Canada — Paska Lake

September, 2018

More water than you can shake a stick at!

Truly!  Canada has that many lakes and rivers.  In fact, depending on which resource you read, Canada has 1/3 of the world’s fresh water.  Some of it is trapped in underground aquifer, some in glaciers, but still … approximately 30% of all the fresh water in the world is in Canada.

Just one very small portion of Canada from Google Earth.

Great Bear Lake … just that one lake … has 536 cubic MILES of water in it.  And yes, I’ve made sure I typed that correctly.  The Mackenzie River alone, just this one river, discharges 9,700 cubic meters of water every second, about 2.57 MILLION gallons of water every second.

Of the fresh water that’s in Canada … 60% of it drains to the north, mostly into the Arctic or into Hudson Bay.  Some rivers drain east or west (the Fraser River to the west and the St. Lawrence River/Seaway to the east), and some water drains to the south into the USA into the five Great Lakes that sit on the border between Canada and the USA (and then out the St. Lawrence or down the Mississippi, etc) and some water drains into major rivers like the mighty Columbia River in Washington State.

And here you thought Canada was known for its beer (Moosehead Lager, Rifleman Ration Brown Ale, Lug-Tread Lager, etc) or the brave and handsome men and women of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police or “Mounties”) or for its beavers (the national symbol of Canada).  Canada is known for all of those things, but Canada is also known for its lakes and rivers which were, after all, the original trade routes that opened up Canada in the first place.  And, perforce, because of those water trade routes, Canada is all about canoes, too.  In fact, one wonders why the birchbark canoe isn’t the national symbol of Canada.  But then, that’s a discussion for another day.

I see discussion online about fresh water shortages all over the world and that the next major world-wide conflict may be related to control of fresh water.  Keep your eyes on Canada.

Today’s post is actually not about water (I just got sidetracked again and found all of that very interesting).  Today’s adventure was a day-drive in the big white truck … east away from the campground at Logan Lake, then north up to Paska Lake, 4,800 feet in altitude (Logan Lake is about 3,900 feet).  It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day.

After leaving the main road that heads east from Logan Lake, there’s a turn-off onto this small road that leads to Paska Lake.

After crossing the cattle guard, the road winds for several miles through timbered land.

Here are some of the aforementioned cattle.  There were some standing on the road but I thought better of trying to photograph them while driving.  They didn’t move an inch when I drove past them.  I guess they thought, rightly so, that I was the odd one here, not them.

 

Eventually, the road became a one-lane gravel road with occasional turn-outs so vehicles could pass in opposite directions.

 

At the Paska Lake sign, I turned onto the road that led to the campground.  The photo above is the view down into the campground at Paska Lake.  There was not a vehicle or camper or RV in sight.  I had the place all to myself.

I drove into a campsite right on the edge of the lake.  The water was about three feet lower than the land where I parked the truck, and the slope was so gentle that I could have driven the truck right into the lake had I wanted to.  I chose not to.  🙂

I loved the picnic tables!

The campsite next to where I parked had this ramp used for pulling a fishing boat out of the water so the boat could sit safely on dry land overnight, and so the owner would have easy access to the stuff in the boat.

What a gorgeous view out over the lake.  I walked around quite a bit, then jumped back into the truck and drove on up the main gravel road to explore further.

There was a community of homes in one area along the road … partly year ’round homes and partly vacation homes.

 

The photo above is of some of the cabins at Mile High Resort (open year ’round) on the next lake up the road, Face Lake.

I suspect this was an old road-grader.  The engine was still in it, but the tires had seen better days.

I drove up the road a bit further, then finally turned around and started back-tracking south on the gravel road.

 

 

The view above is of Paska Lake from the north as I drove past it on my way south.  You can see a bit of the Paska Lake campground on that peninsula on the right.  It was absolutely beautiful country.  The average snowfall is about 85 inches total throughout an entire winter at Paska Lake.  Bring your snowshoes!