Great Slave Lake (French: Grand lac des Esclaves) is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada (behind Great Bear Lake), the deepest lake in North America at , and the ninth-largest lake in the world. It is long and wide. It covers an area of in the southern part of the territory. Its volume is . The lake shares its name with the Slavey North American Indians. Towns around the lake include: Yellowknife, Fort Providence, Hay River and Fort Resolution. The only community in the East Arm is Lutselk'e, a hamlet of about 350 people, largely Chipewyan aboriginals of the Dene Nation.

History

First Nations 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 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 Cosmos 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. The nuclear debris was picked up by a group called Operation Morning Light formed with both American and Canadian members.

Geography and natural history

The Hay and Slave 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 access Yellowknife during spring when the ice is not present in a solid sheet along Highway 3 where it crosses the Mackenzie River.

The main western portion of the lake forms a moderately deep bowl with a surface area of and a volume of . This main portion has a maximum depth of and a mean depth of . To the east, McLeod Bay (62 52N, 110 10W) and Christie Bay (62 32N, 111W) are much deeper, with a maximum recorded depth in Christie Bay of .

On some of the plains surrounding Great Slave Lake, climax polygonal bog 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.

Ice road

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

See also

• Keller Lake
• List of lakes by depth (8)
• List of lakes by volume (12)

References

1. C. Michael Hogan. 2008. Black Spruce: Picea mariana, GlobalTwitcher.com, ed. Nicklas Stromberg

Further reading