The Caniapiscau Reservoir () is a
reservoir
A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation.
Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contro ...
on the upper
Caniapiscau River
The Caniapiscau River (french: rivière Caniapiscau) is a tributary of the Koksoak River in Nunavik, Quebec, Canada. In Cree the name of the river means ''rocky point''.
Starting from Lac Sevestre ( south-west from Fermont) on the Canadian S ...
in the
Côte-Nord
Côte-Nord (, ; ; land area ) is the second-largest administrative region by land area in Quebec, Canada, after Nord-du-Québec. It covers much of the northern shore of the Saint Lawrence River estuary and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence past Tadous ...
administrative region of the Canadian
province
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...
of
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
. It is the largest body of water in Quebec
and the second largest reservoir in Canada.
The Caniapiscau Reservoir, formed by two dams and forty-three dikes, is the largest reservoir in surface area of the
James Bay Project
The James Bay Project (french: projet de la Baie-James) refers to the construction of a series of hydroelectric power stations on the La Grande River in northwestern Quebec, Canada by state-owned utility Hydro-Québec, and the diversion of neigh ...
. As headpond, it feeds the power plants of the La Grande complex in the winter and provides up to 35% of their production.
Its total catchment area is about .
The reservoir was named after Lake Caniapiscau that was flooded during the formation of the reservoir. The name is an adaptation of the
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
or
Innu
The Innu / Ilnu ("man", "person") or Innut / Innuat / Ilnuatsh ("people"), formerly called Montagnais from the French colonial period ( French for "mountain people", English pronunciation: ), are the Indigenous inhabitants of territory in the ...
toponym ''kâ-neyâpiskâw'', which means "rocky point".
Albert Peter Low
Albert Peter Low (May 24, 1861 – October 9, 1942) was a Canadian geologist, explorer and athlete. His explorations of 1893–1895 were important in declaring Canada's sovereignty over the Arctic, and eventually defining the border between Quebec ...
had noted in 1895 that "a high rocky headland jutts into the lake." He probably referred to the northwest facing peninsula that gives the reservoir the shape of an arc as we current know it.
The Caniapiscau Reservoir is accessible by
bush plane and, since 1981, by a gravel road from James Bay (the
Trans-Taiga Road
The Trans-Taiga Road (french: Route Transtaïga) is an extremely remote wilderness road in northern Quebec, Canada. It is long to Centrale Brisay and another along the Caniapiscau Reservoir, all of it unpaved.
Description
The road's northeast ...
). At the very end of this road, near the Duplanter spillway, is the former worksite of the Société d'énergie de la Baie-James, named
Caniapiscau
Caniapiscau () is a vast unorganized territory in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada, part of Caniapiscau Regional County Municipality.
The territory is home to the huge Caniapiscau Reservoir, the largest body of water in Quebec. The res ...
. There is no permanent human habitation at the reservoir, but it is used by
outfitters for seasonal hunting and fishing expeditions and by some
Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
for subsistence fishing and trapping.
It is isolated from society and there are very few gas stations or other services nearby.
History
![Réservoir Caniapiscau](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/R%C3%A9servoir_Caniapiscau.jpg)
The natural lakes of the region were formed about nine thousand years ago as
glacier
A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its Ablation#Glaciology, ablation over many years, often Century, centuries. It acquires dis ...
s left Quebec after having scoured the
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called 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), the anc ...
for ninety thousand years. The prototype of these lakes was an
ice dam lake that drained southwards into the
Gulf of Saint Lawrence
, image = Baie de la Tour.jpg
, alt =
, caption = Gulf of St. Lawrence from Anticosti National Park, Quebec
, image_bathymetry = Golfe Saint-Laurent Depths fr.svg
, alt_bathymetry = Bathymetry ...
at a time when areas further north (
Nunavik) were still glaciated. As
post-glacial rebound
Post-glacial rebound (also called isostatic rebound or crustal rebound) is the rise of land masses after the removal of the huge weight of ice sheets during the last glacial period, which had caused isostatic depression. Post-glacial rebound a ...
elevated the southern part of the Canadian Shield more rapidly than the north, the region began to drain northward into the Caniapiscau River, a tributary of the
Koksoak River
__NOTOC__
The Koksoak River (french: rivière Koksoak) is a river in northern Quebec, Canada, the largest river in the Nunavik region. The Inuit village and region's administrative centre Kuujjuaq lies on the shores of the Koksoak, about south f ...
, and ultimately into
Ungava Bay
Ungava Bay (french: baie d'Ungava, ; iu, ᐅᖓᕙ ᑲᖏᖅᓗᒃ/) is a bay in northeastern Canada separating Nunavik (far northern Quebec) from Baffin Island. Although not geographically apparent, it is considered to be a marginal sea of the ...
.
Prior to impoundment, Lake Caniapiscau covered about and was frequented by hunters and fur traders in the 19th century. In 1834, the
Hudson's Bay Company
The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC; french: Compagnie de la Baie d'Hudson) is a Canadian retail business group. A fur trading business for much of its existence, HBC now owns and operates retail stores in Canada. The company's namesake business div ...
opened an outpost there to link its facilities in the
James Bay
James Bay (french: Baie James; cr, ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, Wînipekw, dirty water) is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. Both bodies of water extend from the Arctic Ocean, of which James Bay is the southernmost par ...
region with those of
Ungava Bay
Ungava Bay (french: baie d'Ungava, ; iu, ᐅᖓᕙ ᑲᖏᖅᓗᒃ/) is a bay in northeastern Canada separating Nunavik (far northern Quebec) from Baffin Island. Although not geographically apparent, it is considered to be a marginal sea of the ...
, but closed the Kaniapiskau Post in 1870.
In 1976, ''
Société d'énergie de la Baie James'', a subsidiary of
Hydro-Québec, began construction on the Caniapiscau Reservoir, designed to feed the
hydro-electric
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined an ...
generating stations of the
James Bay Project
The James Bay Project (french: projet de la Baie-James) refers to the construction of a series of hydroelectric power stations on the La Grande River in northwestern Quebec, Canada by state-owned utility Hydro-Québec, and the diversion of neigh ...
. Filling the reservoir began on October 25, 1981, and over the next three years it flooded numerous lakes such as Lakes Caniapiscau, Delorme, Brisay, Tournon, and Vermouille. It now fills a depression in the highest part of the
Laurentian Plateau
The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called 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), the ...
of the Canadian Shield, covering , or about four times the size of the natural lakes prior to impoundment.
Since August 1985, the Caniapiscau River was partially diverted to the west into the
Laforge River of the
La Grande River
La Grande River (french: La Grande Rivière; cr, Chisasibi, script=latn; both meaning "great river") is a river in northwestern Quebec, Canada, which rises in the highlands of north central Quebec and flows roughly west to drain into James Bay. ...
watershed, flowing west to
James Bay
James Bay (french: Baie James; cr, ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, Wînipekw, dirty water) is a large body of water located on the southern end of Hudson Bay in Canada. Both bodies of water extend from the Arctic Ocean, of which James Bay is the southernmost par ...
.
[
Many new islands were created as a result of the lake's impoundment, and in 1997 Quebec's Commission de toponymie published a map naming those islands for significant works of Québécois literature. The names of the islands attracted controversy not only because they exclusively used French-language works, but also because ]Cree
The Cree ( cr, néhinaw, script=Latn, , etc.; french: link=no, Cri) are a Indigenous peoples of the Americas, North American Indigenous people. They live primarily in Canada, where they form one of the country's largest First Nations in Canada ...
and Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
First Nations
First Nations or first peoples may refer to:
* Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area.
Indigenous groups
*First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including:
**First Natio ...
leaders claimed that the sites already ''had'' native names, which were ignored and overwritten.
Flora
The Caniapiscau Reservoir is in the zone of discontinuous permafrost
Permafrost is ground that continuously remains below 0 °C (32 °F) for two or more years, located on land or under the ocean. Most common in the Northern Hemisphere, around 15% of the Northern Hemisphere or 11% of the global surface ...
. The area surrounding the reservoir is vegetated entirely with taiga
Taiga (; rus, тайга́, p=tɐjˈɡa; relates to Mongolic and Turkic languages), generally referred to in North America as a boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruce ...
, or boreal forest, characterized by widely spaced Black Spruce
''Picea mariana'', the black spruce, is a North American species of spruce tree in the pine family. It is widespread across Canada, found in all 10 provinces and all 3 territories. It is the official tree of the province of Newfoundland and Labra ...
with a thick underlayer of yellow-grey lichen
A lichen ( , ) is a composite organism that arises from algae or cyanobacteria living among filaments of multiple fungi species in a mutualistic relationship.[muskeg
Muskeg (Ojibwe: mashkiig; cr, maskīk; french: fondrière de mousse, lit. ''moss bog'') is a peat-forming ecosystem found in several northern climates, most commonly in Arctic and boreal areas. Muskeg is approximately synonymous with bog or ...]
and bogs. In the more moist areas, some closed coniferous forest stands may appear. On the more exposed land, a forest-tundra transition zone occurs where the woodland is replaced by lichen dominated tundra
In physical geography, tundra () is a type of biome where tree growth is hindered by frigid temperatures and short growing seasons. The term ''tundra'' comes through Russian (') from the Kildin Sámi word (') meaning "uplands", "treeless moun ...
.[
]
See also
* List of lakes of Quebec
This is an incomplete list of lakes of Quebec, a province of Canada.
Larger lake statistics
This is a list of lakes of Quebec with an area larger than . :fr:Liste des lacs du Canada#Québec
List of Lakes
0–9
* Lake 3.1416
A
...
* Hydro-Québec
* James Bay Project
The James Bay Project (french: projet de la Baie-James) refers to the construction of a series of hydroelectric power stations on the La Grande River in northwestern Quebec, Canada by state-owned utility Hydro-Québec, and the diversion of neigh ...
* List of Quebec rivers
This is a list of rivers of Quebec. Quebec has about:
*one million lakes of which 62279 have a toponymic designation (a name), plus 218 artificial lakes;
*15228 watercourses with an official toponymic designation, including 12094 streams and 3134 ...
References
Bibliography
*
External links
La Grande hydroelectric complex
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20100529050012/http://www.ilec.or.jp/database/nam/nam-35.html World Lakes Databasebr>Explo-Sylva
Air Saguenay Base on Lac Pau
{{Canada topic, List of lakes of
Lakes of Nord-du-Québec
Lakes of Côte-Nord
Reservoirs in Quebec
James Bay Project
Canada geography articles needing translation from French Wikipedia