Lake Louise

Lake Louise is small – about 2 km long and half a kilometre wide – but few mountain lakes are so perfectly composed. At its western end the Victoria Glacier hangs on the shoulder of Mount Victoria, and the whole scene funnels towards it between steep forested walls. The water, up to 70 m deep and lying at about 1,750 m, takes its startling turquoise from rock flour: glacial meltwater carries a fine silt of ground stone that stays suspended and scatters the light. The colour shifts through the summer as the melt rises and falls, and on a still morning the glacier is doubled on the surface.

For the Stoney Nakoda people the lake was Ho-run-num-nay, the lake of little fishes. The first non-Indigenous visitor was Tom Wilson, a packer and outfitter who was brought here in 1882 by the Stoney guide Edwin Hunter and called it Emerald Lake. The name did not last: it was renamed for Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, a daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of the Governor General of Canada.

The Canadian Pacific Railway, which had just pushed its line through the Bow Valley, saw what it had. On the eastern shore it built, over the early decades of the twentieth century, the Chateau Lake Louise, the great hotel that still faces the glacier, and the lake became one of the emblems of the Rockies. Its fame has a price: on summer days the shore by the hotel is crowded. The way to see it at its best is early, or on foot: the trail along the northern shore and up towards the Plain of Six Glaciers, about 14 km there and back, leads to the cliffs and icefalls at the glacier's foot, and Lake Agnes and Moraine Lake are within reach as well.

Winter changes it entirely. The lake freezes, the glacier turns white on white, and the surface becomes a skating rink beneath the mountains; ice fishing, snowshoeing and dog sledding take the place of canoes and kayaks.

Getting there

Lake Louise lies in Banff National Park, about 60 km north-west of the town of Banff and roughly 184 km, about two hours' drive, west of Calgary, whose international airport (YYC) is the usual gateway. In summer the lakeshore car park often fills before sunrise; Parks Canada runs a reservable shuttle from the Lake Louise Park and Ride, and Roam Transit's Lake Louise Express connects with the town of Banff. The Tramline Trail, about 4.3 km one way, climbs to the lake from the village.