Mississippi Lake is a lake in

Lanark County Lanark County is a county located in the Canadian province of Ontario. Its county seat is Perth, which was first settled in 1816.Brown, Howard Morton, 1984. Lanark Legacy, Nineteenth Century Glimpses of on Ontario County. Corporation of the Cou ...

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 C ...

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 ...

. Ontario's

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

flows northeast and north through the lake. Several small creeks including Cranberry Creek, McCrearys Creek, and McGibbon Creek drain into the lake from adjoining forest and agricultural land. The lake is distinctive for having one side (to the north) that is part of the Canadian shield, while the other is mostly limestone. The lake is a remnant of the old Champlain Sea, which flooded eastern Ontario at the end of last ice age. The former shoreline of the sea can still be traced inland from the north shore of the lake. European settlement of the lake basin began ca. 1816 as settlers moved north of the Rideau into areas such as Franktown. Between the 1860s and 1920s, there were steamboats linking

Carleton Place Carleton Place is a town in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in Lanark County, about west of downtown Ottawa. It is located at the crossroads of Highway 15 and Highway 7, halfway between the towns of Perth, Almonte, Smiths Falls, and the nation's cap ...

to Innisville. The lake has two large and provincially significant wetlands. The larger occurs at the west end of the lake; here the Mississippi River enters the lake through the Innisville wetland, which is also one of the largest wetlands in Lanark County, and is designated an

Area of Natural and Scientific Interest Area is the quantity that expresses the extent of a region on the plane or on a curved surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while '' surface area'' refers to the area of an o ...

. Included within its boundaries is The Mississippi Lake

National Wildlife Area A National Wildlife Area is a conservation designation for a geographical region in Canada that restricts most human activities on that region. However, land use permits may be issued "for activities that are compatible with conservation". Suc ...

. This wetland has large areas of silver maple swamp, flooded only in the spring, and, lower on the shore, important areas of marsh and aquatic vegetation. The western shore of the lake, including Kinch Bay, Code Bay and King Bay, also supports a diverse wetland which ranges from silver maple swamp to large areas of aquatic plants. Loons, bald eagles, osprey and herons are frequently sighted in these habitats. The ospreys and herons also breed inland from the lake, for example in the nearby Scotch Corners Wetland. The provincially significant

Blanding's turtle Blanding's turtle (''Emydoidea blandingii'') is a semi-aquatic turtle of the family Emydidae. This species is native to central and eastern parts of Canada and the United States. It is considered to be an endangered species throughout much of ...

is known from the lake; its long-term survival likely depends upon sufficient nesting areas. Eels were once abundant, but hydroelectric dams downstream have all but eliminated this species from the lake and the watershed.http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/stdprodconsume/groups/lr/@mnr/@species/documents/document/stdprod_075572.pdf

References

External links

Mississippi Lakes Association
Lakes of Lanark County

See also

References

Further reading

External links