Mirond Lake

Mirond Lake is at 55.1001°N 102.7837°W / 55.1001; -102.7837.[1] The lake is accessible by road north from the Hanson Lake Road (Saskatchewan Highway 106).[2] It is about 24 miles (39 km) long and 5 miles (8.0 km) wide at its widest point.[3] Mirond Lake is joined to Pelican Lake to the west by a narrow stretch of water that gives its name to the community of Pelican Narrows on its north shore.[4] Attitti Lake to the east drains through Waskwei Lake and Wunehikun Bay into Mirond Lake.[5] Pelican and Mirond lakes are near the 400 metres (1,300 ft) high point of the Flin Flon Plain, which slopes gently to the south down to about 330 metres (1,080 ft) at Deschambault Lake and Amisk Lake.[6]

Mirond lake is the headwaters of the Sturgeon-Weir River, a tributary to Cumberland Lake.[7] This in turn drains into the Saskatchewan River System.[5] The Sturgeon-Wier leaves the end of the lake through a rock-walled channel containing a section of rapids, then flows more slowly through a series of long, narrow lakes.[8] The river drains a large system of lakes between latitudes 54°30' and 55°30' and longitudes 102° and 103°, including Deschambault Lake, Wood Lake, Pelican Lake and Mirond Lake. It empties into Beaver Lake, about 90 miles (140 km) northwest of The Pas, Manitoba. The river is about 50 miles (80 km) long from Mirond Lake to Beaver Lake. Above Scoop Rapids, about half way along the river, the drainage area is about 5,678 square miles (14,710 km²).[9]

The name "mi-rond" is French and means "half round", or "half moon" according to Sir John Richardson.[10] It describes the shape of the lake.[7] Peter Pond, a poor speller, showed the lake as "Mineront" in his maps drawn around 1785. Other variants were used later, such as Merion. Sir John Franklin on his overland expedition of 1819-22 wrote "Miron" as "Heron", and this was copied by several other map makers. The name Mirond is standard now.[11] The Cree give the twin lakes of Pelican and Mirond the name Opawikoschikun Sakuhikuna, or "fear lakes", referring to a massacre that took place there around 1730.[10] The Cree name for the narrows is Opawikoscikcan, meaning "fear narrows".[4]

The lake is in the subarctic climate zone.[12] The annual average temperature is −1 °C (30 °F). The warmest month is July, when the average temperature is 16 °C (61 °F) and the coldest is January, with −24 °C (−11 °F).[13]

The landscape has areas of glaciolacustrine silts and clays or sandy glacial till, with many outcrops of Precambrian rocks that have been scoured by glacial ice. There are large areas of peatland in the poorly drained areas, and elsewhere the land is forested. Black spruce (picea mariana) is common but not dominant, and other trees include white spruce (picea glauca), trembling aspen (populus tremuloides), jack pine (pinus banksiana) and balsam fir (abies balsamea).[6] The lake has lodges with cabins and campgrounds for fishing and hunting.[14][15] A Saskatchewan live release record for northern pike was set at Mirond Lake in 2008, with a 141 centimetres (56 in) specimen.[16]

• List of lakes of Saskatchewan