46
"Medicine Lake is surrounded by harsh mauve, grey mountains. The Indians say the lake has medicine magic because in late summer the water just disappears and the erstwhile gleaming jade of the lake becomes a rocky bog. Where, or why, the water goes no one seems to know, but nearer Jasper an underground river emerges in a deep rocky canyon, called the Maligne River."47
"While the name Maligne is significant, meaning evil, and applies to the sudden storms which come upon the lake, it is hardly expressive of the queenly beauty of this mountain lake. Maligne Lake is very deep and is about nine miles long and one and a half miles wide. About halfway up the lake there is a narrowing of the waters, called Samson Narrows, and beyond this the lake widens again into a large lake surrounded on all sides by spectacular snow-covered mountain peaks of unique character.Any time on the lake is delightful, but to move up and down the lake at sunset is an experience in color and form never to be forgotten. It is as if a master hand touched the keys of a great color organ and began to play notes of color in light upon the waters, the forests and the mountain peaks, with their fields of snow and ice turning from white and green and bronze to gold, to Persian rose, to blues and mauves. Often the master hand added to all this loveliness the opera of vibrating colors in a cloud filled sky, an ecstasy of delight, too wonderful for words."
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