Across the Lake Swim

Framed by steep, forest-cloaked mountains just one hundred kilometres east of Vancouver, Cultus Lake is known as the jewel of the Fraser Valley. Held in the freshwater of this scenic basin in British Columbia, the Across the Lake Swim offers one of western Canada's most inviting open water challenges. Swimmers step into clear, remarkably warm freshwater averaging 19 degrees Celsius, making it a comfortable haven. The competition brings together swimmers across three distinct distances of 750, 1,500, and 3,000 metres. The lake holds onto its seasonal warmth, providing pleasant open water conditions without the sharp chill often encountered in Canadian alpine waters.

The starting line on the sand buzzes with excitement as athletes prepare to push out into the calm surface, watching the distant course buoys set against a deep green backdrop of coniferous forest. Navigating the lake demands flexibility from both organizers and competitors. Because local pleasure boats anchor throughout the bay, race officials review the layout on race morning and may adjust the swim courses to navigate cleanly around random boat moorings. While the water is generally tranquil, mountain weather can shift, and safety crews keep a close watch over the course throughout the swim.

Cultus Lake swim day: the season finale at Main Beach

Across the Lake Swim Cultus Lake takes place at Cultus Lake, just outside Chilliwack and a 90 minute drive from Vancouver. Across the Lake Swim Cultus Lake serves as a warm-up swim for the Dynamic Events Cultus Lake Triathlon the following weekend. Cultus Lake was the final Across the Lake Swim event of the 2026 season. Parking Lots A and B are the most central to Main Beach for the Cultus Lake swim. Cultus Lake Park has wharfs in the Entrance Bay and Maple Bay day-use areas, and its beaches are sandy. The park at Cultus Lake is almost evenly divided between the northwest and southeast sides of the lake, with the visitor-oriented facilities confined to the southeast portion.

Cultus Lake: glacial depths, Sweltzer River, and Stó:lō spirit quests

Long before modern open water races, Cultus Lake held profound spiritual meaning. The lake carries deep historical significance for the spirit quests of the Stó:lō people. Local legends historically endowed the basin with a reputation for being bottomless, linked to Indigenous stories of powerful subterranean currents pulling through the deep, though swimmers today discover clear, calm, and welcoming freshwater right from the first stroke. The basin gives rise to the Sweltzer River, a three-kilometre-long waterway that serves as Cultus Lake's natural drain. The river flows into the Chilliwack River drainage, with a significant portion of its course passing through the Soowahlie Indian Reserve No. 14. Gliding across the lake during the swim, athletes move across the source waters of this indigenous river corridor.

Human activity on the water shifted dramatically over the past century. Before becoming a recreational park, Cultus Lake was utilized for industrial timber processing. In 1950 the surrounding forest and lakefront were formally established as a provincial park, preserving the basin for outdoor recreation and swimming.

The Fraser Lowland: from lost Sumas Lake to Vedder River

About six kilometres from the race area once lay Sumas Lake, a shallow freshwater lake framed by expansive wetlands across the eastern Fraser Lowland. Its sandy banks provided prime spawning grounds for sturgeon, and its rich shallows sustained trout and salmon, attracting grizzly bears as well as large flocks of geese and swans. In that era, a railway trestle traversed the open water from Huntingdon to the foot of Vedder Mountain. Between 1920 and 1924, Sumas Lake was artificially drained to establish agricultural land, creating the vast Sumas Prairie floodplain. The lakebed, whose historical name referred to a big level opening, now separates Vedder Mountain from Sumas Mountain, which rises about twelve kilometres from the race area on the south bank of the Fraser River.

On the slopes of Sumas Mountain, where the Sumas First Nation reserve sits on the south side, Chadsey Lake lies nestled in the higher eastern reaches on a north-facing slope, while the Fraser River sweeps along the mountain's northern flank. Despite the extensive drainage works, the former lake basin experienced major flooding in 1894, 1948, 1972, 1990, 2007, and 2021. About seven kilometres from the race venue along the north side of the Vedder River, a military camp was established, originating from an 1860 log building erected for the Royal Engineers surveying the 49th parallel. The Vedder River begins at Hannegan Pass in Washington's North Cascades National Park, plunging through the hazardous waterfall chasm of Hells Gorge before entering Chilliwack Lake, whose southern shores are safeguarded as an ecological reserve.

Heavy rains and a log jam in 1875 originally diverted the river into Vedder Creek and Luckakuck Creek, and after an intentional log jam created in 1882, a freshet in 1894 made this diverted river course permanent. About ten kilometres from the race site, Chilliwack River Provincial Park occupies the north bank of the Chilliwack River, established in 1961 over 65 acres before boundary modifications in 1970 and 2004 established its current area of 21 hectares. South across the international border in Whatcom County, Washington, Silver Lake sits cradled between Red Mountain and Black Mountain, surrounded on its southwest side by the 410-acre Silver Lake Park.

Inhabited by rainbow trout and resident coastal cutthroat trout, Silver Lake drains via Maple Creek into the North Fork Nooksack River, with motorized watercraft restricted to a ten-horsepower limit. About fourteen kilometres from the Cultus Lake race area along the North Fork of the Nooksack River, the forest once yielded colossal timber, including the famous Nooksack Giant felled in 1896, a Douglas-fir measuring 465 feet in length and nearly 34 feet in circumference. Surveyors in 1891 noted surrounding fir trees reaching heights between 350 and 400 feet, and a nearby stand south of Everson was praised as the finest grove of fir trees west of the Cascade Mountains.

Main Beach: morning docks, lakefront decks, and summer shores

Swimmers step off pale sandy shores into clear and refreshing freshwater that invites immediate immersion. While the lake features a sudden drop in water depth quite close to the edge that can quickly test casual waders, this steep drop-off proves ideal for open water racers, allowing them to dive immediately into clean, unhindered swimming strokes without plodding through long shallows. Lakeside mornings here carry a relaxed community rhythm. Local residents and visiting competitors frequently gather along the sandy waterfront during early daylight hours, holding warm cups of coffee by the calm water while morning mist curls off the surface beneath the surrounding forested slopes. After swimming, athletes need only stroll five minutes from the sands to reach the Lakeside Beach Club, where an open-air patio serves drinks, food, and post-race lunches.

Main Beach remains a social gathering point throughout the seasons, hosting community celebrations including a festive Christmas event complete with fireworks launched straight from the lake's wooden piers. Finishing your swim at Cultus Lake leaves you floating on warm freshwater, resting between the forested mountain slopes and the sandy edge of one of British Columbia's classic lake communities.