Dubawnt Lake is a lake in the

Kivalliq Region The Kivalliq Region (; Inuktitut syllabics: ᑭᕙᓪᓕᖅ ) is an administrative region of Nunavut, Canada. It consists of the portion of the mainland to the west of Hudson Bay together with Southampton Island and Coats Island. The regional ce ...

Nunavut Nunavut ( , ; iu, ᓄᓇᕗᑦ , ; ) is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' ...

, Canada. It is in size and has several islands. It is about north of the

Four Corners The Four Corners is a region of the Southwestern United States consisting of the southwestern corner of Colorado, southeastern corner of Utah, northeastern corner of Arizona, and northwestern corner of New Mexico. The Four Corners area ...

, about west of

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay ( crj, text=ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, translit=Wînipekw; crl, text=ᐐᓂᐹᒄ, translit=Wînipâkw; iu, text=ᑲᖏᖅᓱᐊᓗᒃ ᐃᓗᐊ, translit=Kangiqsualuk ilua or iu, text=ᑕᓯᐅᔭᕐᔪᐊᖅ, translit=Tasiujarjuaq; french: b ...

and about south of the

Arctic Circle The Arctic Circle is one of the two polar circles, and the most northerly of the five major circles of latitude as shown on maps of Earth. Its southern equivalent is the Antarctic Circle. The Arctic Circle marks the southernmost latitude at w ...

. To the northwest is the

Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary The Thelon Wildlife Sanctuary, at , over twice the area of Belgium, is the largest wildlife refuge in Canada. It is located in northern Canada's Arctic region, north of the tree line, straddling the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, halfway be ...

. Its main inlet and outlet is the north-flowing Dubawnt River which joins the

Thelon River The Thelon River ('' iu, Akilinik'', "on the other side") stretches across northern Canada. Its source is Whitefish Lake in the Northwest Territories, and it flows east to Baker Lake in Nunavut. The Thelon ultimately drains into Hudson Bay at C ...

at Beverly Lake. The Thelon flows east to Hudson Bay at

Chesterfield Inlet Chesterfield Inlet (Inuit: ''Igluligaarjuk'')Issenman, Betty. ''Sinews of Survival: The living legacy of Inuit clothing''. UBC Press, 1997. pp252-254 is an inlet in Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is an arm of northwestern Hudson Bay, and the ...

. It is on the line of contact between the

Sayisi Dene The Sayisi Dene ('People under the Sun'http://skfn.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sayisi-Dene-First-Nation.pdf or 'People of the East', chp, ᓴᔨᓯ ᑌᓀ, Sayisi Dene) are Chipewyan peoples, a Dene group, living in northern Manitoba. They are ...

band of Eastern Caribou-Eater

Chipewyan The Chipewyan ( , also called ''Denésoliné'' or ''Dënesųłı̨né'' or ''Dënë Sųłınë́'', meaning "the original/real people") are a Dene Indigenous Canadian people of the Athabaskan language family, whose ancestors are identified ...

people and the

Harvaqtuurmiut Harvaqtuurmiut (alternate: Harvaqtormiut, or Ha'vaqtuurmiut; translation: "whirlpools aplenty people") were a Caribou Inuit society in Nunavut, Canada. Predominantly, their inland existence was along the lower Kazan River section, by Thirty Mil ...

and

Ihalmiut The Ahiarmiut ᐃᓴᓪᒥᐅᑦ or Ihalmiut ("People from Beyond") or ("the Out-of-the-Way Dwellers") are a group of inland Inuit who lived along the banks of the Kazan River, Ennadai Lake, and Little Dubawnt Lake (renamed ''Kamilikuak''), as ...

bands of

Caribou Inuit Caribou Inuit ( iu, Kivallirmiut/ᑭᕙᓪᓕᕐᒥᐅᑦ), barren-ground caribou hunters, are Inuit who live west of Hudson Bay in Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, between 61° and 65° N and 90° and 102° W in Northern Canada. They were originally na ...

. The first recorded European to reach the lake was

Samuel Hearne Samuel Hearne (February 1745 – November 1792) was an English explorer, fur-trader, author, and naturalist. He was the first European to make an overland excursion across northern Canada to the Arctic Ocean, actually Coronation Gulf, via the C ...

in 1770, but it remained largely unknown to outsiders until it was explored by

Joseph Tyrrell Joseph Burr Tyrrell, FRSC (November 1, 1858 – August 26, 1957) was a Canadian geologist, cartographer, and mining consultant. He discovered dinosaur (''Albertosaurus sarcophagus'') bones in Alberta's Badlands and coal around Drumheller in 188 ...

in 1893. There are no permanent settlements but there are fly-in fish camps where large lake trout can be caught during the two month ice-free season.

Dubawnt River

The Dubawnt River is long and begins in the

Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories (abbreviated ''NT'' or ''NWT''; french: Territoires du Nord-Ouest, formerly ''North-Western Territory'' and ''North-West Territories'' and namely shortened as ''Northwest Territory'') is a federal territory of Canada. ...

from a tributary of

Wholdaia Lake Wholdaia Lake is a lake in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is drained northward by the Dubawnt River. See also *List of lakes in the Northwest Territories This is an incomplete list of lakes of the Northwest Territories in Canada. Larg ...

northwest of the Four Corners. There is a

portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

from the Flett Lake tributary of Wholdaia Lake to

Selwyn Lake Selwyn Lake is a lake that straddles the border between the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan, Canada. See also *List of lakes in the Northwest Territories *List of lakes of Saskatchewan This is a list of lakes of Saskatchewan, a pro ...

which drains southwest to

Lake Athabasca Lake Athabasca (; French: ''lac Athabasca''; from Woods Cree: , "herethere are plants one after another") is located in the north-west corner of Saskatchewan and the north-east corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake ...

. In 1893

canoed from Lake Athabasca down the Dubawnt to Chesterfield Inlet. Lakes along the river are Wholdaia, Barlow, Cary, Markham, Nicholson, Dubawnt, (Dubawnt Gorge), Grant, Wharton and Beverly. East of the Dubawnt, the

Kazan River The Kazan River (Inuktitut ''Harvaqtuuq'', Inuktitut syllabics ᓴᕐᕙᖅᑑᖅ; meaning "strong rapids", "the big drift" or "place of much fast flowing water"), is a Canadian Heritage River located in Nunavut, Canada. The Dene name for the riv ...

also flows north to join the Thelon.

Ethnography

The area of the lake was once home to

, a

group.

Wildlife

Dubawnt Lake is home to many animals, including foxes, wolves and many birds of prey.

References

{{Lakes of Nunavut Lakes of Kivalliq Region