Hector Glacier is located in
Banff National Park
Banff National Park is Canada's oldest National Parks of Canada, national park, established in 1885 as Rocky Mountains Park. Located in Alberta's Rockies, Alberta's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary, Banff encompasses of mountainous terrain, wi ...
,
Alberta
Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
. The glacier is on the north slope of
Mount Hector and extends northward for . In 1938, a large mass of the glacier broke off and covered the valley below with ice up to 60 m (200 ft) thick. The ice mass destroyed everything in its path and this is only the second known glacier hazard to have been recorded in the Canadian
Rockies
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Can ...
. The glacier, along with Mount Hector and
Hector Lake
Hector Lake is a small glacial lake in western Alberta, Canada. It is located on the Bow River, in the Waputik Range of the Canadian Rockies.
It is named after James Hector, a geologist and naturalist with the Palliser Expedition.
The la ...
are all named after
James Hector
Sir James Hector (16 March 1834 – 6 November 1907) was a Scottish-New Zealand geologist, naturalist, and surgeon who accompanied the Palliser Expedition as a surgeon and geologist. He went on to have a lengthy career as a government employe ...
, a prominent early
naturalist to the region.
See also
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List of glaciers
A glacier ( ) or () is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight; it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform ...
References
*
*
Banff National Park
Glaciers of Alberta
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