Sailing, Sailing, Over the Briny Pink! The Most Unique Lakes


                Sigh! Imagine it. A beautiful summer day at the lake. The sky is a deep, clear blue, the sun bakes your shoulders, your toes are buried in warm, golden sand, and the bright, pink waves lap up at your feet.

                Paints quite a picture, doesn’t it? Yet it is something you could conceivably experience.

                Believe it or not, there are eight different lakes in the world that are quite bright pink! The pictures of them are actually pretty startling and stunning. They show thick swatches of wild forest, and sometimes mountains, just as you would see in a million other places in the world. Only in these photos, right in the middle, is a big old misshapen patch of perfect bright pink, like a huge wad of bubble gum someone dropped on the ground, or a huge pool of indigestion remedy. The lakes are in such far removed places as Senegal, Spain, Canada, and Azerbaijan (I’ve never even heard of that last one, frankly!). But for some odd reason, the heaviest concentration of these unusual lakes is in Australia. They’ve got four of them.

                Interestingly enough, they’re perfectly normal salt lakes in every other way. People swim and boat in them, fish make their homes in the water, and some have even been declared bird areas because of the large number of birds who live there. One or two have even played host to salt plants. The only thing that makes them at all different from the thousands of other lakes that dot the planet, is the fact that they are bright pink.

                Which brings us to the most important question. It’s the first question that no doubt pops into the mind of anyone seeing one of these lakes for the first time, is WHY are these lakes pink? One might wonder if humankind’s prolific talent for creating unending sources of pollution is a contributing factor, but not this time. These wonderfully unique bodies of water are all the doing of the endlessly creative Mother Nature. Most, the scientists tell us, are created by a pinkish algae or a bacteria that loves the salt. The one in Canada, Dusty Rose Lake in the province of British Columbia, is made pink by stuff in the glacier that feeds it. The rocks around it are said to be pink and purple, and if you look at an areal photo of the lake, you can actually see a bright pink stream wending its way through countryside and forest to empty itself in the lake.

                But one of these lakes presents more than a little bit of a mystery. Lake Hillier in Australia has scientists a wee bit flummoxed.

                To begin with, many of the other lakes are not pink all the time. When the climate is just right, and the light is at the perfect angle, and the algae reached a peak, you might be in for an exciting treat. Lucky you! The rest of the time they’re just regular bodies of water.

                Lake Hillier, however, never takes a break from its great pinky-ness. And it hasn’t for over two centuries, according to early explorer’s journals.

                Other lakes really only look bright pink from a distance. Close up, they look a lot more like water.

                Lake Hillier is always bright pink no matter what angle you view it from. Even when you scoop up a jar of water what you have is a big, bright jar of pink water.

                So what is it that makes Hillier pink that’s so different from the other lakes? What is that elusive quality that makes this lake so unique, even amongst the most unique lakes in the world?

                Well, the scientific jury is still out on that one, and until they reach a verdict, we’ll have to satisfy ourselves with amazing pictures of these most amazing of lakes.

                And while we’re doing that, we can ask ourselves, why wouldn’t we want to take better care of this most amazing planet of ours?

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