Vermilion Lake, sometimes incorrectly spelled Vermillion Lake, was a natural

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

located northwest of the village of

Temagami Temagami, formerly spelled as Timagami, is a municipality in northeastern Ontario, Canada, in the Nipissing District with Lake Temagami at its heart. The Temagami region is known as ''n'Daki Menan'', the homeland of the area's First Nations commu ...

Nipissing District Nipissing District is a district in Northeastern Ontario in the Canadian province of Ontario. It was created in 1858. The district seat is North Bay. In 2016, the population was 83,150. The land area is ; the population density was , making it o ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

, Canada. It occupied the southwestern corner of

geographic Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

Strathy Township Strathy Township is a square-shaped geographic township comprising a portion of the municipality of Temagami in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. It is used for geographic purposes, such as land surveying and natural resource explorations. At least fou ...

until it was dewatered in 1967 to provide initial

tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overlie ...

storage for the then developing

Sherman Mine Sherman Mine is a closed open pit mine in Temagami, Ontario, Canada. It was a major producer of iron ore, starting production in 1968 and closing in 1990. Sherman was the largest open pit mine in Temagami, consisting of seven open pits known as t ...

Hydrology

This northeast-southwest trending lake had a maximum width of about , a length of around and an elevation of approximately . There were at least two creek inflows, including one from neighbouring O'Connor Lake. The primary outflow was an unnamed creek from the south end of Vermilion Lake to

Tetapaga Lake Tetapaga Lake, also known as Lake Tetapaga, is a narrow east–west trending lake in the Temagami region of Northeastern Ontario, Canada, located at the abandoned iron-bearing Sherman Mine. A gravel road crosses the central portion of the lake, s ...

which eventually flows via the

Tetapaga River The Tetapaga River is a small river in Nipissing District of Northeastern Ontario, Canada that runs southwest through Briggs Township from its source at Tetapaga Lake. The river flows before emptying into an unnamed bay of Lake Temagami Lake Tema ...

Lake Temagami Lake Temagami, formerly spelled as Lake Timagami, is a lake in Nipissing District in northeastern Ontario, Canada, situated approximately 80 km north of North Bay. The lake's name comes from ''dimii-agamiing'' "tih-MEE-uh-guh-MEENG", which me ...

, the

Temagami River The Temagami River, formerly spelled as Timagami River, is a river in the Nipissing District of Ontario, Canada, in the Temagami region. Its source is Lake Temagami and flows through Cross Lake and Red Cedar Lake. It flows into the Sturgeon Rive ...

, the Sturgeon River,

Lake Nipissing Lake Nipissing (; french: lac Nipissing, oj, Gichi-nibiinsing-zaaga’igan) is a lake in the Canadian province Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under ...

and the French River into

Lake Huron Lake Huron ( ) is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. Hydrology, Hydrologically, it comprises the easterly portion of Lake Michigan–Huron, having the same surface elevation as Lake Michigan, to which it is connected by the , Strait ...

Geology

Vermilion Lake was situated at the south end of the

Net Lake-Vermilion Lake Deformation Zone The Net Lake-Vermilion Lake Deformation Zone, also known as the Net Lake-Vermilion Lake Zone of Deformation, is a zone of deformation in Temagami, Ontario, Canada, extending from Vermilion Lake to Net Lake in a northeasterly direction. See also *L ...

. This

shear zone In geology, a shear zone is a thin zone within the Earth's crust or upper mantle that has been strongly deformed, due to the walls of rock on either side of the zone slipping past each other. In the upper crust, where rock is brittle, the shear ...

extends some to the northeast where it ends at

Net Lake Net Lake is located within the municipality of Temagami, in the Nipissing District, Ontario, Canada. It covers a length of 10 km and is located in Temagami North. Fish in the lake include walleye, northern pike, trout, smallmouth bass, white ...

. The high frequency of

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

occurrences in and adjacent to this zone has made it a high potential area for hosting major gold deposits. One of these gold occurrences, Oslund-Hurst, was located at the northeast end of Vermilion Lake. It was named after N. Oslund and F. Hurst who staked

mining claim Mineral rights are property rights to exploit an area for the minerals it harbors. Mineral rights can be separate from property ownership (see Split estate). Mineral rights can refer to sedentary minerals that do not move below the Earth's surfac ...

s there prior to 1941. The south end of Vermilion Lake was crosscut by

banded iron formation Banded iron formations (also known as banded ironstone formations or BIFs) are distinctive units of sedimentary rock consisting of alternating layers of iron oxides and iron-poor chert. They can be up to several hundred meters in thickness a ...

of the Vermilion Range, which continued southwestwards to Iron Lake. A portion of this banded iron formation originally exposed on the southeastern shore of Vermilion Lake was mined in the North Pit of Sherman Mine.

References

External links

*{{cite cgndb, id= FCZTY, title= Vermilion Lake, accessdate= 2017-12-03 Lakes of Temagami History of Temagami Former lakes of North America Strathy Township