Snipe Lake

Driftpile, Alberta

Managed by Lesser Slave Watershed Council (LSWC)

Sign up for the LSWC's quarterly newsletter! Stay up to date on our work & water related news!

Snipe Lake is a popular fishing location with a boat launch and some nice beach area. The beach is to the left of the dock and boat launch and is a combination of sand and small, smooth pebbles. The lake is not very swim-able.

Located just outside of Sunset house this beach can be hard to find the first time and the road can be a little hard to drive after a heavy rain. The beach is located by the Snipe Lake Community Campground to reach the campground go 5 km north of Sunset House on Highway 747 then turn east at Township Road 713A for 14 km.

Amenities: parking, washrooms and boat launch located at campground. The campground area is small.

Get directions to this beach

COVID-19

Keep your distance from other people.

Practicing social distancing is still essential. Only go to the beach if you are able to keep 6 feet or 2 meters away from others. Follow the instructions provided by your local health authorities. If your community has asked that you remain indoors and away from others, do so. Spending a day in any crowded place is the worst thing we can do for our most vulnerable right now and will counter our efforts to curb the virus’s spread.

Water Quality

No data available
Special Status
This means the affiliate organization managing a beach has set the beach status based on special local knowledge or information. Check the beach description and the Sources section for details.

For water quality icon legend, click:

Report Pollution

Monitoring Frequency

Source Information

Alberta Health Services (AHS) monitors beaches across Alberta. Water samples are collected by AHS staff and processed by Alberta Public Laboratories. More information on their monitoring can be found here: https://open.alberta.ca/dataset/71f0b5ea-b295-4677-afc6-0905641f0694/resource/372d1058-9c90-4da6-a56e-98395dad4a59/download/alberta-safe-beach-protocol.pdf

When a Water Quality Advisory is issued, a notice is put up on accessible points along the water body/at the beach indicating that the location is unfit for swimming or bathing. In addition, a Water Quality Advisory is issued through the AHS website, local and social media platform. An advisory is rescinded once water quality meets the above standards. Advisories are posted online to https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/news/bga.aspx, circulated by local media. Appropriate signage is posted around the water body (public beaches, access points, campgrounds, etc). These advisories remain in place for the duration that the health risk persists.

The Lesser Slave Watershed Council (LSWC) does not publish these notification to our Swim Guide pages, nor is Swim Guide able to share monitoring data for Alberta beaches on an ongoing basis as AHS does not share water quality test results with the public. However, the LSWC does take water quality samples at 16 sites across the Lesser Slave Watershed! These sites are not beach-related, but the results affect the quality of water in Lesser Slave Lake. We sample on each tributary that flows into Lesser Slave Lake! Check out or water quality data on our website: https://www.lswc.ca/water_quality_monitoring or on the Mackenzie DataStream portal: https://mackenziedatastream.ca/explore/#/?sort=create_timestamp&active=false&zoom=9.3&lat=55.41375854310891&lng=-115.54655278071537 !

Water Quality Graph