Medicine Lake is one of the most notable highlights along Maligne Lake Road east of Jasper. It got the name from the early native people in the area who believed that it had magical powers. It’s a unique body of water that vanishes and re-appears each year. Like several lakes in this mountain valley, it is continuously draining through a network of underground caves.
The bedrock in this part of the Maligne Valley had been fractured severely during uplift and allows the river to go underground, into one of the most complex systems of caves in the world. The rainwater and snowmelt had entered cracks and slowly dissolved the rock creating a network of underground passages. The upper Maligne River sinks into these passages through many openings in the valley floor. The water re-emerges in quite a few different places, including above Maligne Canyon.
During snow and glacial melting in the spring and summer, the water runs into the lake faster than it can drain. The surplus water, dammed by a massive rock slide to the north, floods the basin and forms Medicine Lake.
The lake remains until the water level starts to drop off as September approaches. By late Fall/Autumn the lake is gone leaving behind a giant mudflat and ribbon of water that flows to the drainage area (see info at: https://grazygoat.com/medicine-lake/).
