Churchill Lake is a glacial lake in north west

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a province in western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dak ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Frobisher Lake Frobisher Lake is a lake in northern Saskatchewan, Canada, located between Turnor Lake and Churchill Lake. Background The lake is part of the Churchill River drainage basin. It receives water from Turnor Lake via the short Wanasin River and ...

flows in from the north while

Peter Pond Lake Peter Pond Lake is a glacial lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. It is located in northwestern Saskatchewan in the Boreal Forest and Canadian Shield within the Churchill River drainage basin. It was on the fur trade route to the Methye Portage which c ...

flows in from the east through the Kisis Channel. Highway 155 crosses this channel at the village of

Buffalo Narrows Buffalo Narrows is a northern village in Saskatchewan, Canada. It is a community of 1,110 people. Located at the "Narrows" between Peter Pond Lake and Churchill Lake, tourism and resource extraction (logging, fishing) are its main economic a ...

. It is part of the Churchill River

drainage basin A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...

. As the source of the Churchill River the length of the river (1,609 km (1,000 mi)) is measured from the north end of the lake to the Hudson Bay. The lake can freeze from as early as November and remain frozen till May.

Historic map

Route of the Franklin Expedition from Isle a la Crosse to Fort Providence in 1819 & 20 (1823)

John Franklin Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through t ...

's Coppermine Expedition map of 1819–1822 shows details of the fur trade route from

Île-à-la-Crosse Île-à-la-Crosse, or ''Sakitawak'' ( Cree name: sâkitawâhk ᓵᑭᑕᐚᕽ), is a northern village in Division No. 18, northwestern Saskatchewan, and was the site of historic trading posts first established in 1778. Île-à-la-Crosse is th ...

Methye Portage The Methye Portage or Portage La Loche in northwestern Saskatchewan was one of the most important portages in the old fur trade route across Canada. The portage connected the Mackenzie River basin to rivers that ran east to the Atlantic. It wa ...

. Churchill Lake is shown as Clear Lake with its northern reaches still unknown. Also not yet surveyed are the waters of Wasekamio Lake,

Turnor Lake Turnor Lake is a community on the southern shore of Turnor Lake. From Highway 155 it is accessible by Highway 909. The community includes the Northern Hamlet of Turnor Lake and Turnor Lake 193B of the Birch Narrows First Nation. The combined p ...

then

that flow from the north into Churchill Lake. From the northwest Lac La Loche (Methye Lake) then Peter Pond Lake (Buffalo Lake) flow into Churchill Lake. Clearwater Lake (or Clear Lake) was renamed Churchill Lake in 1944 and Buffalo Lake was renamed Peter Pond Lake in 1932.

Fish Species

The lake's

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of ...

species include:

walleye The walleye (''Sander vitreus'', synonym ''Stizostedion vitreum''), also called the yellow pike or yellow pickerel, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relat ...

sauger The sauger (''Sander canadensis'') is a freshwater perciform fish of the family Percidae that resembles its close relative, the walleye. The species is a member of the largest vertebrate order, the Perciformes.Jaeger, Matthew. 2004. Montana's ...

yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Sam ...

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are known simply as a p ...

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...

lake whitefish The lake whitefish (''Coregonus clupeaformis'') is a species of freshwater whitefish from North America. Lake whitefish are found throughout much of Canada and parts of the northern United States, including all of the Great Lakes. The lake white ...

cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

white sucker The white sucker (''Catostomus commersonii)'' is a species of freshwater cypriniform fish inhabiting the upper Midwest and Northeast in North America, but it is also found as far south as Georgia and as far west as New Mexico. The fish is common ...

longnose sucker The longnose sucker (''Catostomus catostomus'') is a species of cypriniform freshwater fish in the family Catostomidae. It is native to North America from the northern United States to the top of the continent. It is also found in Russia in ri ...

and

burbot The burbot (''Lota lota'') is the only gadiform (cod-like) freshwater fish. It is also known as bubbot, mariah, loche, cusk, freshwater cod, freshwater ling, freshwater cusk, the lawyer, coney-fish, lingcod, and eelpout. The species is closel ...

References

Lakes of Saskatchewan {{Saskatchewan-geo-stub

Historic map

Fish Species

See also

References