A lake that lost its fishery, took an oil train, and is getting its walleye back
A big shallow lake west of Edmonton, 19.2 kilometres long and 6.6 wide, about 11 metres at its deepest, and it has had two lives. It was reputedly the best whitefish lake near Edmonton and held big northern pike, both fished commercially in the early 1900s until the fishery collapsed. Then the coal power stations came for the cooling water. On 3 August 2005 a CN train went off the rails beside it and spilled up to 1.3 million litres of bunker C oil, an estimated 734,000 litres of which reached the lake, along with 88,000 litres of pole-treating oil; CN pleaded guilty and paid 1.4 million dollars. The plants are gone now, the last one decommissioned and demolished, and the walleye that vanished by the early 1900s were restocked and are spawning again. Check the current regulations before you fish it, because the rules here change with the recovery.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
