Spotted Lake

Spotted Lake is a small alkaline lake in a dry valley of southern British Columbia, and in high summer it looks like nothing else on the continent. As the water evaporates in the heat, its heavy load of dissolved minerals, above all magnesium sulfate, with calcium and sodium sulfates and traces of other elements, crystallises out, and the lake breaks up into hundreds of separate pools, each ringed by pale mineral walkways. Their colours vary with the chemistry and the season, from blue through green to yellow, so that from above the basin resembles a spotted palette laid out between the hills.

For the Syilx Okanagan people the lake is kłlilx'w, often written Kliluk, a sacred place of healing whose waters and muds have been used for centuries, each circle believed to hold its own healing properties. The lake passed into private hands in the colonial era; during the First World War its salts were dug out and shipped for use in ammunition manufacture, and for around forty years afterwards the land was owned by a local family. In 2001 the Okanagan Nation bought back 22 hectares around the lake, with most of the cost paid by the federal government, and it remains a protected cultural site under Syilx care.

The lake is meant to be seen, not entered. A roadside viewpoint on Highway 3 looks down across the spots from beside a fence, and a sign asks visitors to respect the site; the spots are at their clearest in the heat of summer, when evaporation is strongest, and change size and shape as the season goes on. For a closer understanding of its meaning, guided visits are occasionally led by Syilx guides.

Getting there

Spotted Lake lies in the Similkameen country beside Highway 3, the Crowsnest Highway, about 10 km west of Osoyoos; Penticton is about 45 km away. The nearest airport is Penticton Airport (YYF), about 43 km away. The lake is viewed from the fenced roadside pull-out on the highway.