Emerald Lake
Feature Type:Lake - Inland body of standing water.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: W of junction of Kicking Horse and Yoho Rivers, in Yoho National Park NE of Golden, Kootenay Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 51°26'34"N, 116°31'53"W at the approximate centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 82N/7
Origin Notes and History:

Adopted in the 2nd Report of the Geographic Board of Canada, 30 June 1900.

Source: BC place name cards, files, correspondence and/or research by BC Chief Geographer/Geographical Names Office.

Named by early mountaineering guides because of its extraordinary colour. Glaciers once covered this area and as the ice retreats, their meltwaters pick up a variety of sedimentary materials and carry it downstream to depressions surrounded by glacial debris, creating glacier-water lakes like this. The green or turqoise colour is from the finely ground-up rock flour suspended in the water: the scattering effect which the suspended particles has on the light, combined with the reflection of blue sky, gives the water its remarkable blue-green colour.

Source: BC place name cards, files, correspondence and/or research by BC Chief Geographer/Geographical Names Office.