The Lakes of the Canadian Rockies

Oh, my goodness!  The color of the water in the Canadian Rockies’ lakes is unbelievable!

If you’ve ever seen pictures of Bow Lake, Lake Louise or any of the other lakes in the Canadian Rockies, you probably thought they had been photoshopped.  But, when you see them in person and up close, you realize there is absolutely no need to touch up any photograph.

While dining at The Chateau Lake Louise (which is a grand treat in itself), I began to reflect back on all the lakes we had seen nestled among the jagged peaks for which the Canadian Rockies are famous.  Every one of them possess the most incredible blue and turquoise waters ever seen!   They’re crystal-clear and it seems you can see forever when you’re looking into them.

So, the mission became clear… Discover the reason these lakes have such incredible colors. Folklore of old says the water is distilled from peacock tails.  Clearly, that’s not the reason, but most people mistakenly believe the color to be caused by the brilliant clear skies or the icy temperature of the water. After searching further, the scientific “truth” was unearthed.  The color comes from glacial rock flour.  Rock flour is formed by imprisoned rocks in the glaciers that grind again each other.  The meltwater washes the rock flour into the lakes.

And, there you have it…  The resulting mixture filters out all colors of the spectrum found in incoming light–all except the striking turquoise and vivid blues.  The different hues in the lakes are directly related to the size of the particles in the rock flour.  And, that’s why the water in the Canadian Rockies’ lakes has varying degrees of the green, blue and turquoise.