Lake · Canada
Lake Manitoba
Lake Manitoba is a big but very shallow lake in the Canadian province of Manitoba, only about 7 m deep at its deepest point. Its name comes from Indigenous words meaning 'straits of Manitou, the Great Spirit'.
Picture credit: Shahnoor Habib Munmun (CC BY 3.0) · Classenc (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Classenc (CC BY-SA 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Lake Manitoba?
Countries on its shores: Canada.
Middle of the lake: 50.45° N, 98.35° W
The story behind it
Lake Manitoba is about 200 km long, but even at its deepest point it is only about 7 m deep. Together with Lake Winnipeg and Lake Winnipegosis, it lies on the floor of Lake Agassiz, an enormous lake from the time of the glaciers. At one spot the lake becomes very narrow; this place is called The Narrows. People once said that the Great Spirit could be heard there, and that is where the lake's name comes from. Its water is very slightly salty, because about half of the water that leaves the lake does not flow away but evaporates. At the southern tip lies Delta Marsh, a wetland where many migrating birds stop to rest. Fishers catch walleye, sauger and yellow perch, and small communities such as St. Laurent, Steep Rock and Sandy Bay lie on its shores.
Find it on the globe
Lake Manitoba 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 Lake Manitoba?
Lake Manitoba covers about 4 620 km², though some sources give about 4 700 km². It is roughly 200 km long, but only about 7 m deep at its deepest point.
What does the name Manitoba mean?
It comes from Cree and Ojibwe words meaning 'straits of Manitou, the Great Spirit'. People said the spirit could be heard at The Narrows, but nobody knows exactly what they heard.
Is Lake Manitoba salty?
Only very slightly. A lot of its water evaporates instead of flowing out, and that makes the water a little salty.
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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