Peyto Lake, Banff National Park

Peyto Lake is named after one of Banff's most colourful characters, the legendary mountain man known simply as 'Wild Bill' -- Bill Peyto.

One of the park's first guardians and a true lover of solitude, Wild Bill once trapped a lynx in the park and carried it alive on his back into a local bar on Banff Avenue.  He proceeded to release it in front of the patrons, a tawdry lot of miners that Wild Bill didn't fancy, then settled in at the bar alone after the place cleared out.

The emerald colours of Peyto Lake draw tens of thousands of visitors each year to the viewpoint above Bow Summit along the Icefields Parkway.