Coal Lake is a long, sinuous lake located approximately southeast of the city of

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

, just northeast of the city of

Wetaskiwin Wetaskiwin ( ) is a city in the province of Alberta, Canada. The city is located south of the provincial capital of Edmonton. The city name comes from the Cree word ''wītaskiwinihk'', meaning "the hills where peace was made". Wetaskiwin is ...

. The lake is in one of the glacial

meltwater channel A meltwater channel (or sometimes a glacial meltwater channel) is a channel cut into ice, bedrock or unconsolidated deposits by the flow of water derived from the melting of a glacier or ice-sheet. The channel may form on the surface of, within, b ...

s (the

North Saskatchewan River The North Saskatchewan River is a glacier-fed river that flows from the Canadian Rockies continental divide east to central Saskatchewan, where it joins with the South Saskatchewan River to make up the Saskatchewan River. Its water flows eventual ...

follows another) formed when the of Lake Edmonton, which existed for roughly 100 years at the end of the last

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

, breached its ice dam and drained within a few weeks. The entire meltwater channel starts east of

Nisku Nisku is a hamlet and an industrial/business park in Alberta, Canada within Leduc County. It has an elevation of . The hamlet and industrial/business park are located in census division No. 11 and in the federal riding of Edmonton—Wetaskiwin. ...

, wandering southeast through minor depressions and the chain of Saunders Lake, Ord Lake, three small unnamed lakes, Coal Lake and Driedmeat Lake. Coal Lake starts east of Kavanagh, Alberta, and ends at a dam built northwest of

Gwynne, Alberta Gwynne is a hamlet in central Alberta, Canada within the County of Wetaskiwin No. 10. It is located on Highway 13, approximately east of Wetaskiwin. History In 1902, pioneer homesteader Charles Rodberg (known in his native Belgium as Chevalier ...

. Since construction of the dam in 1972,

Pipestone Creek Pipestone Creek is a waterway that runs through central Alberta, Canada. For example, over of Pipestone Creek parkland is situated in Millet, Alberta, with a combination of meadows and urban forest. It originates east of Pigeon Lake and flows ea ...

flows through the southern end of Coal Lake, draining the lake into the

Battle River Battle River is a river in central Alberta and western Saskatchewan. It is a major tributary of the North Saskatchewan River. The Battle River flows for and has a total drainage area of . The mean discharge is 10 m³/s at its mouth. His ...

, southeast of Coal Lake. Coal Lake was named in 1892 by J.D.A. Fitzpatrick, a Dominion

Land Surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is ca ...

, for the coal beds present in many places along the northeast shore.

References

See also