Brûlé Lake (also given as Brule Lake) is a lake in western

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Canada. It is formed along the

Athabasca River The Athabasca River (French: ''Rivière Athabasca'') in Alberta, Canada, originates at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper National Park and flows more than before emptying into Lake Athabasca. Much of the land along its banks is protected in nationa ...

, at the boundary of

Jasper National Park Jasper National Park, in Alberta, Canada, is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains, spanning . It was established as Jasper Forest Park in 1907, renamed as a national park in 1930, and declared a UNESCO world heritage site ...

and 30 km west of Hinton. According to one tradition, the lake was named for a burnt () tract of woods near the site.

Geography

The lake lies at an elevation of 984 m, is 10 km long, and has a maximum width of 2 km. The total water area is 14.5 km². Brûlé Lake is a widening of the Athabasca River at the foot of the Boule Range. Its inlet is at its southern tip, near where the

Fiddle River The Fiddle River is a medium-sized tributary of the Athabasca River, flowing into the river near the east gate of Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. The Fiddle River forms at the base of Fiddle Pass, with meltwater from Mount Bryant, Moun ...

enters. Solomon Creek joins the Athabasca River at the northern end, Brûlé Lake's mouth. On the west side, Brown, Supply, Scovil, and Claywood creeks drain into the lake. The main line of the

Canadian National Railway The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue a ...

—which is also used by

Via Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...

's ''

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

'' passenger train—follows the western side of the lake. Rock Lake-Solmon Creek Wildland Provincial Park meets the railway near the southwest lake shore. The hamlet of Brule is near the northwest shore. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway's abandoned grade is on the east shore, passing through the Brule Sand Dunes and the Brule Lake Public Land Use Zone. The

Yellowhead Highway The Yellowhead Highway () is a major interprovincial highway in Western Canada that runs from Winnipeg west to Graham Island off the coast of British Columbia via Saskatoon and Edmonton. It stretches across the four western provinces of Britis ...

runs further east.

History

In late 1810 on his first trip over

Athabasca Pass Athabasca Pass (el. ) is a high mountain pass in the Canadian Rockies on the border between Alberta and British Columbia. In fur trade days it connected Jasper House on the Athabasca River with Boat Encampment on the Columbia River.Whittaker, ...

North West Company The North West Company was a Fur trade in Canada, Canadian fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada a ...

cartographer David Thompson's party found what they took to be Iroquois huts on the shore of a lake in the area, likely Brûlé. In 1813, François Decoigne built a supply depot on Brûlé Lake, from which a handful of North West Company employees traded for furs and kept horses to facilitate trips into present day British Columbia. It became known as Jasper's House after its 1817 manager, Jasper Hawse. The company moved it further upriver to the north end of Jasper Lake around 1830.

Recreation

The Brûlé Lake

sand dunes A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...

are a popular place for

all-terrain vehicle An all-terrain vehicle (ATV), also known as a light utility vehicle (LUV), a quad bike or quad (if it has four wheels), as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, has a seat ...

driving.

Geography

History

Recreation

References

Citations

Bibliography

See also