A few weeks ago I cycled up into Gatineau Park, just outside of Ottawa in Quebec. It’s nice having wilderness this close to the city, even if I don’t use it enough! My target was Pink Lake, about 8km inside the park boundary and that made for a 30km round trip. It’s hard work getting there (the lookout in the photo is about 120m or 400 feet above when I started) but good fun free-wheeling most of the way home. I didn’t know anything about the lake (there are a lot of them around and I assumed it was just like the others). However, when I saw the interpretation signs at the site I noticed it was “meromictic”. What this means is that the lake waters never entirely mix and it produces a fairly special environment for life. The signs gave some information about the biological implications which I thought I would share.
