Kenosee Lake | |
---|---|
Location | RM of Wawken No. 93 Saskatchewan |
Coordinates | 49°49′N 102°17′W / 49.817°N 102.283°W |
Type | Endorheic lake |
Primary outflows | None |
Basin countries | Canada |
Surface area | 851.9 ha (2,105 acres) |
Max. depth | 10 m (33 ft) |
Shore length1 | 33 km (21 mi) |
Surface elevation | 741 m (2,431 ft) |
Islands |
|
Settlements | Kenosee Lake |
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure. |
Kenosee Lake[1] is a closed-basin lake in the south-east corner of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The lake lies in Moose Mountain Provincial Park in the heart of the Moose Mountain Upland, a forested plateau that rises about 200 metres (660 ft) above the surrounding prairie.
The village of Kenosee Lake and the neighbouring Moose Mountain subdivisions are the only places on the lake with a year-round population.
There are three named islands in the lake. The largest is Hog Island.[2] It got its name from when an early pioneering family, the Christophers, kept their hogs on that island to keep them safe from predators, such as wolves. In the 1920s, wolves were hunted to extinction on Moose Mountain. Up until the late 1890s, Manitoba Maples were very common on the upland. Settlers and the local Indians made syrup from the sap of the maples trees. The island right to the south of Hog Island is named Maple Island because of all the syrup producing maple trees. In 1897, a massive fire swept through much of Moose Mountain, destroying most of the maple trees and ending the burgeoning syrup industry. The trees on Maple Island were spared from the fire because of all the water surrounding the island. The third named island is to the south of Maple Island and is called Horseshoe Island. All three islands are on the east side of the lake.
Jutting out from the western shore is a peninsula named Pickerel Point,[3] which forms a large bay at the north-west corner of the lake named Christopher Bay[4] (formally Arcola Bay).
Most of the water that flows into the lake is from rain, ground water, and melting snow. The only large body of water that flows into Kenosee Lake is from Little Kenosee Lake[5] and that flows through Fish Creek at the northern shore.