Publisher's Note

Publisher’s Note
Dear readers, The summer is going fast as everyone is having fun especially that we just wrapped up the festivities of the 10 days Calgary Stampede. The weather cooperated in a way where it showered during the parade but it all went well. I’m sure that the organizers of Calgary Stampede were all happy with an [...]
Read full post »

Visitors to Pinoytimes

Start of StatCounter Code

End of StatCounter Code

Page added on January 16, 2016

Email This Post Printable version

Print This Post

ABRAHAM LAKE, ALBERTA – Amazingly Unique!

The year 2015 was an awesome one, in which my wife Ludy and I took about 30 vacations – ranging from day trips to 3 or 4 days in length. A fun year indeed!

We typically pick a destination for our day trips, but we spend more time on the drive checking things out along the way there and on the way back. Every little town or village has much to offer and planning and preparedness can be done using GOOGLE.

January 1, 2016 had us on the road on a crisp but sunny winter day. Our destination – Abraham Lake. Located west of Red Deer on the David Thompson Highway (#11) it can be reached in a number of ways. We chose a route going through Olds, Caroline, Rocky Mountain House and Nordegg, Alberta, close to an entrance to Banff National Park.

This lake, at 30 km in length is one of Alberta’s largest man-made lakes and is incredible in the summer with its trademark Rockies turquoise tint. However we did not want to wait until summer but wanted to check out a unique phenomenon of Abraham Lake, visible only in the winter. First I’ll give you the history of this lake.

Abraham Lake is named in memory of Silas Abraham, a Stoney Indian from Morley, Alberta who hunted and trapped in the area. The lake resulted from the construction of the Bighorn Power Plant in 1969, on the North Saskatchewan River and covers 13,700 acres.

The phenomenon I wanted to see is that there are millions of bubbles trapped in the ice. The thing is, the bubbles are methane gas, from both decomposing organisms and deep sources in the ground under the lake. This feature occurs in other northern lakes but none are as spectacular as Abraham Lake!

While exploring the lake which in January only had ice one metre thick, it was eerie to hear the ice crack and heave. By the end of winter the ice will be twice as thick and the methane bubbles will continue to be trapped and freeze.

If you ever get to Abraham Lake in the winter to see this rare sight-don’t try to ignite the bubbles, they could actually explode! No surprise-the Japanese are already exploring and testing to see if the methane can be extracted and used as an alternative source of energy.

All in all, our day trip covered 700 km and cost less than $50 for food and gas and our photos show it was money well spent!

Steve Tarzwell

see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php