Lake Louise, Canadian Rockies. With the glacier-clad summit of Mount Victoria as a backdrop, Lake Louise is the iconic symbol of the Canadian Rockies northwest of the town of Banff, Alberta. Banff National Park is studded with cerulean-hued lakes nestled beneath row after row of 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 Victoria Glacier.