Lee Wilde may not be able to fit into the green swimsuit she wore on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin in 1966 but the memories of that day refuse to fade.
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Ms Wilde, now 64 and a resident of Hughes, has grown in unison with the lake, spending her teenage years and wedding celebrations on its shores as they both grew into "adulthood".
"It's not as old as I am, but in lake terms I think it's become an adult and paralleled my journey in becoming grown-up and mature – more responsive to others' needs," she said.
"I was born and bred in Canberra so I've been around for a long time and can even remember a time before the lake was ever built.
"When I was young I was in hospital at one stage and I can remember looking out the window and watching the big brown muddy pools starting to fill up."
Ms Wilde, who worked as a teacher in Canberra schools for more than four decades, remembers heading down to the lake at Yarramundi Reach with her younger siblings David, Jane and Kim one spring afternoon 43 years ago.
"My grandmother had recently come to live with us so we took her down for a picnic," she said.
"In some ways, apart from the growth of the trees, that spot's stayed exactly the same."
Ms Wilde said memories of the lake had come rushing back to life while she was working as a volunteer with the National Capital Authority sifting through photographs.
"I can remember earthworks starting around 1959 when I was about nine but only when I went down to the Molonglo for picnics. I saw bulldozers and things like that," she said.
Ms Wilde said the weatherboard buildings her father worked in for the National Division of Mapping were buried along with other Canberra relics like the Canberra Golf Course.
"It was just a lot of paddocks and grass and the rickety old Commonwealth Bridge, which was quite an experience to go across in a car as it was very noisy," she said.
Ms Wilde said she was upset when Dr Jamie Pittock from the ANU described the lake as a "fetid carp pond" in The Canberra Times last week, which she thought was unnecessary and inflammatory.
"Sure, the lake is not perfect but it has really made Canberra and I can remember what it was like before it was built," she said.
"Canberra had two distinct halves back then, north and south, and the lake really brought them together."
Perhaps the lake holds such importance for Ms Wilde because of the memories it evokes.
"I had my wedding reception by the lake at the Canberra Yacht Club back in 1968," she said.
To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lake Burley Griffin, The Canberra Times has launched a photography competition running until the end of October with $1000 in prizemoney.
To enter, send up to three photographs to photocomp@canberratimes.com.au as JPEG files of at least 150 kilobytes to a maximum of one megabyte.
Include your name, address, telephone number, photograph title and a description of where and when it was taken. Terms and conditions are available here.
