Lac à l'Eau Claire

Where is Lac à l'Eau Claire?

Countries on its shores: Canada.

Middle of the lake: 56.13° N, 74.30° W

The story behind it

In English the lake is also called the Clearwater Lakes, and its official name today comes from the Cree language: Lac Wiyâshâkimî. The Inuit call it Allait Qasigialingat. From above, the lake looks like two giant circles. The eastern crater is about 26 km wide and the western one about 36 km wide. Scientists once thought both were made at the same time by a pair of space rocks. Newer studies show that the eastern crater is much older, about 460 million years, while the western one is about 290 million years old. A string of small islands forms a dotted line in the water. The lake is up to 178 metres deep. Plants of the northern forest grow on its shores, while plants of the Arctic grow on the islands in the middle. The water flows out through the Clearwater River to Hudson Bay. Since 2012 the lake has been part of Tursujuq National Park, the largest national park in Quebec.

Find it on the globe

Lac à l'Eau Claire 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.