Circlet lake Is a beautiful lake found in the backcountry of Strathcona Park, Vancouver Island. This is a stocked lake. Circlet lake is a 9 km hike one way from the trailhead at Mount Washington. The fishing picks up when the ice melts in the early summer. The lake is located in paradise meadows, a wonderful high country plateau with many hiking trails, both short and long that will take to this lake as well as many others located here.
Camping at Circlet Lake is great, the fishing is good, and the views are incredible, no wonder they call this plateau Paradise Meadows, it truly is a paradise. It was not always thought of in this way though. Many years ago, the Comox people sent their women and children to hide here when the Haida people were coming to Comox on a slave gathering trip. After they left, the Comox men went up the mountain to bring their families back down, they were nowhere’s to be found, just a red stain was on the snow. They forbid the people from ever going there again and the area was called forbidden plateau.
The area surrounding this lake is absolutely incredible to see. The mountain views from here are awesome and the views of the Comox Glacier from this area are a sight you should all see at least once.
There are meadows and ponds along with other small lakes and many hiking trails here and the bird and animal life is very abundant and the flowers in the early summer will take your breath away. There are many whiskey jack birds here, and they will eat from your hand, they love pepperoni. There is also the Vancouver Island Hoary Marmot living here, they spent most of their time within their borrows, hibernating and come out during warm months of summer. It would seem that climate change has affected them as well. Many were lost this past winter ( 2015-2016)during the hibernation period. They are still trying to figure out what happened, but they believe that as many as 30% of them did not survive the winter months.