PADDLE OVER EARLY
REMNANTS OF LIFE ON EARTH
Pavilion Lake is nestled in the limestone walls
of Marble Canyon between Cache Creek and Lilooet
along highway 99.
Its crystal blue waters are
groundwater fed with a maximum depth of 65 meters.
It was officially added to Marble Canyon
Provincial Park on April 18th, 20001 in an effort to
preserve the unique and fragile structures at the bottom
of the lake. According to Pavilion Lake Research
Project’s website www.pavilionlake.com the presence of
strange structures in Pavilion Lake had been known for
years by the British Columbia diving community and
the local Pavilion residents.
However, it was during the mid-1990s that the
scientific discovery of Pavilion Lake's unusual
microbialites occurred. It was immediately apparent that
these microbialites and the lake itself was a scientific
gold mine and that many comparisons could be drawn
between the lake's microbialites and those that existed
on Earth millions of years ago.
The activities at the site are considered analog
research and of great interest to the CSA and NASA for
two main reasons:
1. The microbialite structures provide a modern analog
to ancient fossilized microbialites preserved on Earth.
Studying how these modern structures form and are
preserved in the rock record will provide us with tools to
identify signatures of ancient life on our own and other
planets.
2. Our research and exploration using remotely operated
vehicle (ROV's), autonomous underwater vehicles
(AUV's), scuba divers and submersibles provide an
analog to human exploration missions on the Moon and
Mars. The research and exploration methods developed
at Pavilion Lake will contribute to future human mission
planning and exploration science on the Moon and
Mars.
According to a sign posted at the lake, the
Pavilion Lake Research Project was established in 2004
as a joint NASA-University of British Columbia effort
to conduct science and exploration of the lake.
Scientific study areas have been designated along much
of Pavilion Lake with scientific equipment and
experiments deployed along set transects. Recreational
diving is only permitted in selected areas to avoid any
disturbance of microbialites, scientific equipment or
experiments.
 Cindy Hepting explores Pavillion Lake in a Kayak.
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The lake falls with the traditional territory of
the Ts’kw’aylaxw people better known as the Pavilion
First Nations Indian Band. Five and a half miles from
the lake sits the small ranching and Indian Reserve
community of Pavilion which gets its name from its
gold-rush era appearance. Pavilion was a boom town
along the gold rush trail – the result of their former chief
raising a white cotton flag which meant they were
friendly to the white people.
Unlike the Nlaka’pamux people who were at
the time engaged in the Fraser Canyon War - an 1850’s
dispute between the Nlaka’pamux people and the white
miners.
Pavilion is one of three
lakes in the Marble Canyon
Provincial Park which was
established in 1956. Crown Lake
with its rocky shoreline and large
Ponderosa pines and marshy
Turquoise Lake surrounded by
pockets of old Douglas Firs are
also within the park boundaries.
Marble Canyon, which is popular with
climbers, both for its clean rock walls and also for its ice
climbs, gets its name from the brilliant limestone of its
walls. The bedrock is microcrystalline limestone rather
than marble.
HOW TO GET THERE – From Kamloops drive to
Cache Creek, turn right at the lights onto highway 99.
Go past the Hat Creek Ranch and you will first come to
Turquoise Lake then Crown Lake and finally Pavilion
Lake. About a 1.5 hour drive.
 Pavilion Lake, is home to a colony of microbialites (also
called stromatolites) which are unusual carbonate structures built
by bacteria which resemble freshwater "coral”. Pavilion Lake
has the largest freshwater stromatolites in the world. Similar
structures have also been discovered in nearby Kelly Lake.
Photos taken by the Pavilion Lake Research Project
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