Lake Hazen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Lake Hazen | |
|---|---|
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| Location | 118 km southwest of Alert, Nunavut |
| Coordinates | |
| Primary sources | Glaciers of the Eureka Uplands: Henrietta Nesmith Glacier Gilmour Glaciers |
| Primary outflows | Ruggles River |
| Catchment area | 4,900 km² |
| Basin countries | Canada |
| Max length | 70 km |
| Max width | 11 km |
| Surface area | 537.5 km² |
| Max depth | 289 m |
| Shore length1 | 185 km |
| Surface elevation | 158 m |
| Islands | St. John's Island |
| 1 Shore length is an imprecise measure which may not be standardized for this article. | |
Lake Hazen is called the northernmost lake of Canada, in the northern part of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, but detailed maps show several smaller unnamed lakes up to more than 100 km further north on Canada's northernmost island. Turnabout Lake is immediately northeast of the northern end of Hazen lake. Still further north are the Upper and Lower Dumbell Lakes, with Upper Dumbell Lake 5.2 km southwest of Alert, Canada's northernmost settlement on the coast of Lincoln Sea, Arctic Ocean.
The northeastern end of Lake Hazen is 118 km southwest of Alert. It is the North America's largest lake north of the Arctic Circle. It is 70 km long and up to 11 km wide, with an area of 542 km². It stretches in a southwest-northeast direction from to . The lake is up to 289 meters deep. The shoreline is 185 km long and 158 meters above sea level. It has several islands, the largest of them being St. John's Island, which is 7 km long and less than one kilometer wide, also extending in a southwest-northeast direction like the lake itself. The lake is covered by ice about ten months a year. It is fed by glaciers from the surrounding Eureka Uplands (Palaeozoic rocks north of the lake, rising up to 2 500 meters above sea level), most importantly Henrietta Nesmith and the Gilmour Glaciers, and drained by 15 km long Ruggles River which flows into Chandler Fjord on the northern east coast of Ellesmere Land.
The area around the lake is a thermal oasis within a polar desert, with summer temperatures up to 23° C.
The lake is part of Quttinirpaaq National Park.
Lake Hazen was first discovered by the Inuit. In modern times, Augustus Greely discovered the lake in 1882 during his expedition 1881-1883. Greely's base camp for the exploration was Fort Conger at the northeastern shore of Ellesmere Island, at , which was established as part of the first International Geophysical Year (IGY). Hazen Camp was established on the northern shore of the lake in 1957 during the IGY, and has been used by various scientific parties since then.
The Arctic char is only one species of fish living in the lake.
