The Maligne Valley Drive: Maligne Canyon's 50m Slot Gorge & Disappearing Medicine Lake

Connecting Jasper Townsite with Maligne Lake, the 48-kilometre Maligne Lake Road is both the top wildlife-spotting corridor in Jasper National Park (where black bears, grizzly bears, moose, bighorn sheep and Woodland caribou are seen daily at dawn and dusk) and the stage for one of the strangest geological mysteries in the world: an entire 7-kilometre-long lake that disappears underground without an outlet river.

1. The Mystery of 'Disappearing' Medicine Lake (27 km Up Maligne Lake Road)

Halfway up the drive to Maligne Lake, you pass alongside 7-kilometre-long Medicine Lake. Indigenous peoples named it 'Medicine (Mystery/Spirit) Lake' because it behaves like a giant bathtub with the plug pulled out: there is no visible river flowing out of the northern end of the lake.

• Full Lake in July, Muddy Meadow of Sinkholes in October: in June and July when snowmelt pours down the Maligne River from Maligne Lake, Medicine Lake fills faster than it can drain, forming a deep, mirror-calm alpine lake. By September, October and winter, as inflow slows, the entire lake drains completely down a network of giant underwater karst limestone sinkholes at the bottom of the basin, entering one of the largest inaccessible underground cave river systems in North America before gushing back out of the rock walls 16 kilometres downstream inside Maligne Canyon.
• Watch the Bald Eagle Nest & Moose: pull into the paved viewpoints along Medicine Lake to spot the resident pair of Bald Eagles perched in the lakeside snags and moose wading in the shallows at the southern delta.

2. Maligne Canyon (11 km from Jasper Townsite, Deepest Canyon in the Rockies)

Located just 10 minutes outside Jasper Townsite at the bottom of the Maligne Valley, Maligne Canyon is a dramatic 50-metre-deep (165-foot) slot canyon carved into 365-million-year-old Palliser limestone where the underground waters from Medicine Lake burst out of subterranean springs. Historically spanned by six numbered footbridges (with First and Second Bridges sitting at the deepest, narrowest 50-metre drop right near the upper car park, and Fifth Bridge sitting down in the valley floor), always check the current Parks Canada Maligne Canyon trail status as boardwalk and bridge sections are restored following the 2024 wildfire.