Lake Minnewanka

Every lake in the Rockies has its own character, its own story, and the story of Lake Minnewanka goes back to 10,000 years when the aboriginals inhabited its banks, and called it Minn-waki or the Lake of Spirits. Today the Spirits are gone, the Banff town embraces it and calls it its very own, the Banff Lake. The Brilliance of the lake lies in its sheer mass, its Emerald Green waters run 21 km in length, and 142 m in depth, all this boxed between the towering Rockies and dense forests. A comfortable 5 km outside of town, Minnewanka hosts activities galore – picnicking, fishing, mountain biking, hiking, canoeing, and diving.
The one-hour interpretive tour from Brewster is an ideal way to explore the lake as it takes you lengths inside its waters, with your eyes gawking at its shoreline for wildlife spotting. The tour guide entertains you with Native lore, and the history of the submerged Minnewanka Landing, now explored by divers for remnants of once a settlement along its banks in the pre dam construction era. With your eyes glued to the dense forest on the Southern shore, the guide asks you to rather head northward, for the wild exists only there, where it is scanty, and yet the nutrition laden vegetation supports the entire food chain. The boat winds at the Devil’s Gap, a niche carved out by Minnewanka’s waters at work, cutting at the foothills of the Rockies, with a view of the enormous savannas far ahead.

People still (albeit just a few) hear eerie ghost sounds around the lake, for after all they take Minn-waki a bit too seriously, ask me and I would say that nature seems to be the only occult at work at the Minnewanka!