Banff National Park, Canada. A kayaker enjoys a morning paddle below the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies of Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. Banff National Park is studded with turquoise-colored 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. As these ice sheets melted, they left in their wake a string of glistening lakes all along this valley. 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 the lake.