Lake Minnewanka

A visit to Banff isn't complete unless you breathe in the Lodgepole pine and hear freshwater splashing against the rocks of Lake Minnewanka. Only 15 minutes from the town site of Banff, a moment spent by the lake makes one feel as tall as the mountains and as wild as the wood thrush's song.

Squirrels hurry about, climbing trees to ring bell towers and leafy plants are growing everywhere, even through little cracks in the rock. If you put your palm to the water you can feel the grip of a snowdrift, which means it is far too cold for swimming or dipping your feet in. Sometimes the most beautiful of lakes are the ones you cannot touch. When they are this close to the mountains, all you can do is look out and try to discover if it is the lake's heartbeat you hear or your own.

A long time ago, long before Canada was a country, the shores of Lake Minnewanka or "Lake of the Water Spirits" was a home for the earliest peoples of North America. Spearheads and tools made of materials from the forest were once used to give life here, now they are history books sitting in museum displays. To think that a tool made by living breathing hands has lasted longer than the hands that made it is incredible. 

When I am long gone and my house is at the bottom of a lake, what will the archeologists of the future discover? Will it be my banjo that washes ashore? Will they put it in a museum display next to the spearheads they found at Lake Minnewanka? Will they call it history?

Wearing:

  Blouse •  Goodwill || Hat & Black Pinafore  •  Value Village ||  Boots • Montana

 

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