Lower Waterfowl Lake

In late September, we took a trip to BC. Our first stop along the way was Lower Waterfowl Lake, which is located just south of Saskatchewan Crossing on the Icefields Parkway. The best access is through the campground. We arrived to find the campground closed for the season, so we backtracked to the lookout on the Parkway and put in from there.

The Parkway lookout is pretty busy with cars and tourists. It also requires carrying the boats down a short, but steep path and then navigating the rocks at the bottom. This was no big deal but might be a barrier if you have mobility issues. There was a Parks self-certification box here but no other amenities and our self certifications actually got checked as we were putting in.

That done, we managed to get into the boats without dumping in front of the huge crowd of onlookers (!) and we set off counterclockwise.

Lower Waterfowl is beautiful and we had great weather for mid-September (on the return trip, there was sleet!).

It looks like you could also access the lake from the north end (there is a pull out and people had walked in). This might have been an easier access, at least at the shoreline. 

We then followed the shore to the outflow in the northwest corner.

To get a good look, we beached the boats and walked a bit. The bottom of the lake is rock on silt but it is gooey in places!

We then came back south on the western shore, which was lovely.

There is a nice sandy spit if you'd looking for a picnic site or to have a very cold swim.

The inflow (from Upper Waterfowl Lake) is on the south end. There are a couple of braided channels. We tried paddling up but couldn't get very far (current was strong).

We walked the boats up a ways (again, ground was pretty soft) and then had a short run down to the lake. You could portage your boats to Upper Waterfowl Lake. That would be about a kilometre carry. You can also access Upper Waterfowl from the campground (again requiring a carry; this access was also closed). 

It isn't clear if Parks deems these two lakes separate bodies of water when they apply their 48-hour dry rule. We didn't have time to do both lakes, so we just did a short river run and continued around the lower lake.

Below, you can see the campground access point to Lower Waterfowl. The perimeter of the lake is about 4.5km and would take maybe an hour. We fiddled about at the inflow and outflow and spent maybe two hours here. If you did Upper and Lower you'd be looking at about 3 hours.

Overall, a lovely lake and a great paddle. Maybe not as large and beautiful as nearby Bow Lake, but there was no one here, whereas Bow Lake was jammed with cars and boats when we went by.