The natural body of water that Windy Point overlooks is called Tyrrell Lake. It was named after Joseph Burr Tyrrell (1858-1957). In 1884, while working as a field assistant with the Geological Survey of Canada, he collected the first dinosaur skull in Canada near the present day town of Drumheller.
In 1905, the year Alberta became a province, the dinosaur from which the skull came was named Albertosaurus. The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology at Drumheller was also named in his honor.
In 1985, the Tyrrell – Rush Lakes complex became the first “Wetlands for Tomorrow” project in Alberta. The canals and structures that were built have allowed the waters to stabilize in Tyrrell Lake and nearby Rush Lake and in the large marshland south of Rush Lake to form a major wetlands area in southern Alberta.
Tyrrell Lake is well known for its rainbow trout fishery. The adjacent marsh and Rush Lake constitute a staging area for snow geese and tundra swans and habitat for Canada geese, northern pintails, canvasbacks, and double-crested cormorants as well as many other species of waterfowl and shore birds.
To view the Rush Lake wetlands, travel 10 km north on highway 36 from the village of Warner, or use the coordinates for GC1MTHA – Rush Lake
To avoid a steep climb, approach cache from the prairie level and not the lake shore.