Lake Winnipeg
Among the dry rolling prairies in the center of Canada lies the unexpected treasure of Lake Winnipeg. This is a very special lake. It is the 4th largest freshwater lake in Canada, the 11th largest in the world.
The lake literally throbs with energy and abundance. A source of fish, hydro electricity, and recreation. As the reservoir for Manitoba Hydro's electric system it generates $200 annually, it's a lake of immense proportions.
Lake Winnipeg is 425 km long and 40 km wide at the south basin covering 24,500 sq. km. It is shaped like an inverted teardrop. It's 4 1/2 times the size of Prince Edward Island. From the shores, it looks like an ocean.
But thousands of years earlier an even larger glacial lake had covered the entire area.
According to James Teller, professor of geology at the University of Manitoba, the landscape around today's Lake Winnipeg was shaped by Lake Agassiz, a large prehistoric glacial lake. "Lake Agassiz in total covered an area of 350,000 sq. km. It expanded and it contracted, it changed its size during its 4,000 year history. The climate was getting warmer and warmer. Once the ice retreated north of about Fargo ND, then there was a puddle then a lake and then a giant lake that formed out beyond the divide and edge of the ice margin."
Over time the waters of Lake Agassiz retreated until all that was left is present day Lake Winnipeg. At its height 7,500 years ago the city of Winnipeg lay under 213 metres or 650 feet of water. Today, Lake Winnipeg is a shallow lake averaging only 30 feet in the south.
Aboriginal people have fished the lake for 8,000 years. During the fur trade era starting in the 1700s, the lake became the crossroads of the northwest. In 1783, explorer LaVerendrye's journeys took him through the peninsula of land near the mouth of the Winnipeg River, which later became Victoria Beach. He named the area south Grand Marais for Big March.
The lake is thousands of years old. Thousands of years in the making. It seems it will be here forever. Four or five generations have enjoyed its pleasures. But how many more? Will the lake as we know it be there for future generations? Can we continue to enjoy its gifts endlessly?
Winnipeg journalist Val Werier is concerned about the future of the lake. "Its significance is this it's a microcosm of what happens to the environment and how we treat it. Lake Winnipeg drains a huge watershed stretching form the foothills of the Rockies to within 80 miles of Lake Superior. This vast body of water which drains into Lake Winnipeg and eventually into Hudson Bay has an impact on Lake Winnipeg and how people treat the environment. How people use their pesticide or how they use their fertilizer, how they treat the land manifests itself on Lake Winnipeg."
The lake is ever changing. Generally placid sometimes angry, in 5 minutes it can go from calm to a terrifying storm. Explorers called the lake The Old Woman for how quickly and violently a storm could blow up. Because of the lake's shallowness and propensity for sudden storms, the lake can be deadly according to author Frances Russell. "There hasn't been a year since 1900 when they started keeping records that there haven't been multiple deaths on the lake."
Collectors Edition
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