Immediately after visiting Beauvert Lake and before lunch, we signed up for a 3-Hour Evening Wildlife Search with a local tour company in Jasper town.
With the free time before the wildlife search, we decided to drive to Patricia Lake which is just 5.5Km northwest of Jasper. This lake is not particularly impressive compared to the other lakes we have seen so far. But it has a very interesting story, which I found it hard to believe!
During War War II, Patricia Lake was the location of a highly secret project. At that time, many British ships were sunk by the German submarines in the Atlantic. An engineer by the name of Pyke came up with an idea and managed to convince the authorities that he could make attack-resistant ships from ice. He believed that any hole in the ship caused by a missile could be easily repaired by adding more water and quickly freezing it. As crazy as it sounds, approval was granted by Churchchill to build a prototype aircraft carrier in Patricia Lake under code name "Project Habakuk". Material used for the ship building was a composite of ice and sawdust. The prototype ship was to use plain ice and partly natural and partly refrigerated. Construction proceeded through March 1943 by first building a wooden cabin on the frozen lake, installing refrigeration equipment and cold air ducts, and then increasing height of the ice wall around the cabin. As the weight increased, the bottom of the hull was sawn free from the lake ice and the ship floated. In June, the refrigeration was switched off. It lasted for a couple of months before melting and eventual sank.
Divers in 1985 found remains of the model ship at a depth of 26m to 43m.
Today, enthusiastic divers still brave the cold to search for its remains!
During War War II, Patricia Lake was the location of a highly secret project. At that time, many British ships were sunk by the German submarines in the Atlantic. An engineer by the name of Pyke came up with an idea and managed to convince the authorities that he could make attack-resistant ships from ice. He believed that any hole in the ship caused by a missile could be easily repaired by adding more water and quickly freezing it. As crazy as it sounds, approval was granted by Churchchill to build a prototype aircraft carrier in Patricia Lake under code name "Project Habakuk". Material used for the ship building was a composite of ice and sawdust. The prototype ship was to use plain ice and partly natural and partly refrigerated. Construction proceeded through March 1943 by first building a wooden cabin on the frozen lake, installing refrigeration equipment and cold air ducts, and then increasing height of the ice wall around the cabin. As the weight increased, the bottom of the hull was sawn free from the lake ice and the ship floated. In June, the refrigeration was switched off. It lasted for a couple of months before melting and eventual sank.
Divers in 1985 found remains of the model ship at a depth of 26m to 43m.
Today, enthusiastic divers still brave the cold to search for its remains!
We hiked for quite a distance through the forest beside the lake. Aspen trees are aplenty by the lake. Our hands were instantly coated with a white powder when we rubbed against the tree bark. The indigenous people use this white powder as a sun block. This is just one of the medicinal properties of aspen tree bark.
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