Banff National Park, Canadian Rockies. Kayaking on a glacial lake along the Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. With its southern boundary at the town of Canmore and its northern boundary at Suwapta Pass below the Columbia Icefield, Banff National Park is studded with cerulean-hued lakes nestled beneath massive glacier-clad mountains. These valleys were filled with enormous glaciers at the maximum extent of the ice sheets at the height of the Pleistocene Epoch about 20,000 years ago. The stunning color of the lake is due to light being scattered by tiny particles of glacial silt suspended in the water and introduced into the lake by the meltwater from a few small remnant glaciers clinging to high alpine ridgelines above.