Until recently, Google Maps were using an out of date picture of our local community with lots of bare land awaiting house building. However, upon checking today, they have taken a new shot that shows our house and that of our neighbours. We've also marked the nearby community "beach house" which is our access point to the lake (unless we want to climb over the garden fences of a couple of our near neighbours!) You'll see that those houses backing directly onto the lake each have a little jetty. It is from these, that the locals are making their way out onto the now frozen lake to clear ice hockey rinks and so on.
Wikipedia gives a good little summary of the history and geography of Okotoks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okotoks,_Alberta
It mentions the flooding risk but we're situated way up out of the Sheep River valley and so any future flooding should not directly impact us.
J&E
