open grassland at the head of the lake; it was chosen after a naming contest held by the Alberta government in the year the dam was finished. In summer the colours turn softer and the lake becomes a place for long views from the David Thompson Highway, which runs along its eastern shore between the old mining settlement of Nordegg and Saskatchewan River Crossing on the Icefields Parkway.

Getting there

Abraham Lake lies in Clearwater County, Alberta, about 180 km from the town of Cochrane. The nearest airport in a straight line is Whitecourt Airport (YZU), around 220 km away, but most visitors fly into Calgary International Airport (YYC) and drive. From Calgary one route follows the Trans-Canada Highway through Banff, north on the Icefields Parkway (Highway 93) and east on Highway 11, where the lake appears about 49 km after the junction; the drive takes roughly three and a half hours. Another goes via Cochrane, Highway 22 and Rocky Mountain House, then west on Highway 11 past Nordegg, from where the lake is about half an hour further. The southern end, Preacher's Point, has a car park near the shore, but the ice there is weak where the river enters. Winter ice conditions change quickly: walk on it only with proper traction and local knowledge.