Bow Glacier is located in

Banff National Park Banff National Park is Canada, Canada's first 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 ter ...

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 Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, approximately northwest of Lake Louise. It can be viewed from the

Icefields Parkway Highway 93 is a north–south highway in Alberta, Canada. It is also known as the Banff-Windermere Parkway south of the Trans-Canada Highway ( Highway 1) and the Icefields Parkway north of the Trans-Canada Highway. It travels through Banff Nat ...

. Bow Glacier is an outflow glacier from the

Wapta Icefield The Wapta Icefield is a series of glaciers located on the Continental Divide of the Americas, Continental Divide in the Waputik Mountains of the Canadian Rockies, in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, in Yoho National Park in the Can ...

, which rests along the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

. Runoff from the glacier supplies water to Bow Lake and the

Bow River The headwaters of the Bow River in Alberta, Canada, start at the Bow Glacier and Bow Lake (Alberta), Bow Lake in Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies, Canadian Rocky Mountains. The glacial stream that feeds Bow Lake (Alberta), Bow Lake ...

. The glacier is credited for creating the

Bow Valley Bow Valley is a valley along the upper Bow River in Alberta, Canada. The name "Bow" refers to the reeds that grew along its banks and which were used by the local First Nations in Canada, First Nations people to make bows; the Blackfoot langu ...

before retreating at the end of the

last glacial maximum The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), also referred to as the Last Glacial Coldest Period, was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period where ice sheets were at their greatest extent between 26,000 and 20,000 years ago. Ice sheets covered m ...

. Since the end of the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Mat ...

in 1850, Bow Glacier has been in a state of overall steady retreat. Between 1850 and 1953, the glacier retreated an estimated , and since that period, there has been further retreat which has left a newly formed lake at the terminal

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and Rock (geology), rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a gla ...

at the glacial snout. Sedimentation has also increased in Bow Lake due to increased erosion of soil that had been protected by the glacier, creating a small sediment

delta Delta commonly refers to: * Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet * D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta"), the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet * River delta, at a river mouth * Delta Air Lines, a major US carrier ...

at the western end of the lake.

References

:* :* Bow River Banff National Park Glaciers of Alberta {{canada-glacier-stub

See also

References