Quarry Lake

There’s an aggregate quarry at Halifax’s Quarry Lake but it’s not where the lake got its name from!

The lake, just northeast of Bayer’s Lake shopping centre and next to the Blue Mountain-Birch Cove Lakes Wilderness Area, is actually named after an historical quarry that opened in the mid-1800s, not the current operation.

The historical quarry had at least three production areas and possibly more. The two mains ones are about 100 metres apart and a third site, overgrown by trees, was found about 200 metres to the east (see the map below). The main quarry was about 10 metres in diameter and its last working face was 5 metres high.

The historical Quarry Lake quarry provided stone for construction in Halifax until sometime in the early 1900s. Its granite was often used for things like basements/foundations, bridge piers, wharf fill, etc. The quarry was one of the biggest historical producers of stone in the Halifax area.

Quarry Lake became a popular swimming hole and there are beautiful trails through the area today.