Great Slave Lake

 

Not to be confused with Great Lakes.

Great Slave Lake
False-color photo of Great Slave Lake
Map of Great Slave Lake and Lake Athabasca
Location	Northwest Territories
Coordinates	61°40′N 114°00′W
Lake type	remnant of a vast glacial lake
Primary inflows	Hay River, Slave River
Primary outflows	Mackenzie River
Catchment area	971,000 km2 (374,905 sq mi)
Basin countries	Canada
Max. length	480 km (300 mi)[citation needed]
Max. width	109 km (68 mi)[citation needed]
Surface area	27,200 km2 (10,502 sq mi)
Average depth	41 m (135 ft)
Max. depth	614 m (2,014 ft)
Water volume	1,580 km3 (380 cu mi)/
Shore length1	3,057 km (1,900 mi)
Surface elevation	156 m (512 ft)
Frozen	November - mid June
Settlements	Yellowknife, Hay River, Behchoko, Fort Resolution, Lutselk'e, Hay River Reserve, Dettah, N'Dilo
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

Great Slave Lake (French: Grand lac des Esclaves) is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada (after Great Bear Lake), the deepest lake in North America at 614 metres (336 fathoms; 2,010 ft), and the ninth-largest lake in the world. It is 480 km (300 mi) long and 19 to 109 km (12 to 68 mi) wide. It covers an area of 27,200 km² (10,502 sq mi) in the southern part of the territory. Its given volume ranges from 1,070 km³ (260 cu mi) to 1,580 km³ (380 cu mi) and up to 2,088 km³ (501 cu mi) making it the 10th or 12th largest.

The lake shares its name with the Slavey First Nations. Towns situated on the lake include: Yellowknife, Hay River, Behchoko, Fort Resolution, Lutselk'e, Hay River Reserve, Dettah and N'Dilo. The only community in the East Arm is Lutselk'e, a hamlet of about 350 people, largely Chipewyan Aboriginals of the Dene Nation and the now abandoned winter camp/Hudson's Bay Company post, Fort Reliance.

History

North American Aboriginal Peoples were the first settlers around the lake, building communities including Dettah, which still exists today. British fur trader Samuel Hearne explored the area in 1771 and crossed the frozen lake, which he initially named Lake Athapuscow (after an erroneous French speaker's pronunciation of Athabaska). In 1897-1898, the American frontiersman Charles "Buffalo" Jones traveled to the Arctic Circle, where his party wintered in a cabin that they had constructed near the Great Slave Lake. Jones's exploits of how he and his party shot and fended off a hungry wolf pack near Great Slave Lake was verified in 1907 by Ernest Thompson Seton and Edward Alexander Preble when they discovered the remains of the animals near the long abandoned cabin.

In the 1930s, gold was discovered there, which led to the establishment of Yellowknife, which would become the capital of the NWT. In 1967, an all-season highway was built around the lake, originally an extension of the Mackenzie Highway but now known as Yellowknife Highway or Highway 3. On January 24, 1978, a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite, named Kosmos 954, built with an on board nuclear reactor fell from orbit and disintegrated. Pieces of the nuclear core fell in the vicinity of Great Slave Lake. 90% of the nuclear debris was recovered by a group called Operation Morning Light formed with both American and Canadian members.

Geography and natural history

Mackenzie River drainage basin showing Great Slave Lake's position in the Western Canadian Arctic

Forest fires in northern Canada, southeast of Great Slave Lake

Eastern arm of Great Slave Lake

The Hay, Slave and Taltson Rivers are its chief tributaries. It is drained by the Mackenzie River. Though the western shore is forested, the east shore and northern arm are tundra-like. The southern and eastern shores reach the edge of the Canadian Shield. Along with other lakes such as the Great Bear and Athabasca, it is a remnant of a vast post-glacial lake.

The East Arm of Great Slave Lake is filled with islands, and the area is within Thaydene Nene National Park. The Pethei Peninsula separates the East Arm into McLeod Bay in the north and Christie Bay in the south. The lake is at least partially frozen during an average of eight months of the year. During winter, the ice is thick enough for semi-trailer trucks to pass over using ice roads. Until 1967, when an all-season highway was built around the lake, goods were shipped across the ice to Yellowknife, located on the north shore. Goods and fuel are still shipped across frozen lakes up the winter road to the diamond mines located near the headwaters of the Coppermine River, Northwest Territories. A ferry is required to reach Yellowknife when the ice is not present in a solid sheet along Highway 3 where it crosses the Mackenzie River. The ferry usually runs from mid-May until January with a three to four week period (from mid-April to mid-May) between the closing of the ice road and the start of ferry service. However, the expected completion of the Deh Cho Bridge across the Mackenzie in 2012 is expected to end the need for the ferry.

The main western portion of the lake forms a moderately deep bowl with a surface area of 18,500 km² (7,100 sq mi) and a volume of 596 km³ (143 cu mi). This main portion has a maximum depth of 187.7 m (616 ft) and a mean depth of 32.2 m (106 ft). To the east, McLeod Bay (62°52′N 110°10′W) and Christie Bay (62°32′N 111°00′W) are much deeper, with a maximum recorded depth in Christie Bay of 614 m (2,014 ft).

Northern Bay, Great Slave Lake

On some of the plains surrounding Great Slave Lake, climax polygonal bogs have formed, the early successional stage to which often consists of pioneer Black Spruce.

South of Great Slave Lake, in a remote corner of Wood Buffalo National Park, is the nesting site of a remnant flock of Whooping Cranes, discovered in 1954.

Hay River, one of the tributaries of Great Slave Lake

Ice road

There is one ice road on Great Slave Lake, the Dettah ice road. It connects from Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories to Dettah, also in the Northwest Territories.

See also

• List of lakes of Canada

Further reading

• Canada. (1981). Sailing directions, Great Slave Lake and Mackenzie River. Ottawa: Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans. ISBN 0-660-11022-9
• Gibson, J. J., Prowse, T. D., & Peters, D. L. (2006). "Partitioning impacts of climate and regulation on water level variability in Great Slave Lake." Journal of Hydrology. 329 (1), 196.
• Hicks, F., Chen, X., & Andres, D. (1995). "Effects of ice on the hydraulics of Mackenzie River at the outlet of Great Slave Lake, N.W.T.: A case study." Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering. Revue Canadienne De G̐ưenie Civil. 22 (1), 43.
• Kasten, H. (2004). The captain's course secrets of Great Slave Lake. Edmonton: H. Kasten. ISBN 0-9736641-0-X
• Jenness, R. (1963). Great Slave Lake fishing industry. Ottawa: Northern Co-ordination and Research Centre. Dept. of Northern Affairs and National Resources.
• Keleher, J. J. (1972). Supplementary information regarding exploitation of Great Slave Lake salmonid community. Winnipeg: Fisheries Research Board, Freshwater Institute.
• Mason, J. A. (1946). Notes on the Indians of the Great Slave Lake area. New Haven: Yale University Department of Anthropology, Yale University Press.
• Sirois, J., Fournier, M. A., & Kay, M. F. (1995). The colonial waterbirds of Great Slave Lake, Northwest Territories an annotated atlas. Ottawa, Ont: Canadian Wildlife Service. ISBN 0-662-23884-2

External links

• Great Slave Lake pictures from Picsearch.com