Kettle Pond

Out in the Atnarko River Valley portion of Tweedsmuir Park is a small pond called Kettle Pond.  It's the Bella Coola/Atnarko Valley's only real body of water that you could call a lake, and it's a pretty poor excuse at that for a lake, being only 200 metres by about 100 metres.  It's also a really peculiar geological feature -- apparently the result of a glacial feature. 

We hiked the trail on the weekend when it was warm and windy.  While the sign says 1 hour, you'd practically have to be crawling to take an hour to do the hike.  It's a short trail that leads through old growth Douglas Fir forest of the Atnarko Valley (it's actually an Interior Douglas Fir ecosystem because it's so dry in this area) and down to the pond, around it and back to the highway.  It's a nice little hike though, just go slow and enjoy the forest then it will take you an hour. 

The peculiar thing about it is that it's completely down in a little bowl, with absolutely no inflow stream nor outflow stream, but the water level always stays static.  Years ago cutthroat trout were put in it and they are still fish there - a great spot to take young kids in early spring to learn fishing. Grizzly