Maligne Lake
Wednesday 19 June, 2024
Glacier above Maligne Lake.
We took a break from hard hiking for a more touristy day, soaking in hot springs and cruising Maligne Lake on a boat tour.
Like Radium Hot Springs, Miette Hot Springs is a developed hot spring operated by Parks Canada, in a dramatic mountain setting. It has four pools, one hot, one hotter, one cold, and one colder. We went back and forth between hotter and cold, soothing our overused muscles.
I wave to Eric from the hotter pool.
The Maligne River had seemed like the most interesting reasonably accessible place in central Jasper. I had booked an early evening boat trip for viewing Maligne Lake, the river's source.
We had expected that a boat would have outdoor seating, and were dismayed to find ourselves shut up inside, at close quarters with 43 other people. Six people at a time were allowed to stand on the stern deck, and we spent as much time as we could out there.
The enclosed boat, on beautiful Maligne Lake.
I had booked a deluxe tour that included a half-hour stop on Spirit Island. As the island is sacred to the local First Peoples and used in their rituals, we were not allowed to step onto it.
Us looking out at Spirit Island.
When I was inside the boat, I enjoyed the informative narration of our guide, Bea, a young white woman with hair curlier than mine. Bea pointed out this bare spot on the mountainside, where an avalanche had cleared the trees.
Eric photographed a Bald Eagle, just a little past Spirit Island, which was about as far as the boat went.
After the cruise, on the shore of Maligne Lake, I photographed Common Loons. So, we photographed the national bird of the United States and the national bird of Canada, on the same day on the same lake.
Loon taking off from the lake.
There I had been taking pictures of the loons, when there was a grizzly across the outlet of the lake! A great sighting!
Back along Maligne Lake Road, we stopped to see Medicine Lake.
In addition to being beautiful, Medicine Lake is a geologic oddity. The lake fills like this in the spring from glacial meltwater. It has no apparent outlet, but it drains through its bottom into caves below the surface, and the water streams out 16 km/10 mi downstream. In the 1950's, there was an attempt to operate a ferry service on the lake. The ferry operator attempted to plug the holes in the bottom of the lake with sandbags, mattresses, and bundles of magazines, but the operation failed.
Eric photographed a marmot on the shore of Medicine Lake.
Trees on the hillside knocked down by the blast force of an avalanche, part of the natural cycle of the forest.
To top off the touristy day, we stopped in very touristy Jasper Town for dinner. Apparently Banff Town is even more touristy, but we didn't bother to see that one. We grabbed takeout Jamaican wraps.
While waiting for our wraps, we ran into one of the other participants from the Burgess Shale hike. He told us that he had gone out for beers with Steven and Antoine in Golden, BC. He had been incredibly impressed by their intellect. It's too bad we weren't able to join that gathering!
For a touristy day, it was still beautiful and enjoyable.
Map of our Maligne Lake boat trip.
On to Maligne Canyon.