Adopted 6 October 1936 on 92I/ W as a long-established name and as labelled on Geological Survey sheet 557, Kamloops, 1895, and on Dominion Sectional sheet 111, 1916. See Pavilion Range for origin information.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

"The following story relates to In-pa-at-kwa-ten, or Pavilion Lake, in Marble Canon, the water of which as a peculiar blue tint: Very long ago, the skunk was married to a short-tailed mouse, and the eagle stole away the skunk's wife. The skunk, seeing the culprits, came to the lake and thought he saw them in the bottom, though in reality the eagle and the mouse were sitting on a crag above the lake and the skunk saw only their reflection in the water. The skunk, however, ejected his malodorous secretion into the lake several times, till he had exhausted the supply; when he looked up at last he was chagrined to see the pair laughing at him for his pains. Ever since this time the lake has had its present peculiar colour." (George Dawson, "Report on the area of the Kamloops mapsheet", Geological Survey of Canada Annual Report 1894; Ottawa, 1896, pp35-36.)

Source: Provincial Archives' Place Names File (the "Harvey File") compiled 1945-1950 by A.G. Harvey from various sources, with subsequent additions

The site of a field of "freshwater corals", beehive-like structures built and occupied by microbialites (single-cell microorganisms). These structures are as delicate as cloud sponges and are exceedingly slow-growing; at an estimated growth rate of just a few inches per 1000 years, the tallest of the formations in Pavilion Lake are 11,000 years old. They were discovered and photographed by sport divers in 1997 and have been studied extensively in subsequent years. (excerpted from "151 Dives" by Betty Pratt-Johnson) Browse "Pavilion Lake Research Project" websites for photos and descriptions of ongoing international scientific collaboration to determine the origins of these unique carbonate formations, and to discover what the Canadian Space Agency and NASA hope to learn from Pavilion Lake's "freshwater corals".

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office