Canadian Rockies - last visits of 2021

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1.Two Jack Lake with Patrick - Two Jack Lake named after Jack Stanley, who operated a boat concession on lake Minnewanka at one time, and Jack Watters, who worked for the mines in Bankhead, a town which flourished at the base of Cascade Mountain just after the turn of the century.

2.Lake Windermere with Pam - Lake Windermere wasn’t always called what it is today. It was first named Lower Columbia Lake. The average depth of the lake is only 15 ft (4 ½ m). Windermere and Invermere were named after regions in Britain.

Tens of thousands of years ago, most of the Rocky Mountain Trench, as we know it today lay under about 6,000 feet of ice. As the ice gradually melted, it left behind lakes, rivers and streams in the valleys between the mountain ranges. One of these waterways was the Columbia River.

The earliest recorded humans in the area were the Ktunaxa people whose hunting grounds ranged through several of the northwestern United States and into the Columbia Valley. They were a nomadic tribe, moving wherever they were able to find food and the Columbia River was a major spawning ground for the ocean-going Chinook salmon.

In 1807, explorer/cartographer/fur trapper David Thompson came through, mapping the area and trading with the indigenous people. Next came hundreds of settlers, mostly from Europe, but the Columbia Valley and Lake Windermere were almost unknown to tourism until the Banff-Windermere Highway was completed in 1923.



3.Skating on the river Patrick & Finn

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