Drainage basins and the Arctic
Watershed
The Atlantic watershed drains the entirety of
the Atlantic
provinces (parts of the Quebec-Labrador boundary are fixed
at the Atlantic continental
divide), most of inhabited Quebec and large parts of southern
Ontario. It is mostly drained by the economically important St.
Lawrence River and its tributaries, notably the
Saguenay,
Manicouagan
and Ottawa rivers.
The Great Lakes and Lake Nipigon
are also drained by the St. Lawrence. The
Churchill
River and St. John
River are other important elements of the Atlantic watershed in
Canada.
The Hudson Bay watershed drains over a third
of Canada. It covers Manitoba, northern Ontario and Quebec, most of
Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southwestern Nunavut and the
southern half of Baffin
Island. This basin is most important in fighting
drought in the
prairies
and producing hydroelectricity, especially in Manitoba, northern
Ontario and Quebec. Major elements of this watershed include
Lake
Winnipeg, Nelson River,
the North
Saskatchewan and South
Saskatchewan Rivers, Assiniboine
River, and Nettilling
Lake on Baffin Island. Wollaston
Lake lies on the boundary between the Hudson Bay and Arctic
Ocean watersheds and drains into both. It is the largest lake in
the world that naturally drains in two directions.
The Continental Divide in the Rockies
separates the Pacific watershed in British Columbia and the Yukon
from the Arctic and Hudson Bay watersheds. This watershed irrigates
the agriculturally important areas of inner British Columbia (such
as the Okanagan and
Kootenay
valleys), and is used to produce hydroelectricity. Major elements
are the Yukon,
Columbia and
Fraser
Rivers.
The northern parts of Alberta, Manitoba and
British Columbia, most of Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and
parts of the Yukon are drained by the Arctic watershed. This
watershed has been little used for hydroelectricity, with the
exception of the Mackenzie
River, the longest river in Canada. The
Peace,
Athabasca
and Liard Rivers,
as well as Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake (respectively the
largest and second largest lakes wholly enclosed by Canada) are
significant elements of the Arctic watershed. Each of these
elements eventually merges with the Mackenzie, thereby draining the
vast majority of the Arctic watershed.
The height of land known as the Arctic
Watershed crosses Highway 11 at this point. North of here, water
drains into Hudson Bay; rivers, lakes and streams to the south flow
into the Great Lakes. As the northern wilderness came under
development, the erratic line of the watershed defined territorial
boundaries. It marked the southern limit of Rupert's Land, the vast
territory granted to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1670. Two
centuries later, it formed the northern boundary of lands ceded to
the Crown by the First Nation Ojibwa in the Robinson-Superior
Treaties of 1850.
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