A few years ago, a couple of employees at Yellowstone National Park played a joke on the tourists. They placed a large hand crank apparatus on top of a wooden box. Next they set the whole contraption in the vicinity of the world famous Old Faithful geyser, which always naturally erupts once per hour. Just before Old Faithful was ready to erupt, they began vigorously turning the crank. Voila! The geyser’s hot waters spewed forth into the sky.

To their credit, the employees had finally answered that legendary Old Faithful tourist question: “How do you turn it on?” Alas, their employers were not amused. Some rather gullible tourists who witnessed the spectacle left convinced that the venerable geyser was a sham. The two guys got canned.

Upon viewing Alberta Canada’s stunning Lake Louise, I began searching for the crank and wooden box.

Lake Louise is a slice of natural perfection. It may not be the world’s prettiest lake, but it’s got to be on the short list. It’s the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. It’s so awesomely natural, it must be artificial.

Clues abound. There’s the centrally located rocky mountain backdrop, peppered with just the right amount of glacial ice and snow. Then there’s the brilliant water that’s an unnatural shade of turquoise (a dead Disney giveaway, if you ask me). There’s the pristine surrounding forest with its statuesque, graceful trees nestled on each side of the lake.

On the day of our visit, they even had some sort of high-tech cloud machine running, dotting the sky with ideal cloud formations.

They claim that the water is frigid glacial runoff, so swimming is forbidden. But I suspect that this so-called “lake’s” floor is covered with some sort of man made plaster. Or perhaps Lake Louise sports one of those vinyl “above ground pool” liners? Unfortunately, someone’s got to jump in for us all to find out.

Lake Louise is a popular destination, with teeming crowds equivalent to your average theme park. It was no small feat to visit in the summertime with an RV in tow. If only they’d let Disney handle the parking, too! We ended up parking our rig quite a distance from the actual lake, and hiking to the prize. But in the end, it was all worth it.

It’s hard for photos and even high-definition video to do justice to Lake Louise. But watch our video anyway. Yep, it’s gotta be fake.  🙂