page_title: Great Slave Lake
section_title: Geography and natural history
hierarchical_section_title: Great Slave Lake / Geography and natural history
caption_attribution_description: Approximate extent of the Mackenzie River watershed Longest river in Canada, the Mackenzie River.
context_page_description: Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada. It is the deepest lake in North America at 614m, and the ninth-largest lake in the world. It is 480 kilometres long and 19 to 109 kilometres wide. It covers 27,200 square kilometres. The lake shares its name with the Slavey First Nations. Towns on the lake include: Yellowknife, Hay River, Behchoko, Fort Resolution, Lutselk'e, Hay River Reserve, Dettah and N'Dilo.
context_section_description: The Hay, Slave and Taltson Rivers enter the lake. The Mackenzie River flows out. The western shore has forests, but the east shore and northern arm are tundra-like. The southern and eastern shores reach the edge of the Canadian Shield. The Great Slave Lake remains from a large post-glacial lake along with other lakes such as the Great Bear and Athabasca.
  The main western part of the lake is a bowl with a surface area of 18,500 km² (7,100 sq mi) and a volume of 596 km³ (143 cu mi). This main portion has a maximum depth of 187.7 m (616 ft) and a mean depth of 32.2 m (106 ft). To the east, McLeod Bay (62°52′N 110°10′W) and Christie Bay (62°32′N 111°00′W) are much deeper, with a maximum recorded depth in Christie Bay of 614 m (2,014 ft).
  There is the nesting site of a flock of Whooping Cranes south of Great Slave Lake, in a remote corner of Wood Buffalo National Park.
caption: Mackenzie River drainage basin showing Great Slave Lake's position in the Western Canadian Arctic
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