Lake · Canada
Great Bear Lake
Great Bear Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories is the largest lake that lies completely inside Canada. It sits on the Arctic Circle and is covered with ice for most of the year.
Picture credit: mattcatpurple (CC BY-SA 2.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Great Bear Lake?
Countries on its shores: Canada.
Middle of the lake: 65.83° N, 120.75° W
The story behind it
Great Bear Lake lies far in the north of Canada, where the Arctic Circle runs right across it. The lake is frozen from late November until July. It reaches a depth of 446 metres, and its cold, clean water is home to huge lake trout: in 1995 an angler caught one weighing 32.65 kg, the biggest ever caught with a rod anywhere. The only settlement on the shore is the small village of Délı̨nę, near the place where the Great Bear River flows out. This river carries the water on to the Mackenzie River. Great Bear Lake is the largest lake entirely within Canada. However, the Canadian part of Lake Huron is even larger, so in total Lake Huron gives Canada more lake area.
Find it on the globe
Great Bear Lake is there as a small blue dot with its name, right on the water. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How big is Great Bear Lake?
Great Bear Lake covers about 31 150 km². Some sources give a slightly larger number, about 31 300 km², because measurements differ a little.
Is Great Bear Lake the largest lake in Canada?
It is the largest lake that lies completely inside Canada. Lake Huron and Lake Superior are bigger, but they are shared with the United States, and the Canadian part of Lake Huron alone is even bigger than Great Bear Lake.
Which fish live in Great Bear Lake?
The lake is famous for its giant lake trout. In 1995 an angler caught one weighing 32.65 kg, the largest lake trout ever caught with a rod.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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