Qamanirjuaq Lake formerly Kaminuriak Lake, pronunciation: ''ka-min-YOO-ree-ak''; meaning: "huge lake adjoining a river at both ends", is a lake in the

Kivalliq Region The Kivalliq Region (; Inuktitut syllabics: ᑭᕙᓪᓕᖅ) is an Region, administrative List of regions of Nunavut, region of Nunavut, Canada. It consists of the portion of the mainland to the west of Hudson Bay together with Southampton Island ...

Nunavut Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

, Canada. It is the first of several named lakes on the eastward flow of the Ferguson River through the eastern barrenlands. The lake is located about downstream from Ferguson Lake, and adjacent upstream to Parker Lake South. The Ferguson River passes through a series of rapids before entering the western arm of Qamanirjuaq Lake.

Geography

The lake is irregularly shaped with several inlets and unnamed islands, in a

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

area of north-northwest

ice flow A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires d ...

, north of the

tree line The tree line is the edge of a habitat at which trees are capable of growing and beyond which they are not. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually low ...

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

explorer,

Joseph Tyrrell Joseph Burr Tyrrell, FRSC (November 1, 1858 – August 26, 1957) was a Canadian geologist, cartographer, mining consultant and historian. He discovered dinosaur (''Albertosaurus sarcophagus'') bones in Alberta's Badlands and coal around Drumh ...

, described the lake in his

Geological Survey of Canada The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC; , CGC) is a Canadian federal government agency responsible for performing geological surveys of the country developing Canada's natural resources and protecting the environment. A branch of the Earth Science ...

1894 canoe expedition report: :"Kaminuriak Lake is a beautiful sheet of clear cold water lying in the till-covered plain... Where seen, the beach is in some places sandy, but more generally of large boulders, which, on the more exposed parts of the shore are arranged in a regular wall to the height of from eight to twelve feet, while in the bays they are scattered over a shallow floor of sand or till. Back from the lake the country stretches in wide treeless plains, or rises in low grassy hills, which show no signs of any underlying rock... Following the south shore of Kaminuriak Lake to its southeastern angle, the river was again reached... now a much larger stream, sixty yards wide and two feet deep." Qamanirjuaq Lake is within the northern Hearne Domain, Western Churchill province of the Churchill Craton, northwest section of the

Canadian Shield The Canadian Shield ( ), also called the Laurentian Shield or the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), th ...

in northern Canada. Ahimaa (

Inuktitut Inuktitut ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...

: "are you other?" or "are you other being?"), a cave, once inhabited by an

Inuk Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labr ...

, is hollowed out of Qamanirjuaq Lake's massive cliff.

Fauna

The calving grounds of the large migratory Qamanirjuaq herd of

barren-ground caribou The barren-ground caribou (''Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus''; but subject to a recent taxonomic revision) is a subspecies of the reindeer (or the caribou in North America) that is found in the Canadian territories of Nunavut and the Northwest ...

are in the area surrounding Lake Qamanirjuaq, after which they are named. The herd returns annually after travelling an inconsistent, unpredictable range through

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

/Nunavut, northeastern

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 ...

, and southeastern

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...

. The herd, a

keystone species A keystone species is a species that has a disproportionately large effect on its natural environment relative to its abundance. The concept was introduced in 1969 by the zoologist Robert T. Paine. Keystone species play a critical role in main ...

, has been safeguarded by the Beverly and Qamanirjuaq Caribou Management Board since 1982. In the mid-1970s, a

fishery Fishery can mean either the enterprise of raising or harvesting fish and other aquatic life or, more commonly, the site where such enterprise takes place ( a.k.a., fishing grounds). Commercial fisheries include wild fisheries and fish far ...

was moved from Kaminak Lake (which proved to have unacceptably high levels of mercury), to Qamanirjuaq Lake which showed no elevated mercury levels. The lake is filled with

lake whitefish The lake whitefish (''Coregonus clupeaformis'') is a species of freshwater whitefish from North America. Lake whitefish are found throughout much of Canada and parts of the northern United States, including all of the Great Lakes. The lake white ...

and

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater Salvelinus, char living mainly in lakes in Northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, laker, and grey trout. In Lake Sup ...

for commercial fishing, and is also home to ''Lasallia pensylvanica''

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

sphagnum ''Sphagnum'' is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as sphagnum moss, also bog moss and quacker moss (although that term is also sometimes used for peat). Accumulations of ''Sphagnum'' can store water, since ...

bryophyte Bryophytes () are a group of embryophyte, land plants (embryophytes), sometimes treated as a taxonomic Division (taxonomy), division referred to as Bryophyta ''Sensu#Common qualifiers, sensu lato'', that contains three groups of non-vascular pla ...

s, and a few

dwarf birch ''Betula nana'', the dwarf birch, is a species of birch in the family Betulaceae, found mainly in the tundra of the Arctic region. Description It is a monoecious, deciduous shrub growing up to high. The bark is non-peeling and shiny red-copper ...

References

External links

Map of Qamanirjuaq Lake and Qamanirjuaq caribou herd range
{{Lakes of Nunavut Lakes of Kivalliq Region

Geography

Fauna

See also

References

External links