Maligne Lake

Maligne Lake fills a long, narrow trough in the Front Ranges of Jasper National Park: some 22.5 km of milky blue-green water, up to 97 m deep, lying at about 1,670 m above sea level. Its northern end is easy to reach by road, but the lake bends out of sight to the south, so the real view opens only from the water, where the shoreline closes in and glaciers come down towards it. From the boat you can pick out the Charlton-Unwin, Maligne and Coronet glaciers, under peaks such as Charlton, Unwin, Mary Vaux, Samson and Leah.

The celebrated view is of Spirit Island, a small tongue of land carrying a cluster of spruce, set against the mountains at the narrows partway down the lake. It is among the most photographed scenes in the Canadian Rockies, and it is reached only by water; seasonal boat tours run there from spring to autumn. In Stoney Nakoda it is called Githni-mi-Makoche, the healing island; it is sacred to the Stoney people, and visitors see it from a viewing area on the shore rather than setting foot on it.

The first outsider to reach the lake and write about it was Mary Schäffer, an American naturalist and photographer who set out from Lake Louise in June 1908 with Mollie Adams and the guides Billy Warren and Sid Unwin, guided by a map that Samson Beaver of the Stoney Nakoda had drawn for her. They explored the lake on a raft they christened HMS Chaba, and Schäffer gave it the name it now bears, borrowed from the river below. That river had earlier been called maligne, French for wicked, by the missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet, for its treacherous current.

The valley has a hydrological curiosity too. Downstream, at Medicine Lake, the Maligne River sinks into a system of limestone caves and sinkholes, so that the lake swells with summer meltwater and shrinks almost to a stream in winter; the water travels some 16–17 km underground and resurfaces near Maligne Canyon, one of the longest known underground drainage systems in Canada. Grizzly and black bears, caribou, moose, wolves and mountain sheep live in the valley, and ospreys and eagles fish the lake. The Skyline Trail, the park's best-known high-level multi-day hike, begins here, and the Opal Hills and Bald Hills give shorter climbs above the water.

Getting there

Maligne Lake is about 44 km south-east of the town of Jasper by the Maligne Lake Road, which passes Maligne Canyon and Medicine Lake on the way; shuttle buses run from Jasper in season. The nearest major airport is Edmonton International (YEG), about 390 km and four hours' drive from Jasper along the Yellowhead Highway; Calgary International (YYC) is about 435 km away via the Icefields Parkway.