Lake Athabasca (; French: ''lac Athabasca''; from Woods Cree: , "

here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a ...

there are plants one after another") is located in the north-west corner of

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

and the north-east corner of

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest T ...

between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake is 26% in Alberta and 74% in Saskatchewan.

History

The name in the Dene language originally referred only to the large delta formed by the confluence of the Athabasca River at the southwest corner of the lake. Prior to 1789, Sir Alexander Mackenzie explored the lake. In 1791, Philip Turnor, cartographer for the Hudson’s Bay Company, wrote in his journal, "low swampy ground on the South side with a few willows growing upon it, from which the Lake in general takes its name Athapison in the Southern Cree tongue which signifies open country such as lakes with willows and grass growing about them".

Peter Fidler Peter Fidler (16 August 1769 – 17 December 1822) was a British surveyor, map-maker, fur trader and explorer who had a long career in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in what later became Canada. He was born in Bolsover, Derbyshire ...

originally recorded the name for the river in 1790 as ''the Great Arabuska''. By 1801, the name had gained a closer spelling to the current name—Athapaskow Lake. By 1820, George Simpson referred to both the lake and the river as "Athabasca".

Geography and natural history

The lake covers , is long, has a maximum width of , and a maximum depth of , and holds of water, making it the largest and one of the deepest lakes in both Alberta and Saskatchewan (nearby Tazin Lake is deeper), and the eighth largest in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

. Water flows northward from the lake via the Slave River and Mackenzie River systems, eventually reaching the

Arctic Ocean The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

. Fort Chipewyan, one of the oldest European settlements in Alberta, is located on the western shore of the lake, where the Rivière des Rochers drains the lake and flows toward Slave River, beginning its northward journey along the eastern boundary of Wood Buffalo National Park. The eastern section of the lake narrows to a width of about 1 km (.6 miles) near the community of Fond du Lac located on the northern shore then continues to its most easterly point at the mouth of the Fond du Lac River. Fidler Point on the north shore of Lake Athabasca is named for

, a surveyor and map maker for the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business di ...

. Along with other lakes such as the Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake, Lake Athabasca is a remnant of the vast

Glacial Lake McConnell Lake McConnell was a very large proglacial lake that existed in what is now Canada from 11,800 to 8,300 years ago. Other sources give starting and ending dates of about 12,000 and between 9,000 and 8,000 years ago, respectively. It covered parts o ...

Tributaries

Tributaries of Lake Athabasca include (going clockwise); Fond du Lac River, Otherside River, Helmer Creek, MacFarlane River, Archibald River, William River, Ennuyeuse Creek, Dumville Creek, Debussac Creek, Jackfish Creek, Claussen Creek, Old Fort River, Crown Creek, Athabasca River, Colin River, Oldman River, Bulyea River, Grease River and Robillard River.

Development and environment

Uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the econom ...

along the northern shore resulted in the birth of

Uranium City, Saskatchewan Uranium City is a northern settlement in Saskatchewan, Canada. Located on the northern shores of Lake Athabasca near the border of the Northwest Territories, it is above sea level. The settlement is northwest of Prince Albert, northeast of E ...

, which was home to mine workers and their families. While the last mine closed in the 1980s, the effects of mining operations had already heavily contaminated the northern shores. The large

oil sands Oil sands, tar sands, crude bitumen, or bituminous sands, are a type of unconventional petroleum deposit. Oil sands are either loose sands or partially consolidated sandstone containing a naturally occurring mixture of sand, clay, and wate ...

mining nearby is suspected to have added to the current pollution levels in the lake. On October31, 2013, one of Obed Mountain coal mine's pits failed, and from between 600 million to a billion liters of slurry poured into the Plante and Apetowun Creeks. The plume of waste products then joined the Athabasca River, travelling downstream for a month before settling in Lake Athabasca near Fort Chipewyan, over away. The

Lake Athabasca Sand Dunes The Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park was created to protect the Athabasca sand dunes, a unique boreal shield ecosystem located in the far-north Northern Saskatchewan Administration District. The Athabasca sand dunes are the most northerly ...

, the largest active sand dunes in the world north of 58°, are adjacent to the southern shore. The dunes were designated a "Provincial Wilderness Park" in 1992. Lake Athabasca contains 23 species of

fish Fish are Aquatic animal, aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack Limb (anatomy), limbs with Digit (anatomy), digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and Chondrichthyes, cartilaginous and bony fish as we ...

, with a world record lake trout of caught from its depths in 1961 by means of a

gillnet Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is ...

. Other fish species include

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Sam ...

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish water, brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are kno ...

goldeye The goldeye (''Hiodon alosoides'') is a freshwater fish found in Canada and the northern United States. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hiodontidae, the other species being ''Hiodon tergisus''. The species name ''alosoides'' ...

, lake whitefish,

cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

, Arctic grayling,

burbot The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish. It is also known as bubbot, mariah, loche, cusk, freshwater cod, freshwater ling, freshwater cusk, the lawyer, coney-fish, lingcod, and eelpout. The species is closely ...

, white sucker and longnose sucker.

References

External links