Cracker Lake
Cracker Lake is located in a glacier-carved cirque about 6 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel. Its most defining feature may be its brilliant turquoise waters.
The color is due to glacier meltwater containing very fine particles of sediment--the byproduct of rocks grinding against each other underneath a glacier. This “rock flour” is very light and can stay suspended in the lake water for a long time. Sunlight reflects off of these particles, giving the lake its distinct color, sometimes called “glacial milk.”
Legend has it that Cracker Lake got its name when two prospectors ate a lunch of crackers and cheese there. Before that, the lake was appropriately called “Blue Lake.”
Those prospectors were part of a short-lived mining boom in the Swiftcurrent Valley at the turn of the 20th Century. A sample of ore supposedly taken from the Cracker Lake area convinced investors in 1898 to fund a mining operation there. Miners tunneled over 1,300 feet into the mountainside and hauled heavy machinery to the site at great expense and effort. Ultimately, however, the mine never produced ore of any significance and the mine was largely abandoned by 1902.
The bottom black-and-white photo was taken by Fred Kiser, ca. 1911, and is part of Glacier National Park’s historical photograph collection on the Montana Memory Project. The top photo was taken in 2016.
