The Great Bear Lake: Its Place in History

Abstract

Great Bear Lake is one of the most prominent geographic features of northern Canada. Shaped like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle, with five arms radiating from a central body, it has a total area of 31,150 square kilometres - approximately the same as that of the Netherlands. It is the eighth largest, and by far the most northern, of the world's major lakes, and probably the least productive. [This article provides a synopsis of the prehistory, ethnography of the region, and modern history, i.e. early exploration of the area in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article concludes with the hope that Great Bear Lake continues to escape] ... the fate of many of the world's large lakes; [that] its waters [remain] unpolluted and the fish stocks, ... in much the same condition as when Franklin arrived 150 years ago. [The author notes that there are] ... changes in the offing: oil exploration is in progress in the basin, and oil and gas pipelines are projected for the Mackenzie Valley less than 50 miles (80 km) away. To meet the demand for electric power, the possibility is being examined of turning Great Bear Lake into a tremendous reservoir to provide the power for a generating station on the Great Bear River. It is fervently to be hoped that the lake, its river and the surrounding land, holding as they do a great place in the history of the Canadian North, will not be adversely affected if such a development occurs. Maintenance, in particular, of the high degree of clearness and purity of the waters of the lake depends upon the most careful treatment of the surrounding land surfaces.