Latest news with #LakeMinnewanka
CBC
4 days ago
- General
- CBC
Q&A: Divers locate car that sank to bottom of Lake Minnewanka over 8 decades ago
A car that's been sitting at the bottom of Lake Minnewanka for more than eight decades has finally been located and photographed by a group of divers. It's believed the car sank about 85 years ago and has been sitting 55 metres below the surface ever since at the popular lake in Banff National Park. The lake is a big draw for scuba divers because a dam built in 1940 forever submerged the summer village of Minnewanka Landing. Three divers from Alberta and B.C. recently made the journey to the lake's dark and icy depths and took some spectacular pictures of the car. Calgary's Alan Keller is one of the divers. He chatted with Loren McGinnis, host of CBC Radio's the Calgary Eyeopener, on Thursday. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. What do you know about the car, how did it get there? They don't know much about the car other than the legend or rumour about the car that the guides share about it. That a gentleman was on the ice. He wanted to take a picture of his car with the backdrop of the mountains, and he's setting up his camera and as he's turning around, his car fell through the ice. Glug, glug. Glug, exactly. Do you know how old the car is? We estimated it's a 1928 Hudson Essex Saloon, based upon images that we can match with it on the internet. How did you find it? We found it because there were people in the lake a few years ago doing some searching for other purposes. And so they came across this target. And of course with the world being a small place and scuba divers being a small community, they shared that information with us right instantly. And so then we went out and gathered our resources and then did the dive. Take us to the moment when you saw it. What was it like when you first encountered it? There was a lot of stuff going on initially when we found it. So when we got down, we didn't see it right away because we weren't that lucky. We had to do a little bit of searching. So we did a spoke pattern and then about the third time that we went out, my buddy Johnny saw it and he was the first one to lay eyes on it. And I was, of course, the second. But it was a state of like, "Holy cow, we actually found it." That's very lucky to be able to find something so small on a first go, but also to be the first people to lay your eyes on it after 85 years was pretty spectacular. And just the condition of the visibility, that sort of thing, to be able to see it properly and take proper images of it it all — it all worked out. How did you prepare for the dive? Because 55 metres — that's no joke. Behind the scenes, there's a lot of training behind it … like estimating how deep it's going to be. So we have the estimate from when they were out on the lake, but then we had estimated based upon where the lake level is now, because it's an active reservoir. And so they'll manage the lake level for the spring runoff, that sort of thing. And then it's just a matter of, OK, it's this deep. Now we need to plan what our gases are that they're going to be breathing, and how are we going to be co-ordinating the dive teams, that sort of thing. And then how are we going to mitigate any risks, like, what if something goes wrong. How long did it take you to find it? When we were doing the dive, about seven minutes. Oh, that's amazing. Oh, we had really good information. So the information we had was really good and then we also interpreted the information as well. How has the reaction been in the diving circles that you run in? It's pretty cool. It's just something, because it's a lake that a lot of local people dive, just to have something new out there. A lot of people aren't going to be able to dive it because of its depth, but just that there was something actually new to find and there's other stuff out there. What else do you figure is out there? One of the images that I saw looks like a box car from a mine — there was lots of mining activity there. Are you now going to spend some time in Minnewanka trying to find out what else is in there? Yeah, definitely. Now that we've been successful with what I'm probably going to say was the most challenging one to target, just because of the depth and where it's at in the lake, we definitely want to tackle the other ones. Is this discovery going to attract more divers to this site? Oh yeah, everybody's just like, "Hey, next time hit me up."
CBC
4 days ago
- General
- CBC
Solving a Lake Minnewanka mystery
The Calgary Eyeopener talks to scuba diver Alan Keller about the recent discovery of a vintage car beneath the waters of Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park
National Post
4 days ago
- Automotive
- National Post
Rumours confirmed of car swallowed up by Lake Minnewanka in Alberta nearly a century ago
It took only a few minutes of diving time for John Ryan and his team to confirm a decades-long rumour of a car resting on the bottom at the middle of Lake Minnewanka. Article content Article content A week ago, the Airdrie resident and his companions donned wetsuits and fell off an inflatable boat to scour the Banff National Park's lake for a car that had supposedly fallen through the ice in the late 1920s or early 1930s. Article content Article content At a depth of nearly 60 metres about four kilometers from shore, the ghostly sight of an Essex sedan, possibly of 1928 vintage, emerged in the silty, grey-green murk. Article content Article content 'We found it in seven minutes, which is extremely rare,' said Ryan, adding the discovery was made in water with five metres of visibility. Article content 'The lake is slowly giving up its secrets and we're determined to get there.' Article content Ryan and fellow divers Alan Keller and Brian Nadwidny had been tantalized by stories of a Saskatchewan photographer who'd driven his car far out onto the lake's ice and had set up his camera tripod when his vehicle broke through the ice, fortunately without him. Article content The trio had recently received a tip from a man who had detected what could have been the lost car while searching for a body using side-scan sonar. Article content 'We obviously needed to dive for it, there was no two ways about it,' said Ryan. Article content Using their own sonar device on board their boat, the men pinpointed the most likely site for the car in one of the deepest parts of the frigid lake and swiftly found it resting on the lake's silty bottom, the first time humans have laid eyes on it since its disappearance, said Ryan. Article content 'Being the first to see this dusty old car is the reason we do it (given) all the expense and time away from home,' he said. Article content The old Detroit-built car has kept its park pass — metal in those days — and white Saskatchewan licence plates bearing the red numbers 48009. Article content A shovel partly buried in silt can be glimpsed inside the car that initially appears in sturdy condition, 'but you can see the years have not been good to it,' said Ryan. Article content The cars aren't the only sunken human artifacts hidden by the 20 km-long lake northeast of the Banff townsite. Article content The ruins of the summer village of Minnewanka Landing, which was fully inundated in 1941 with the construction of a dam. Article content It's a subterranean locale known well by scuba diver Ryan, who has floated along its streets that lie 18 metres below the lake's waves. Article content 'You can see the ruins of a hotel (dating to 1886), a stove, lanterns, a road, tree stumps and a sidewalk,' said Ryan. But those ruins are well-travelled by divers, he said. Other undiscovered prizes remain somewhere much further from shore than the remains of the village. Article content The rumour is, there might be two other cars sitting in Lake Minnewanka glacier-fed depths waiting to be discovered, said the Airdrie man. Article content
CTV News
20-05-2025
- CTV News
Banff National Park issues bear warning after ‘contact with a tent'
A bear warning has been issued for Lake Minnewanka Trail in Banff National Park. The warning, issued by Parks Canada on May 17, indicates that a female bear and her offspring 'made contact with a tent' in a campground in the area. 'Be prepared to encounter a bear at any time in this area,' cautions the alert. 'Make noise when hiking and cycling, keep pets on leash and a close eye on children.' The alert also warns people to not only carry bear spray, but know how to use it. Bear sightings in Banff can be reported to the visitor's centre or Banff dispatch at 403-762-1470. The warning is expected to remain in place until June 15. Johnston Canyon Trail is also seeing access restricted, because of an endangered bird species, not a bear. A May 15 alert says use of the trail from the lower trail sign to the Ink Pots/Moose Meadows junction is prohibited, thanks to a small population of black swifts, which have to be protected from human disturbances under the Canada's Species at Risk Act. Parks Canada says the closure is expected to be in place until Nov. 15. Violators may be charged and fined up to $25,000. At Vermillion Lake, an area has been closed off to all traffic or travel at the north end of the lake – including the shoreline and nearby waters – to protect nesting loons. The closure is expected to end by June 27. Again, violators may be charged and fined up to $25,000.
