Geikie River | |
---|---|
Location | |
Country | Canada |
Province | Saskatchewan |
Physical characteristics | |
Source | Costigan Lake |
• coordinates | 56°58′14″N 105°52′33″W / 56.97056°N 105.87583°W |
• elevation | 543 m (1,781 ft)[1] |
Mouth | Wollaston Lake |
• coordinates | 57°45′00″N 103°52′02″W / 57.75000°N 103.86722°W |
• elevation | 398 m (1,306 ft) |
Basin size | 7,730 km2 (2,980 sq mi) |
Basin features | |
River system | Mackenzie River drainage basin and Churchill River drainage basin |
[2] |
Geikie River[3] is a river in the northern part of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.[2] The river's source is Costigan Lake, which is near the uranium producing areas around the Key Lake mine in the Athabasca Basin. It flows in a north-easterly direction and flows into Wollaston Lake.
As the primary inflow of Wollaston Lake, the largest natural bifurcation lake in the world, the Geikie River's most unusual feature is that it straddles a major drainage divide which separates waters flowing into Hudson Bay from those flowing into the Arctic Ocean.
From Wollaston Lake, waters from the Geikie River can flow into either the Fond du Lac River which flows out of the lake to the north-west where it drains into Lake Athabasca which ultimately drains into the Arctic Ocean via the Mackenzie River system, or into the Cochrane River which flows out of the north-eastern side of the lake and into Reindeer Lake which drains via the Churchill River system into Hudson Bay. If Hudson Bay is defined as part of the Atlantic Ocean then the Geikie River is the largest river in the world that drains naturally into two oceans.