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Paint Pots Lower Marble Canyon

Marble Marvel

The 800 m Marble Canyon trail crosses seven bridges along the route of a “migrating” waterfall. It also provides valuable insight into the rebirth of a forest.

At the first bridge, we’re greeted by cold air, an example of the canyon’s effect on local climate. Glaciers 20 km up the valley chill the air that settles on the valley floor. And the shaded depths of the canyon cool the air more.

At the second bridge is a natural arch, which marks the waterfall’s location about 9000 years ago. Please don’t attempt to cross here! People have died from falling at this spot. The large boulder near the fifth bridge is a glacial erratic, deposited when the glacier that carved the Tokumm Creek Valley receded.

Spray from the canyon saturates the thin soils on the rim. Only lichens and mat-like plants can take hold. Before the 2003 fire the complement of plants near Marble Canyon included some species normally found north of the Arctic Circle. With most of the damp forest consumed by fire, the plants now include species associated with drier, lodgepole pine forests.

The canyon’s deepest point is the 39 m drop underneath the seventh bridge, the present location of the waterfall. Constant pounding at the base creates a plunge pool. It enlarges over time and undercuts the rock above. The hanging lip of the waterfall collapses into the pool and the brink moves a couple of metres upstream. This process has helped Marble Canyon’s waterfall to shift more than 600 m upstream in 11,000 years.

Ochre Beds and Paint Pots

This 1 km walk leads to colourful deposits of clay and the outlets of three mineral springs. On the way you are treated to a suspension bridge crossing of the Vermilion River.

Sediments deposited on the bottom of an ancient glacial lake became the clay of the Ochre Beds. The remarkable colours result from saturation of the clay with iron-rich water from the outlets of three mineral springs - the Paint Pots.

The Ktunaxa (toon-AWK-ah) First Peoples knew the Ochre Beds as, “The place where the red earth spirit is taken.” The Ktunaxa gathered the colourful clay, formed it into cakes and baked it in fire. They ground the resulting compound into powder and mixed it with animal fat or fish grease to create a body paint, which was used in rituals and for trade.

In the early 1900s industry came to the Ochre Beds. The clay was excavated and shipped to Calgary as a source of pigment for paint. It failed and rusting equipment remains.

What once was considered sacred still is. Please keep to the beaten path and do not walk in the ochre deposits or remove any of the material.