Manitou Lake is a

salt lake A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked body of water that has a concentration of salts (typically sodium chloride) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most lakes (often defined as at least three grams of salt per liter). I ...

located mostly in the RM of Manitou Lake No. 422 in the

Canadian province Canada has ten provinces and three territories that are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Constitution of Canada, Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North Amer ...

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...

, about east of the provincial border with

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

. The eastern shore of the lake is in the RM of Hillsdale No. 440. Manitou Lake is located in a region called the

Prairie Pothole Region The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) is an expansive area of the northern Great Plains that contains thousands of shallow wetlands known as potholes. These potholes are the result of glacier activity in the Wisconsin glaciation The Wisconsin gl ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, which extends throughout three Canadian provinces and five

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

s. It is also within

Palliser's Triangle Palliser's Triangle (), or the Palliser Triangle, is a semi-arid steppe occupying a substantial portion of the Western Canadian Canadian Prairies, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba, within the Great Plains region. While initially determined to be ...

and the

Great Plains ecoregion The ecology of the Great Plains is diverse, largely owing to their great size. Differences in rainfall, elevation, and latitude create a variety of habitats including short-grass prairie, short grass, mixed-grass prairie, mixed grass, and tall-gras ...

. Manitou Lake is part of an

Important Bird Area An Important Bird and Biodiversity Area (IBA) is an area identified using an internationally agreed set of criteria as being globally important for the conservation of bird populations. IBA was developed and sites are identified by BirdLife Int ...

(IBA) of Canada that covers of land and several neighbouring lakes. Because the lake is an

endorheic lake An endorheic lake (also called a sink lake or terminal lake) is a collection of water within an endorheic basin, or sink, with no evident outlet. Endorheic lakes are generally Saline water, saline as a result of being unable to get rid of solutes ...

and quite salty, there are no fish in the lake. Manitou Island in the centre of the lake is now connected to the southern shore as the water level has lowered.

Description

The primary inflow for the lake is from Eyehill Creek at the south end. There are also many small springtime meltwater tributaries that feed the lake. Eyehill Creek originates in neighbouring Alberta from Sounding Lake. Manitou Lake and its tributaries are part of a

closed basin Closed may refer to: Mathematics * Closure (mathematics), a set, along with operations, for which applying those operations on members always results in a member of the set * Closed set, a set which contains all its limit points * Closed interval, ...

watershed. When the lake level rises high enough, it overflows to the north through Wells Lake near Marsden and then into the

Battle River Battle River is a river in central Alberta and western Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a major tributary of the North Saskatchewan River. The Battle River flows for and drains a total area of . Its mean discharge at the mouth is 10 m³/s. ...

, which is a tributary of the

North Saskatchewan River The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with the South Saskatchewan River to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows event ...

. This has happened only once since settlers arrived in the area, and that was in approximately 1905. Lake levels were relatively constant until 1980 and have been declining rapidly since then by approximately one metre every six years. Less annual snowfall and heavier utilization of water from the Eyehill Creek system by urban, industrial, and agricultural users is blamed for this trend. Along the southern shore of the lake are the Manitou Sand Hills. The hills total of Crown grazing land set aside by the Saskatchewan government. There are no

communities A community is a Level of analysis, social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place (geography), place, set of Norm (social), norms, culture, religion, values, Convention (norm), customs, or Ide ...

on the lake's shore. The nearest communities are Marsden, about north of the north-west corner of the lake in the RM of Manitou Lake, and Neilburg, about north of the north-east corner of the lake in the RM of Hillsdale, along Highway 40. At the lake's North-West Bay, there is Big Manitou Regional Park. Originally founded as part of Suffern Lake Regional Park in 1975, it became its own independent

regional park A regional park is an area of land preserved on account of its natural beauty, historic interest, recreational use or other reason, and under the administration of a form of local government. Definition A regional park can be a special park distr ...

in 2019. The park features camping, cabins, picnicking, swimming, and the Manitou Lake Golf Club. Just to the east of the regional park, is Manitou Lake Bible Camp.

Manitou Lake Area IBA

The Manitou Lake Area (includes Reflex, Freshwater, Wells, Colette and Cipher Lakes) (SK 089) IBA of Canada encompasses Manitou Lake itself and several smaller nearby lakes—including two in

. It also covers the 7252-hectare Artland Sandhills, which are to the west of Manitou Lake. Freshwater and Wells Lakes are entirely within Saskatchewan, and Cipher and Colette are in Alberta. Reflex Lake staddles the border. The lakes are important habitat for birds such as the

piping plover The piping plover (''Charadrius melodus'') is a small sand-colored, Passerellidae, sparrow-sized wader, shorebird that nests and feeds along coastal sand and gravel beaches in North America. The adult has yellow-orange-red legs, a black band acro ...

red-necked phalarope The red-necked phalarope (''Phalaropus lobatus''), also known as the northern phalarope and hyperborean phalarope, is a small wader. This phalarope breeds in the Arctic regions of North America and Eurasia. It is migratory, and, unusually for a ...

sanderling The sanderling (''Calidris alba'') is a small wading bird. The name derives from Old English ''sand-yrðling'', "sand-ploughman". The genus name is from Ancient Greek ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'', a term used by Aristotle for some grey-colour ...

stilt sandpiper The stilt sandpiper (''Calidris himantopus'') is a small shorebird. The scientific name is from Ancient Greek. The genus name ''kalidris'' or ''skalidris'' is a term used by Aristotle for some grey-coloured waterside birds. The specific ''himant ...

ruddy turnstone The ruddy turnstone (''Arenaria interpres'') is a small Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan wader, wading bird, one of two species of turnstone in the genus ''Arenaria''. It is now classified in the sandpiper family Scolopacidae but was form ...

redhead Red hair, also known as ginger hair, is a human hair color found in 2–6% of people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and lesser frequency in other populations. It is most common in individuals homozygous for a recessive alle ...

red knot The red knot or just knot (''Calidris canutus'') is a medium-sized shorebird which breeds in tundra and the Arctic Cordillera in the far north of Canada, Europe, and Russia. It is a large member of the ''Calidris'' sandpipers, second only to the ...

lesser scaup The lesser scaup (''Aythya affinis'') is a small North American diving duck that migrates south as far as Central America in winter. It is colloquially known as the little bluebill or broadbill because of its distinctive blue bill. The origin of ...

, and the

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader in the genus '' Calidris''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown", with the suffix ''-ling'', meaning a person or ...

. Around Manitou Lake, six specific areas covering over half the shoreline have been "designated as critical Piping Plover habitat", which protects the shoreline up to the highwater mark from development.

References

External links

* {{Authority control Lakes of Saskatchewan Manitou Lake No. 442, Saskatchewan Endorheic lakes of Canada Division No. 13, Saskatchewan Saline lakes of Canada Important Bird Areas of Saskatchewan Important Bird Areas of Alberta

Description

Manitou Lake Area IBA

See also

References

External links