The glacier flowing from the north face of Mount Victoria toward Lake Louise. The Victoria Glacier is one of the most visible glaciers in the Lake Louise area, descending from the Abbot Pass col toward the Plain of Six Glaciers and the lake. Its meltwater; carrying rock flour (fine glacial sediment) first explained scientifically by W.A. Johnston in 1922; contributes to the distinctive turquoise colour of Lake Louise and flows via Louise Creek to the Bow River.

The glacier sculpted the Big Beehive and Little Beehive as roches moutonnées; smoothing the stoss side and plucking blocks on the lee, creating the steep cliffs above Lake Louise. It has retreated ~1 km since the late 1800s.

Early documentation. Mary Vaux Walcott and the Vaux family documented the Victoria Glacier using fixed-point photography; the same triangulation and rephotography methods they employed at the Illecillewaet Glacier in the Selkirks. Mary’s 1904 photographs from Mount Fairview provide a rare panorama of the early twentieth-century Lake Louise valley; climate scientists now use these images as a baseline for glacial retreat. Brian H. Luckman’s dendroglaciological work at the Victoria Glacier helped define the Cavell Advance (Little Ice Age) chronology and the 19th-century maximum that preceded the ~1 km retreat of the past century.

Like many glaciers in the Rockies, the Victoria Glacier has retreated significantly over the past century. It remains a dramatic feature of the landscape and is visible from the Chateau, the lakeshore trail, and the Plain of Six Glaciers. The glacier is part of the same ice mass that feeds into the Lefroy and Lower Victoria glaciers.