UBC Underwater Investigation

Powell Lake is our home. It's an unusual lake because of its origin, and its contents.

In 2006, Wayne and I heard about studies conducted in glacial carved Powell Lake to investigate trapped ancient sea water. We just had to do an underwater investigation of our own. A friend loaned us a Kemmerer Bottle and we dropped it down over 1000 feet to bring up trapped prehistoric salt water. You can read more here.

To our surprise, a few weeks ago we saw a truck with the University of British Columbia Earth and Ocean Sciences logo putting a skookum boat into Powell Lake. We just had to go investigate. We met Professor Pawlowicz, one of his grad students, and the driver.

They came to take and test underwater samples with a device much more elaborate than our little Kemmerer Bottle, and hundreds of times more expensive.  We couldn't stay, but plan to reconnect with Professor Pawlowicz to hear the results. 


Learning more about our lake home is fun.  Doesn't it look like it would be fun to take one of his classes? And we shared a copy of Up the Strait which includes a chapter all about our own underwater investigation. -- Margy