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Lake Location:
Canada | Lake Area:
12,096 sq. miles | Lake Depth:
1,463 feet |
Great Bear Lake
Great Bear Lake is the largest lake entirely within Canada (Lake Superior and Lake Huron straddling the Canada-US border are larger), the third largest in North America, and the seventh largest in the world.
The lake is situated on the Arctic Circle between 65 and 67 degrees of northern latitude and between 118 and 123 degrees western longitude, 186 m (610 ft) above sea level.
The lake has a surface area of 31,153 km2 (12,028 mi2) and a total volume of 2,236 km3 (536 mi3). Its maximum depth is 446 m (1,463 ft) and its average depth 72 m (236 ft). The total shoreline is 2,719 km (1,690 mi) and the total catchment area of the lake is 114,717 km2 (44,293 mi2).
The lake empties through the Great Bear River into the Mackenzie River. The only community on the lake is Deline, Northwest Territories at the southwest end.
The Sahtu Dene people took their name from the lake.
Great Bear Lake lies between two major physiographic regions: the Kazan Uplands portion of the Canadian Shield and the Interior Plains. Originally it was part of preglacial valleys that were reshaped by erosional effects of ice during the Pleistocene. Since then, the lake has undergone various changes resulting from rebound following the melting of the ice.
Precambrian rocks of the Canadian Shield form the eastern margin of the McTavish Arm. These rocks of the Precambrian are made up of sedimentary and metamorphic deposits supplemented by igneous intrusions forming dikes and sills. (Source)
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