Bow Glacier is located in Banff National Park

Banff National Park

Banff National Park is Canada's oldest national park, established in 1885 in the Rocky Mountains. The park, located 110–180 kilometres west of Calgary in the province of Alberta, encompasses of mountainous terrain, with numerous glaciers and ice fields, dense coniferous forest, and alpine...

, Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, approximately 37 km (23 mi) northwest of Lake Louise

Lake Louise, Alberta

Lake Louise is a hamlet in Alberta, Canada within Improvement District No. 9 Banff . It is named for the nearby Lake Louise, which in turn was named after the Princess Louise Caroline Alberta , the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, and the wife of John Campbell, the 9th Duke of Argyll, who was the...

, and can be viewed from the Icefields Parkway

Icefields Parkway

The Icefields Parkway , also known as Highway 93 north, is a scenic road in Alberta, Canada. It parallels the Continental Divide, traversing the rugged landscape of the Canadian Rockies, travelling through Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. It links Lake Louise with Jasper to the north....

. Bow Glacier is an outflow glacier from the Wapta Icefield

Wapta Icefield

The Wapta Icefield is located on the Continental Divide in the Canadian Rockies, in the provinces of British Columbia and Alberta. The icefield is shared by Banff and Yoho National Parks and numerous outlet glaciers extend from the icefield, including the Vulture, Bow and Peyto Glaciers...

, which rests along the Continental divide

Continental divide

A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not connected to the open sea...

, and runoff from the glacier supplies water to Bow Lake

Bow Lake (Alberta)

Bow Lake is a small lake in western Alberta, Canada. It is located on the Bow River, in the Canadian Rockies, at an altitude of 1920 m.The lake lies south of the Bow Summitt, east of the Waputik Range and west of the Dolomite Pass, Dolomite Peak and Cirque Peak.Bow Lake is...

 and the Bow River

Bow River

The Bow River is a river in the Canadian province of Alberta. It is a tributary of the South Saskatchewan River, and is considered the headwater of the Nelson River....

. The glacier is credited for creating the Bow Valley before retreating at the end of the last glacial maximum

Last Glacial Maximum

The Last Glacial Maximum refers to a period in the Earth's climate history when ice sheets were at their maximum extension, between 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago, marking the peak of the last glacial period. During this time, vast ice sheets covered much of North America, northern Europe and...

. Since the end of the Little ice age

Little Ice Age

The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period . While not a true ice age, the term was introduced into the scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939...

 in 1850, Bow Glacier has been a state of steady retreat overall. Between the years 1850 and 1953, the glacier retreated an estimated 1,100 meters (3,600 ft), and since that period, there has been further retreat which has left a newly formed lake at the terminal moraine

Moraine

A moraine is any glacially formed accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris which can occur in currently glaciated and formerly glaciated regions, such as those areas acted upon by a past glacial maximum. This debris may have been plucked off a valley floor as a glacier advanced or it may have...

 at the glacial snout. Sedimentation has also increased in Bow Lake due to increased erosion of soil that was previously protected by the glacier, creating a small sediment delta

River delta

A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...

in the west end of the lake.