El longest river in canada It is the Mackenzie River. It is a river that has the largest basin in all of Canada and flows through both a sparsely populated region with spectacular landscapes and a more populated one. Its characteristics are worth knowing since it is one of the most important rivers in North America. In addition, the analysis of the permafrost in the Arctic It is crucial to understand the ecosystem surrounding this basin.
In this article we are going to tell you everything you need to know about the longest river in Canada, its origin, history, characteristics and much more.
Key features
The Mackenzie River flows from Great Slave Lake through northwestern Canada for 1075 kilometers, or 4240 kilometers if the Finley and Peace rivers are included in the system. With a total area of 1.841.000 km2, the watershed is the largest in Canada. The river flows through sparsely populated areas with spectacular natural features and layers of snow that cause extensive flooding during the melt season. This highlights the importance of studying it in this region.
The Mackenzie River flows primarily from the southeast to the northwest. The Liard, Peace, and Athabasca rivers that form their sources irrigate the Forest Plains region of northeastern British Columbia and northern Alberta. After passing Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie River receives some short streams of the Canadian Shield on the right and a channel flowing from the northern Rocky Mountains (or Rocky Mountains) on the left. The lake of the Great Bear and Athabasca also belong to the system. After passing through the Northwest Territories, it empties into the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean.
Source and geography of Canada's longest river
Canada's longest river rises from Great Slave Lake, runs through northeastern Canada and it flows southeast through Inuvik and Fort Smith. The sources of the Mackenzie Rivers are the Liard, Peace, and Athabasca Rivers. These rivers irrigate the forested plains of northeast British Columbia and northern Alberta.
Crossing the great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie River receives on its right bank the aforementioned tributaries, which flow from what is known as the Canadian Shield. This natural environment is essential to understanding the .
On its right margin, the river that flows from the Rocky Mountains is its tributary. Lakes known as Big Bear Lake and Lake Athabasca are also part of the lake system that flows into the Mackenzie River.
The Mackenzie River runs through forested areas for much of its run, cutting through sparsely populated boreal forests where fur trappers, Eskimos, and illegal loggers take place.
After crossing the Canadian Northwest Territories, the Mackenzie River empties into the Arctic Ocean, but first forms a delta in the Beaufort Sea between Alaska, the Canadian Northwest Territories, and the Yukon Territory.
Pluvial regime and economy
Although its status is poorly known and only sporadic data have been collected at Fort Simpson and Nordmann, its hydrologic behavior can be inferred with fair certainty. On the one hand, its mountainous tributaries endow it with a neoglacial state, especially through its tributary the Liard, for which reason the flow is maximum in June and minimum in March; on the other hand, the presence of a large lake on the right bank, with an area of vast water reserves, resulting in a weighting effect (low seasonal fluctuations in flow), giving Canada's longest river a pristine character in arctic rivers.
The available data confirm this. since the difference observed between the maximum and minimum values is 7.890 m3/s. From the few available records, its discharge into the estuary is estimated at about 15.000 m3/s. During the flood season, it is crucial to understand the overall ecology and the current situation.
The river crosses areas covered with boreal forest and sparsely populated. It is the domain of Eskimos, fur trappers and loggers. Rich pitchblende deposits have recently been discovered near Great Bear Lake and uranium deposits have been found around Lake Athabasca, resulting in population centers.
Geology of the longest river in Canada
Until the last ice age around 30.000 years ago, much of northern Canada was buried under the massive Laurentide Ice Sheet. The enormous erosive forces of the Laurentide and its predecessors completely buried what is now the Mackenzie Basin under miles of ice and flattened the eastern part of the basin to the greatest extent possible. When the ice cap receded for the last time, left behind a 1.100 kilometer long post-glacial lake, Lake McConnell, containing Big Bear, Great Slave, and Athabasca lakes.
The current Mackenzie River is geologically very young: its channel was formed no more than a few thousand years ago, when the ice sheet receded. Before the Ice Age, only one tributary of the Peel River flowed through what is now the Mackenzie Delta to the Arctic Ocean. Other tributaries of the McKenzie River join to form the Bell River, which flows east into Hudson Bay. During glacial periods, the weight of the ice sheet depressed the topography of northern Canada to such an extent that as the ice receded, the Mackenzie system was captured at lower elevations in the northwest, establishing the present direction of flow. towards the North Pole.
River sediments and other evidence of erosion suggest that at the end of the Pleistocene, about 13.000 years ago, the Strait of Mackenzie was swept away by one or more massive glacial lake floods caused by Lake Agassiz, formed west of the current Great Lakes formed by melting ice. This phenomenon is believed to have altered currents in the Arctic Ocean, causing a sudden change in temperature over 1.300 years, known as the Younger Dryas period.
Mackenzie carries a large amount of sediment, sending about 128 million tons a year to its delta. The Liard River alone accounts for 32 percent of the total, and the Peel River about 20 percent. Essentially all of the sediment came from the area downstream of Fort Providence because the upstream sediment was trapped in Great Slave Lake.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about the longest river in Canada and its characteristics.