Pitt Lake

Pitt Lake is the second-largest lake in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. About 53.5 square kilometres in area, it is about 25 km long and about 4.5 km wide at its widest. It is one of the world's relatively few tidal lakes, and among the largest. In Pitt Lake, there is on average a three foot tide range; thus Pitt Lake is separated from sea level and tidal waters during most hours of each day during the 15 foot tide cycle of the Pitt River and Strait of Georgia estuary immediately downstream. The lake's southern tip is 20 km upstream from The Pitt River confluence with the Fraser River and is 40 km east of Downtown Vancouver.Pitt Lake is in a typical U-shaped glacial valley in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia. The overdeepening of the lower end of the valley over the span of the Wisconsin glaciation created a trough over 140 m below current sea level. After initial glacial retreat at around 13,000 years ago a saltwater fjord occupied this basin when relative sea levels were still ca 120 to 140m above current levels in the region. Unlike neighbouring Indian Arm and Howe Sound farther west, this fjord basin became partly cut off from tidal waters by sedimentation of the lower Fraser River ca 10,500 years ago, and Pitt Lake is now considered a tidal fjord lake.The community of Pitt Meadows occupies the marshy lowland at the southern end of the lake, some of which has become drained and is known as the Pitt Polder. Just southwest of the lake is the community of Port Coquitlam, which is across the Pitt River from Pitt Meadows. At the north end of the lake is a locality named Alvin, which is a transport and shipping point for logging companies and their employees. The Upper Pitt, meaning the valley upstream from the lake, is considered one of BC's best fly-fishing rivers and one of its best steelhead streams.