:Lake Athabasca

The name in the Woods Cree language originally referred only to the Peace–Athabasca Delta formed by the confluence of the Peace and Athabasca rivers at the southwest corner of the lake. Prior to 1789, Sir Alexander Mackenzie explored the lake.{{cite web|title=Timeline|url=http://www.crowsnest-highway.ca/timeline.pl|access-date=17 September 2015|website=Crowsnest Highway}}{{cite encyclopedia|title=Alexander Mackenzie Becomes the First European to Cross the Continent of North America at Its Widest Part|encyclopedia=Science and its Times|url=https://archive.org/details/scienceitstimesu0000unse|publisher=Gale|date=2000|isbn=978-0-78763-932-7|access-date=17 September 2015|url-access=registration}} In 1791, Philip Turnor, cartographer for the Hudson's Bay Company, wrote in his journal, "low swampy ground on the South side with a few willows growing upon it, from which the Lake in general takes its name Athapison in the Southern Cree tongue which signifies open country such as lakes with willows and grass growing about them".{{Cite book|last=Tyrrell|first=Joseph|title=Journals of Samuel Hearne and Philip Turnor between the Years 1774 and 1792.|publisher=Champlain Society|year=1934|isbn=9780837150598|location=Toronto}} Peter Fidler originally recorded the name for the river in 1790 as the Great Arabuska. By 1801, the name had gained a closer spelling to the current name—Athapaskow Lake. By 1820, George Simpson referred to both the lake and the river as "Athabasca".{{Cite journal|last=Simpson|first=George|date=1938|title=Journal of Occurrences in the Athabasca Department, 1820–1821.|journal=Champlain Society Publications|location=Toronto|isbn=978-0811531757}}

Image:Mackenzie River drainage basin.PNG ]]

The lake covers {{convert|7849|km2}} or {{convert|7935|km2}} including islands, is {{convert|283|km}} long, has a maximum width of {{convert|50|km}}, and a maximum depth of {{convert|124|m}}, and holds {{convert|204|km3|cumi}} of water, making it the largest and one of the deepest lakes in both Alberta and Saskatchewan (nearby Tazin Lake is deeper), and the eighth largest in Canada.{{cite book |url=http://sunsite.ualberta.ca/Projects/Alberta-Lakes/view/?region=Peace%20and%20Athabasca%20Region&basin=Lake%20Athabasca%20Basin&lake=Lake%20Athabasca&number=18 |title=Atlas of Alberta Lakes |chapter=Lake Athabasca |publisher=University of Alberta Press |location=Edmonton |year=1990 |isbn=0-88864-214-8 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928195426/http://sunsite.ualberta.ca/Projects/Alberta-Lakes/view/?region=Peace%20and%20Athabasca%20Region&basin=Lake%20Athabasca%20Basin&lake=Lake%20Athabasca&number=18 |archive-date=2011-09-28 }} Water flows northward from the lake via the Slave River and Mackenzie River systems, eventually reaching the Arctic Ocean.

Fort Chipewyan, one of the oldest European settlements in Alberta, is on the western shore of the lake, where the Rivière des Rochers drains the lake and flows toward Slave River, beginning its northward journey along the eastern boundary of Wood Buffalo National Park. The eastern section of the lake narrows to a width of about {{convert|1|km}} near the community of Fond du Lac on the northern shore then continues to its most easterly point at the mouth of the Fond du Lac River.

Fidler Point on the north shore of Lake Athabasca is named for Peter Fidler, a surveyor and map maker for the Hudson's Bay Company.{{Cite web |url=http://www.landsurveyinghistory.ab.ca/PlaceNames/Faria_Creek-Friock_Creek.htm#Fidler_Point |title=Place Names - Faria Creek - Friock Creek |access-date=2008-05-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090801041730/http://www.landsurveyinghistory.ab.ca/PlaceNames/Faria_Creek-Friock_Creek.htm#Fidler_Point |archive-date=2009-08-01 |url-status=dead }}

Along with other lakes such as the Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake, Lake Athabasca is a remnant of the vast Glacial Lake McConnell.

Tributaries of Lake Athabasca include (going clockwise):{{cite web

| title = Natural Resources Canada-Canadian Geographical Names (Lake Athabasca)

| url = http://www4.rncan.gc.ca/search-place-names/unique/HAUGA

| access-date =2014-12-28}}{{cite web

| title =Atlas of Canada Toporama

| url =http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/toporama/index.html

| access-date =2014-12-28}}

{{Div col}}

• Fond du Lac River
• Otherside River
• Helmer Creek
• MacFarlane River
• Archibald River
• William River
• Ennuyeuse Creek
• Dumville Creek
• Debussac Creek
• Jackfish Creek
• Claussen Creek
• Old Fort River
• Crown Creek
• Athabasca River
• Colin River
• Oldman River
• Bulyea River
• Grease River
• Robillard River

{{Div col end}}

First Nations have lived in the area for more than 2,000 years. In the era of the North American fur trade, the lake was a pivotal point, since it was as far west as canoes could travel from the east and still return before freeze-up. The first European settlement on Lake Athabasca is Fort Chipewyan, founded as a North West Company (NWC) trading post in 1788. Its original location was Old Fort Point, on the southwest shore west of the Old Fort River. In 1798, Fort Chipewyan was relocated to its current site on the north shore.

In fall 1790, Malcolm Ross, Peter Fidler, Philip Turnor, and others, all working for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), travelled from Cumberland House to Île-à-la-Crosse, and on to Lake Athabasca the following spring. They established a HBC fur trade post on the south-west shore of the lake, opposite Fort Chipewyan. The HBC post, also called Athapescow Lake, was abandoned in 1792.{{cite web |title=Hudson's Bay Company: Lake Athabasca |url=https://pam.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PAM_AUTHORITY/AUTH_DESC_DET_REP/SISN%201866?sessionsearch |website=pam.minisisinc.com |publisher=Archives of Manitoba - Keystone Archives Descriptive Database |access-date=2025-01-21}}

In 1802, the HBC set up another post on English Island at the lake's outlet, called Nottingham House, but was abandoned in 1806. In 1815, the HBC tried competing again with the NWC and founded Fort Wedderburn on Coal or Potato Island. When the HBC and NWC merged in 1821, Fort Wedderburn was also abandoned by moving all operations to Fort Chipewyan.{{cite web |title=Hudson's Bay Company: Fort Chipewyan |url=https://pam.minisisinc.com/scripts/mwimain.dll/144/PAM_AUTHORITY/AUTH_DESC_DET_REP/SISN%201813?sessionsearch |website=pam.minisisinc.com |publisher=Archives of Manitoba - Keystone Archives Descriptive Database |access-date=2025-01-21}}

Uranium and gold mining along the northern shore resulted in the birth of Uranium City, Saskatchewan, which was home to mine workers and their families. While the last mine closed in the 1980s, the effects of mining operations had already heavily contaminated the northern shores. The large oil sands mining nearby is suspected to have added to the current pollution levels in the lake.

{{cite news

| url = https://www.npr.org/2013/01/08/168887788/deep-in-canadian-lakes-signs-of-tar-sands-pollution

| title = Deep in Canadian Lakes, Signs of Tar Sands Pollution

| publisher = National Public Radio

| author = Elizabeth Southren

| date = 2013-01-08

| archive-date = 2013-05-07

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130507164124/http://www.npr.org/2013/01/08/168887788/deep-in-canadian-lakes-signs-of-tar-sands-pollution

| url-status = live

| quote = Canadian researchers have used the mud at the bottom of lakes like a time machine to show that tar sands oil production in Alberta, Canada, is polluting remote regional lakes as far as 50 miles from the operations.

}}

On October{{nbsp}}31, 2013, one of Obed Mountain coal mine's pits failed, and between 600 million and one billion litres of slurry poured into the Plante and Apetowun Creeks.{{cite web|url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/two-years-later-charges-laid-in-massive-alberta-coal-mine-spill/|title=Two Years Later, Charges Laid in Massive Alberta Coal Mine Spill|first=Meagan|last=Wohlberg|work=Vice News|date=October 21, 2015|access-date=17 February 2016}} The plume of waste products then joined the Athabasca River, travelling downstream for a month before settling in Lake Athabasca near Fort Chipewyan, over {{convert|500|km}} away.

The Lake Athabasca Sand Dunes, the largest active sand dunes in the world north of 58°, are adjacent to the southern shore in Saskatchewan. The dunes were designated a Provincial Wilderness Park in 1992.{{cite web |title=Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park |url=https://www.tourismsaskatchewan.com/provincialpark/1414/athabasca-sand-dunes-provincial-park#sort=relevancy |website=Tourism Saskatchewan |publisher=Government of Saskatchewan |access-date=8 October 2024}}

Lake Athabasca contains 23 species of fish, with a world record lake trout of {{convert|46.3|kg|lb}} caught from its depths in 1961 by means of a gillnet.{{cite web |url=http://www.pvisuals.com/fishing/species/laketrout.html |title=Lake Trout |publisher=Perspective Visuals, Inc. |date=March 8, 2006 |access-date=July 6, 2006 |archive-date=December 25, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225085932/http://www.pvisuals.com/fishing/species/laketrout.html%20 |url-status=dead }} Other fish species include walleye, yellow perch, northern pike, goldeye, lake whitefish, cisco, Arctic grayling, burbot, white sucker, and longnose sucker.{{cite web

|title=Fish Species of Saskatchewan |url=http://www.swa.ca/Publications/Documents/FishSpeciesOfSaskatchewan.pdf

|access-date=2012-10-13

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110719052107/http://www.swa.ca/Publications/Documents/FishSpeciesOfSaskatchewan.pdf

|archive-date=2011-07-19 }}

• Athabasca Country
• Peace–Athabasca Delta
• List of lakes of Saskatchewan
• List of lakes of Alberta
• List of place names in Canada of Indigenous origin

{{Reflist|refs=

{{Cite web|url=http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/facts/lakes.html |title=Lakes of Canada |author=Atlas of Canada |author-link=Atlas of Canada |publisher=Natural Resources Canada |date=2004-04-05 |access-date=2007-05-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070410230512/http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/learningresources/facts/lakes.html |archive-date=2007-04-10 }}

{{cite web |author1=James H. Marsh |title=Lake Athabasca |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/lake-athabasca |website=www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca |publisher=The Canadian Encyclopedia |access-date=24 January 2025 |language=en |date=4 March 2015}}

}}

{{Commons category}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080401054935/http://www.ilec.or.jp/database/database.html International Lake Environment Committee, June 21, 2001]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20110401130604/http://esask.uregina.ca/entry/lake_athabasca.html Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan (Lake Athabasca)]

{{Canada topic|List of lakes of}}

{{Alberta rivers and lakes}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Athabasca}}

Category:Lakes of Saskatchewan

Category:Lakes of Alberta

Category:Hudson's Bay Company trading posts

Category:Borders of Alberta

Category:Borders of Saskatchewan

Category:Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo