Moosomin Lake, also known as Moosomin Reservoir, is a
man-made lake
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...
in south-eastern part of 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 ...
of
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 ...
. Created by the damming of
Pipestone Creek in 1954, Moosomin Lake is located about south of the town of
Moosomin and is in the
Souris River
The Souris River (; ) or Mouse River (as it is alternatively known in the U.S., a translation of its French name) is a river in central North America. Approximately in length, it drains about in Canada and the United States.
Rising in sout ...
watershed. The reservoir's uses include irrigation, water supply, and recreation. Moosomin Lake Regional Park is on lake's western shore.
The town of Moosomin gets its drinking water from wells alongside the lake. From the wells, the water is piped to town. In 2022, $10 million in funding was approved to upgrade the water treatment plant.
In 2011, much of the
Souris River watershed flooded in a greater-than-
one-in-a-hundred year flood event. While the well shacks are a few feet higher than the normal water level in Moosomin Lake, due to the rising water levels,
sandbag
A sandbag or dirtbag is a bag or sack made of Hessian (cloth), hessian (burlap), polypropylene or other sturdy materials that is filled with sand or soil and used for such purposes as flood control, military fortification in trenches and bunke ...
s had to be used around the wells to protect them from being contaminated. After the waters receded, permanent three-foot clay
dykes were built at the well site to protect the wells from future potential flooding.
Geology
Moosomin Lake sits in the Pipestone Valley, which was created about 15,000 years ago with the melting of the
last ice age. The valley was cut by the melting waters from glacial Lake Indian Head and is called the Pipestone Spillway.
Moosomin Dam
The construction of Moosomin Dam () along the Pipestone Creek began in 1953 and work was completed by November 1954. It is an earth-filled
embankment dam
An embankment dam is a large artificial dam. It is typically created by the placement and compaction of a complex semi-plastic mound of various compositions of soil or rock. It has a semi-pervious waterproof natural covering for its surface ...
located at the south-east corner of Moosomin Lake that is high with an uncontrolled overflow concrete spillway and a gated riparian outlet. The maximum discharge capacity is per second. The total length of the reservoir when full is long with a total storage capacity of . The surface area for the reservoir is .
An $9.7 million rehabilitation project on the dam was begun in 2023. The project involves adding a thick concrete slab to the top of the existing spillway, upgrades to the embankment road, improvement to the drainage system, erosion prevention work, and improvement to the movement monitoring system. Work is expected to be completed by the summer of 2024.
Moosomin Lake Regional Park
Moosomin Lake Regional Park () opened up in 1955 along the western shore of the lake. The
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 ...
is about from the town of Moosomin and can be accessed from
Highway 709, which is just off
Highway 8. The park features camping, swimming, and boating. There are 125 serviced campsites plus unserviced over-flow sites. The beach area of the park has a sandy beach, a picnic area, and a playground. There are also boat launches and a marina that was built in 2015. Just outside the park, to the east near the dam and along Highway 8, is the 9-hole Pipestone Hills Golf Course.
See also
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Saskatchewan Water Security Agency
The Saskatchewan Water Security Agency (before 2013, the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority) is an arm's length organization responsible for the management of water resources to ensure safe drinking water sources and reliable water supplies for eco ...
*
List of dams and reservoirs in Canada
A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
List of lakes of Saskatchewan
This is a list of lakes of Saskatchewan, a province of Canada. The largest and most notable lakes are listed at the start, followed by an alphabetical listing of other lakes of the province.
Larger lake statistics
"The total area of a lake ...
*
List of protected areas of Saskatchewan
This is a list of protected areas of Saskatchewan.
National parks
Provincial parks
The federal government transferred control of natural resources to the western provinces in 1930 with the Natural Resources Acts. At that time, t ...
References
{{Authority control
Lakes of Saskatchewan
Water management authorities
Dams in Saskatchewan
Protected areas of Saskatchewan
Dams completed in 1954