West Hawk Lake is a impact crater lake on the

Whiteshell River The Whiteshell River is one of the major rivers in Whiteshell Provincial Park, in southeastern Manitoba, Canada, near the Ontario border. This river is close to some petroform sites that are about 2000 years old or older. The name "whiteshell" ...

located in the

Whiteshell Provincial Park Whiteshell Provincial Park is a provincial park in southeast Manitoba, approximately east of the city of Winnipeg. The park is considered to be a Class II protected area under the IUCN protected area management categories. It is in size. ...

in southeastern

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

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 ...

. The circular shape of the main body of the lake is due to the submerged West Hawk crater, caused by a meteor impact into an ancient rock bed composed of mostly

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained ( phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies under ...

. At , it is the deepest lake in Manitoba. Granite cliffs surround parts of the lake. This area is also known as part of the Canadian Shield that was formed billions of years ago. Parts of the Whiteshell park have elaborate

petroforms Petroforms, also known as boulder outlines or boulder mosaics, are human-made shapes and patterns made by lining up large rocks on the open ground, often on quite level areas. Petroforms in North America were originally made by various Native A ...

that were made by First Nation peoples, possibly over a thousand years ago. There are petroform shapes of turtles, snakes, humans and geometrical patterns, often found upon pink granite ridges that were shaped during the last ice age. A marine

glacial relict A glacial relict is a population of a cold-adapted species that has been left behind as the range of the species changed after an ice age ended. Glacial relicts are usually found in enclaves "under relatively benign conditions". Examples: *The ...

, the

Deepwater sculpin The deepwater sculpin (''Myoxocephalus thompsonii'') is a species of freshwater fish in the family Cottidae of order Scorpaeniformes. It is a glacial relict, native to a limited number of deep, cold lakes in Canada and the United States. The de ...

is found in West Hawk Lake. The lake has private cottages, public beaches, campgrounds and other tourism amenities, and extensive undeveloped shoreline, and is popular for boating, sailing,

Wakeboarding Wakeboarding is a water sport in which the rider, standing on a wakeboard (a board with foot bindings), is towed behind a motorboat across its wake and especially up off the crest in order to perform aerial maneuvers. A hallmark of wakeboardin ...

and

scuba diving Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for " Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Chr ...

. It is just north of the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on ...

, and on the

Trans Canada Trail The Trans Canada Trail, officially named The Great Trail between September 2016 and June 2021, is a cross- Canada system of greenways, waterways, and roadways that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific to the Arctic oceans. The trail exten ...

, on the border of

Manitoba , image_map = Manitoba in Canada 2.svg , map_alt = Map showing Manitoba's location in the centre of Southern Canada , Label_map = yes , coordinates = , capital = Winn ...

and

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 ...

References

STOP #5: West Hawk Lake Impact Crater (field trip note)

External links

Lakes of Manitoba Whiteshell Provincial Park Impact crater lakes Bodies of water of Eastman Region, Manitoba {{Manitoba-geo-stub