During Mr. F. S. Smythe’s expedition in 1947 to the Lloyd George Mountains, British Columbia, the particularly interesting discovery was made of a large dying glacier. It lay in a deep canyon-like valley below the highest peaks of the group (see Fig. 3, p. 177). It was entirely blanketed in its own moraine and on its surface was a liberal growth of plants and small conifers, some of which reached 4.5 m. in height. The glacier is 3.5 km. long with a maximum width of some 400 m. Its upper limit lies at about 1800 m. and its snout at about 1350 m.

Fig. 3.

Hidden Valley with Stagnant Glacier. Mt, David Lloyd George, the highest peak of the Lloyd George Mountains, in the background

Photograph by David Wessel

Neither the small cliff-glacier at its snout, nor the avalanche snow from the precipitous rock walls enclosing it, appear to provide this glacier with any appreciable nourishment. The dead black ice could be seen in occasional exposures in sink-holes and at the glacier borders. The ice appeared to extend as far as the original terminal moraine. The melt water issuing from the latter was of moderate amount and scarcely turbid.

Since there was no clear evidence of recent glaciation beyond the terminal moraine, it seems probable that this glacier may be an example of re-establishment subsequent to the “climatic optimum,” as has been claimed for others in the Cordilleran ranges.

As far as is known, this glacier is the only one in the Canadian Rockies proper in which the whole body of ice lies dead and stagnating beneath its mantle of moraine. It would seem to offer an example of what may well have occurred extensively at the close of the Glacial Epoch in regions of high relief possessing canyon-like or fjord valleys.