Spirit Island

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Spirit Island

Christian Ward

Spirit Island is only accessible by boat from the shore of Maligne Lake. Tickets for a guided boat tour can be purchased at $35 CAD in advance from the ticket office in Jasper town centre or bought at Maligne Lake itself. The boat trip is a 90 minute round-trip, with a 10 minute stop off at Spirit Island.

Spirit Island is the subject of reputedly one of the most famous photographs in the world. An amateur photographer took a photo of this island and entered it into a Kodak photography competition, winning first prize of having his photo enlarged to billboard size and hung in Grand Central Station, New York for a number of years, thereby ensuring it was seen by literally millions of commuters daily.

Spirit Island actually only physically becomes an 'island' for a few weeks every year when the glacial melt waters fill lake Maligne enough to cover the spit of land that joins it to the shoreline.

The origin of the name of this place is shrouded in ancient Indian myth which tells the story of lovers from two warring tribes meeting in secret on the island once per week. When the girl told her father of the meetings, he demanded that either she was cast out of the tribe and her lover killed, or that she would never see him again. Choosing not to meet her lover from the opposing tribe any more, it is the myth that he continued to return to the island in hope that she would one day meet him again, and he eventually died on the island where his spirit now resides...Spirit Island.