Lake Simcoe is a lake in southern Ontario
, Canada
, the
twelfth-largest lake in the province. It is also one of the
world's largest freshwater lakes to freeze over completely in the
winter.
The lake
is bordered by Simcoe County,
Durham
Region
, and York Region
. The city of Barrie
is located
on Kempenfelt Bay, and Orillia
is located
at the entrance to Lake Couchiching
. The watershed draining into the lake
contains a population of roughly half a million people, including
the northern portion of the
Greater
Toronto Area.
The Town
of Georgina
lies along
the entire south shore of Lake Simcoe and contains smaller
residential towns and communities, including Keswick
on Cook's Bay
, Sutton
, Jackson's
Point, Pefferlaw
, and Udora
among
others.
History
Lake Simcoe is a remnant of a much bigger,
prehistoric lake known as
Lake Algonquin.
This lake's basin also
included Lake Huron, Lake Michigan
, Lake
Superior
, Lake Nipigon
, and Lake Nipissing
. The melting of an ice dam at the close of
the
last ice age greatly
reduced water levels in the region, leaving the lakes of
today.
At the time of the first
European contact in
the 17th century, the lake was called
Ouentironk
("Beautiful Water") by the
Wyandot (Huron)
natives. In 1687,
Lahontan
called it Lake Toronto, an
Iroquoian term meaning gateway or pass.
Since then, many subsequent mapmakers adopted this name for
it.
The
name 'Toronto' found its way to the current city through its use in
the name for the Toronto
Carrying-Place Trail (or Toronto Passage), a portage running between Lake Ontario
and Georgian
Bay
, that passed through Lake Toronto, which in turn
was used as the name for an early French fort located at the foot
of the Toronto Passage, on Lake Ontario. The
Severn River, its outlet
stream, was once called 'Rivière de Toronto' which flows into
Georgian Bay's Severn Sound, then called the 'Baie de
Toronto'.
The later French traders referred to it as
Lac aux Claies,
meaning "Lake of Grids (or Trellises)" in reference to the Huron
fishing weirs in the lake.
It was renamed by
John Graves
Simcoe, the
Lieutenant-Governor of
Upper Canada, in 1793, not in honour of
himself, but in memory of his father, Captain John Simcoe.
Captain
Simcoe was born on 28 November 1710, in Staindrop
, in County Durham,
northeast England
and served
as an officer in the Royal Navy, dying of
pneumonia aboard his ship, HMS
Pembroke, on 15 May 1759.
Lake Simcoe in Southern Ontario
The lake is about long and wide. Its area is roughly . It is shaped
somewhat like a fist with the index finger and thumb extended.
The thumb
forms Kempenfelt
Bay
on the west, the wrist Lake Couchiching to the north, and the extended finger is Cook's Bay on the south. Couchiching was at one time
thought of as a third bay of Simcoe, known as the Bristol Channel;
however, the narrows between the two bodies of water separate them
enough to consider this to be another lake.
The narrows, known as
"the place where trees grow over the water" was an important
fishing point for the First Nations
peoples who lived in the area, and the Mohawk term toran-ten eventually gave
its name to Toronto
by way of
the portage route running south from that point, the Toronto
Carrying-Place Trail.
Watershed and navigation
A number of southern Ontario rivers flow, generally north, into the
lake, draining of land. From the east, the
Talbot River, part of the
Trent-Severn Waterway is the most
important river draining into Lake Simcoe, connecting the lake with
the
Kawartha lakes system and Lake
Ontario.
From its connection to Lake Couchiching, the
Severn River is the only drainage from the lake to Georgian Bay,
part of Lake
Huron
(Simcoe itself is not one of the Great Lakes
). The
canal lock of the Trent-Severn
Waterway make this connection
navigable.
A number of creeks and rivers flow into the lake:
Georgina island
Lake Simcoe contains a large island, Georgina, on which there is a
First Nations reserve.
The lake is dotted
with several smaller islands, including Thorah Island
(a cottage destination), Strawberry Island (a
Basilican retreat), Snake Island, and Fox Island. Pope John Paul II stayed on Strawberry
Island for four days just before
World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto. Before
the completion of the
Trent Severn
Waterway, the water level on Lake Simcoe was quite low enabling
residents to cross in wagons or walk in ankle deep water to the
mainland. However when it was completed, the water table increased
by several feet.
Ecology
When a lake is healthy, cold-water fish like lake trout, herring
and whitefish are abundant and active. It is sometimes known as
Canada's
ice fishing capital.
Environmental problems
Lake Simcoe has been victim to significant
eutrophication. Lake Simcoe has seen a
dramatic decline in these fish species, along with an increase in
algae blooms and aquatic weed growth.
Phosphorus emissions from both urban and rural
sources have upset the lake's ecosystem and fostered excessive
aquatic plant growth, raising water temperatures, decreasing oxygen
levels, and thereby rendering limited breeding grounds
inhospitable.
Lake Simcoe has been victim to
zebra
mussel,
Purple Loosestrife,
Black crappie,
spiny water flea, and
Eurasian milfoil invasions.
The zebra mussel, which arrived in North American waters in 1985.
It originated in the Black and Caspian Seas area and is thought to
have been brought to this continent in the ballast of foreign
freighters. Zebra Mussels are particularly harmful to Lake Simcoe
because they increase the clarity of the water allowing sunlight to
penetrate to the bottom of the lake, where more algae and aquatic
weeds can grow accelerating the eutrophication process.
The Rainbow Smelt are another introduced species and they were
first observed in the early 1960's. They were believed to compete
with native Lake Whitefish and somewhat responsible for a decline
in their populations.
Several initiatives, such as the Lake Simcoe Environmental
Management Strategy (LSEMS), the Lake Simcoe Conservation
Foundation, and the
Lake Simcoe Region
Conservation Authority, are making efforts to rectify some of
the lake's environmental woes.A local activist group,
The
Ladies of the Lake, are using the $250,000 they raised from
the sale of a nude picture calendar to rally government, business,
the school system and the local citizenry to rescue the lake.
Several towns and communities on the lakeshore depend on Lake
Simcoe for their drinking water.
References
- Ontario - Lake Areas and Elevation (lakes larger
than 400 square kilometres) at the Atlas of Canada
- Lake Simcoe Ontario Resort Destination Lake Simcoe Ontario
North
- Data summary at the International Lake Environment
Committee
- John Paul to rest as cross makes way through
Toronto
External links
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