Interactive map of Kootenay Lake
Ten layers on one map: every community, the ferry crossing, the highway cameras, road events, boat launches, beaches, trailheads, provincial parks, active wildfires and the lake level gauge. Switch off anything that is in your way.
Updated Pacific Time.
Camera images and ferry status from DriveBC.ca, BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit. Road events from DriveBC Open511. Park boundaries and advisories from BC Parks. Wildfire incidents from the BC Wildfire Service open data. Lake level from the Water Survey of Canada, station 08NH064 Kootenay Lake at Queens Bay, under the Open Government Licence – Canada. Basemap © OpenFreeMap contributors, map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
See how this site is run and where each layer’s data comes from.
How long is Kootenay Lake? Distances between towns
Kootenay Lake is about 104 km long. The tables below measure the chain of communities along it, not the lake itself: each leg is the straight line between two published community coordinates, so a drive is always longer.
| Leg | Straight line | From Creston |
|---|---|---|
| Creston to Wynndel | 9.6 km | 9.6 km |
| Wynndel to Sirdar | 7.6 km | 17.2 km |
| Sirdar to Kuskonook | 8.1 km | 25.3 km |
| Kuskonook to Sanca | 11.4 km | 36.7 km |
| Sanca to Boswell | 7.5 km | 44.1 km |
| Boswell to Gray Creek | 19.8 km | 63.9 km |
| Gray Creek to Crawford Bay | 6.2 km | 70.0 km |
| Crawford Bay to Kootenay Bay | 3.0 km | 73.0 km |
| Kootenay Bay to Balfour | 9.8 km | 82.9 km |
| Balfour to Queens Bay | 4.3 km | 87.2 km |
| Queens Bay to Ainsworth Hot Springs | 8.7 km | 95.8 km |
| Ainsworth Hot Springs to Coffee Creek | 3.8 km | 99.7 km |
| Coffee Creek to Woodbury | 9.6 km | 109.2 km |
| Woodbury to Mirror Lake | 10.4 km | 119.6 km |
| Mirror Lake to Kaslo | 3.8 km | 123.4 km |
| Kaslo to Shutty Bench | 6.5 km | 129.8 km |
| Shutty Bench to Lardeau | 20.0 km | 149.8 km |
Added up, that chain runs about 150 km, because it steps from town to town around the shore and crosses on the ferry between Kootenay Bay and Balfour. The straight line from Creston to Lardeau is 121 km, and the lake itself measures 104 km end to end.
| Leg | Straight line | From Nelson |
|---|---|---|
| Nelson to Harrop | 21.5 km | 21.5 km |
| Harrop to Procter | 6.8 km | 28.3 km |
| Procter to Balfour | 1.0 km | 29.3 km |
The West Arm is the narrow western branch that carries Highway 3A from Nelson out to the ferry at Balfour.
Depth and the deepest point
Kootenay Lake is about 150 m deep at its deepest, and the two sources we cite do not quite agree: Wikipedia’s infobox gives 150 m and the ILEC World Lake Database gives 154 m. Neither publishes coordinates for that point, so the map above does not mark one.
| Deepest point (Wikipedia) | 150 m |
|---|---|
| Deepest point (ILEC) | 154 m |
| Mean depth, West Arm (Wikipedia) | 10 m |
| Mean depth, main lake (Wikipedia) | 45 m |
| Mean depth, whole lake (ILEC) | 94 m |
| Surface elevation (Wikipedia) | 532 m |
The West Arm is the shallow end of the lake, which is why the two records split it out. The lake level itself is measured every five minutes at Queens Bay, and that gauge is the last layer on the map.
Printable map
For a map to take in the car, the Kootenay Lake Chamber of Commerce publishes route maps of the lake and the wider Kootenays on its own maps page. We do not mirror the files, so what you download is whatever the Chamber is publishing today.
kootenaylake.org is an independent guide published by Delcaro Media in Kitchener, BC. It is not affiliated with Nelson Kootenay Lake Tourism, the Kootenay Lake Chamber of Commerce, the BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit, Western Pacific Marine, BC Parks or any business listed on it.