Mirror Lake in Camrose, Alberta, is an artificial lake originally created in 1905 by the Canadian Pacific Railway as a reservoir to supply water for their steam locomotives passing through what was then, a hamlet called Sparling.
The lake was created by a dam built across Stoney Creek, where the pedestrian footbridge is located today. Since then, the dam has been rebuilt twice, first in the 1930s, when it was moved further south, and again in 1974 when the existing dam overflowed. Between 1911 and 1930, the lake supplied water to Camrose’s coal-fired power plant, and between 1929 and 1958 Mirror Lake provided the town with its municipal water.
Mirror Lake was given its name in 1961 in a public naming competition sponsored by the Camrose Chamber of Commerce.
