Our Canadian Treasures - Quiet Lake, Yukon

This one for commenters Gerry and KC - lovers of lakes From what I have been reading, Quiet Lake is supposed to be the largest of three lakes that feed the Big Salmon River system. John McCormack, one of four miners who prospected the Big Salmon River and parts of the Yukon River in gold, gave the lake its majestic and aptly fitting name "Quiet Lake". Quiet Lake extends to a good 30 km lake in length. As you can see from the vid below, the opportunities to see wildlife is in aplenty. Quiet Lake is now considered to be a Yukon Territory park and is located about halfway between Johnson's Crossing and Ross River on Yukon Highway 6, the Canol Road. Quiet Lake has a 20-site campground on its shoreline. To get to this beautiful lake, you will have to travel the Canol Highway, the name is a shorten form of "Canadian Oil" as there was a pipeline built there during World War II.

"The Canol Highway is actually short for “Canadian Oil” and was originally built during World War II. It was thought that with the construction of the Alaska Highway and the presence of the military in the area a source of fuel was needed. So, a road and pipeline were built from Norman Wells in the NWT all the way to Whitehorse, Yukon where a refinery was built. The total length on the pipeline was an impressive 1000 km or 600 miles. Oil actually only flowed for one year from 1944-1945 before the project was mothballed due to poor production from the oil fields at Norman Wells. The Canol road, now maintained by the Yukon Government during the summer months, is the only remains of this considerable endeavor."

This great video shows a part of the Quiet Lake. The makers of the video, Lutz Petereit and Manfred Strauss have this to say: "scenes from our movie about canoeing on Big Salmon River in the Yukon Territory in Canada from Quiet Lake to Carmacks. 360Km in 10 days, 10.-20. Sept. 2004" They come from Germany to our part of the world and have a great love for the Yukon which they plan to visit again next year. Lines from Robert Service's "Spell of the Yukon" There's a land where the mountains are nameless, And rivers all run God knows where; There are lives that are erring and aimless, And deaths that just hang by a hair. There are hardships that nobody reckons; There are valleys unpeopled and still; There's a land-oh, it beckons and beckons, And I want to go back-and I will. And, here is a book you might want to read: Song Over Quiet Lake by Sarah Felix Burns which is a "The magical story of friendship between twenty-something Sylvia Hardy and Lydie Jim, an eighty-two year old Tlingit elder from the Yuko"