Reindeer Lake Research Articles

New determination of Pediastrum orientale in polar lake sediments and its palaeoecological implications – Reindeer Lake, Bellsund, Spitsbergen

The main component of microfossils in the bottom sediments of Reindeer Lake from Spitsbergen, documenting the almost 8,000-year history of this water body, are algae representing colonies of a very rare species Pediastrum orientale (Skuja) Jankovská et Komárek 1995 with only a very small (lower than 1%) admixture of other green algae species. It has also been recorded in other lake sediments in Spitsbergen. The specimens belong to the morphotype “b” of the species, known previously from the Scandinavian lakes. Due to its unique nature and scarce information on ecological conditions, this study analysed the palaeoenvironmental factors favouring the occurrence of Pediastrum orientale together with an assessment of its bioindication value. The affinity of the species to oligotrophic lakes, where blooms of this alga are observed, was confirmed. The presence of numerous colonies of Pediastrum orientale in fossil lake sediments can provide a rationale for inferring palaeoecological conditions, including the trophic state of water bodies, thus expanding knowledge of their evolutionary directions and documenting key events in the geological history of the catchment. Further studies of lake gyttjas in Spitsbergen should pay more attention to the taxonomic composition of Pediastrum and other green algae, as well as to the determinants of sediment deposition in different lake catchment environments.

Chemical contaminants and parasites: Assessment of human health risks associated with consumption of whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from two boreal lakes in northern Saskatchewan, Canada

In Canada there is increasing concern about potential effects of industrial activities on wildlife and human health. In an interdisciplinary study concentrations of inorganic (metals, metalloids) and organic (PCBs, organochlorine pesticides) contaminants, and parasitic infections of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from Montreal and Reindeer lakes, Saskatchewan, were investigated to assess human health risk related to fish consumption. In both lakes contamination of fish with chemical substances and compounds, respectively, were very low and often close to detection limits. Lake whitefish parasite communities consisted of 15 (Montreal Lake) and 12 (Reindeer Lake) species most of which were found in the intestinal tract. Many parasite species showed seasonal differences in prevalence and/or mean intensity of infection. None of the identified parasites are known to be human-pathogenic and overall, whitefish from both locations can be considered safe and healthy food. Nevertheless, women of child-bearing age and young children should limit their consumption to 3 and 2 meals, respectively, of Reindeer Lake whitefish per week to minimize potentially harmful exposure to mercury. As well, intestines of Montreal Lake fish should be removed prior to fish consumption if large parasite cysts containing a yet unidentified cestode species are detected.

Fish and ecosystem health as determined by parasite communities of lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from Saskatchewan boreal lakes

In northern Canada, there is increasing concern about the potential negative impacts of industrial activities on wildlife and ecosystems. Therefore, a study was conducted on lake whitefish (Coregonus clupeaformis) from Montreal and Reindeer lakes, Saskatchewan, to assess fish health and condition, and ecosystem integrity of these northern lakes. In Montreal Lake, all fish were infected by ≥2 parasite species. The most prevalent parasite at this site was the larval trematode Ichthyocotylurus erraticus, which was detected in all fish examined. All Reindeer Lake whitefish were shown to harbour ≥1 parasite species. The most prevalent parasite (found in 87.9% of fish) at this locality was the larval trematode Diplostomum sp. Macroscopically visible pathogenic changes were not noted. Gross energy values of whitefish were 4.40 ± 0.88 MJ/kg and 5.14 ± 1.14 MJ/kg for Montreal Lake and Reindeer Lake, respectively, indicating that fish have sufficient energy stores to withstand stressful conditions. The parasite communities were species-rich and diverse, with Shannon diversity indices of 2.12 (Montreal Lake) and 2.02 (Reindeer Lake). The ratios of allogenic/autogenic as well as planktonic/benthic parasite species did not indicate atypical environmental conditions. Together the findings suggest that in both lakes there is currently no significant anthropogenic impact on the whitefish populations and ecosystem health.

From the Bush to the Village in Northern Saskatchewan: Contrasting CCF Community Development Projects

The election of the CCF in 1944 brought rapid change for the residents of northern Saskatchewan. CCF initiatives included encouraging northern aboriginals to trade their semi-nomadic lifestyles for lives in urban settings. The establishment of Kinoosao on Reindeer Lake provides an example of how CCF planners established new villages; community development processes excluded local people. Yet, in spite of considerable resistance, various incentives and coercive measures resulted in the movement of nearly all northerners to permanent settlements. A very different community development project unfolded at Cole Bay in the 1960s. Early CCF urbanization projects had missed several hundred Métis people in the remote Canoe Lake area of northwest Saskatchewan. The creation of the Cold Lake Air Weapons Range in the 1950s resulted in the Métis losing access to much of their traditional land. With guidance from Ray Woollam, an influential CCF official, local people actively participated in designing and building their community. This study of urbanization in northern Saskatchewan adds to the literature on relocations and community development in northern Canada and beyond. In addition, it provides information about CCF aboriginal and northern policies.

Lake Winnipeg, remnant of glacial Lake Agassiz, an efficient dispersal route of planktonic crustaceans through central and northern Canada

Zooplankton in five lake regions once inundated by Lake Agassiz were compared with zooplankton of 10 other lake regions and in 5 Great Lakes in south—central Canada. The highest resemblance to a hypothetical composite of Lake Agassiz plankton, from 94 to 100 percent, was found in lakes of the Northern Manitoba, Northern Saskatchewan and Upper Mackenzie regions. Eighty nine to 94 percent of zooplankton from the Laurentian Great Lakes came from the Agassiz Lake fauna. The only other species found in the Great Lakes in 1969 were Eurytemora affinis, and Eubosmina coregoni, newcomers to the North American fauna from Europe. The number of species shared with the hypothetical fauna of Lake Agassiz declines with the distance from this glacial lake. From 91 to 93 percent of Lake Agassiz species were found in Manitoba Western, Southern Manitoba and Alberta, 85 to 86 percent in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, 80 to 84 percent in Nova Scotia and Southern British Columbia and about 74 percent in the lakes of the Mackenzie Delta region. Lake Agassiz appeared to be a very efficient south-north dispersion route. Of the 35 species originating from the Mississippi refugium, 24 species penetrated as far as the Upper Mackenzie region and 16 species reached the Mackenzie Delta. The north to south dispersion route was not as effective. Of the 15 species originating from the Beringia refugium, seven species reached the Upper Mackenzie area and 5 species penetrated only to Northern Manitoba and Northern Saskatchewan. The fact that they did reach so far south could be explained by two different hypotheses. In the first, Lake Agassiz did not extend as far north as suggested by Teller or Fisher and Smith but rather the northern boundary corresponded to that indicated by Elson, and Northern Manitoba and Northern Saskatchewan were part of Lake McConnell. The second hypothesis states that the most northern portion of Lake Agassiz according to the boundary suggested by Teller or by Fisher and Smith served in the very late stage as a wide connecting channel with Lake McConnell and allowed some Beringia species to penetrate south, but no further than to Reindeer Lake, or perhaps to Southern Indian Lake.

Tectonic framework of a Paleoproterozoic arc-continent to continent-continent collisional zone, Trans-Hudson Orogen, from geological and seismic reflection studies

Vertical incidence seismic data were collected along a 300 km-long profile across the northwestern flank of the Trans-Hudson Orogen in Saskatchewan (line S2b). The present study integrates the seismic data with previously published geological maps and recent results from the La Ronge – Lynn Lake Bridge Project that provide new constraints on the lithological, structural, and tectonic framework of this collisional zone. An interpretative section, based on the seismic reflectivity and surface geological constraints, is presented. The integrated data suggest the following key elements. (1) Although an early foreland-vergent accretion history is suggested by surficial geological constraints, the predominant fabric is reflected by penetrative hinterlandward vergence. (2) A zone of more reflective lower crust with hinterland-verging fabric may represent "fossil" reflectors from a pre-collisional accretionary phase. (3) The Archean to Paleoproterozoic Sask Craton may extend in the lower middle crust to at least beneath Rottenstone Domain, consistent with what is observed along strike on other Lithoprobe seismic profiles. (4) The Needle Falls and Parker Lake shear zones do not appear to be associated with obvious reflectors, consistent with observations from Reindeer Lake, suggesting that they merely rework the Wathaman Batholith intrusive margin and are not fundamental sutures. (5) The La Ronge and Rottenstone domains show nearly identical seismic properties, consistent with recent mapping results in the Reindeer Lake area that suggest that they are temporally and, at least in part, lithologically related in the area covered by, and to the east of, seismic line S2b.

Nēhîthâwâk of Reindeer Lake, Canada: Worldview, Epistemology and Relationships with the Natural World

Abstract The purpose of this exploratory article is to illustrate the worldview, epistemology and relationship with the natural world from a Nēhîthâwâk (Woodlands Cree) perspective. The contents of the article represent a personal narrative of an educator of Woodlands Cree cultural heritage from the Reindeer Lake area of northern Canada. A brief history of the Woodlands Cree is shared in order to provide a context for my perspectives as “an insider” of this way of life. This is followed by an attempt to articulate fundamental key concepts in relation to traditional Woodlands Cree education, worldview, epistemology, language, values and practices as they are informed by relationships with the land, plants and animals. The text is highly subjective and culturally contextualised.

Slow post-orogenic cooling in a deeply eroded orogen: Reindeer Zone, Trans-Hudson Orogen, Saskatchewan

We present 40Ar/39Ar hornblende and muscovite data from a 200 km transect across the northern flank of the Paleoproterozoic Trans-Hudson Orogen (THO) exposed along Reindeer Lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. The transect crosses a series of distinct lithotectonic domains that experienced pressure–temperature (P–T) conditions of 600–730 °C at 4.5–6.0 kbar (1 kbar = 100 MPa) during D2 peak metamorphism at 1820–1790 Ma. The distribution of 40Ar/39Ar hornblende ages shows that most of the transect cooled through approximately 500 °C by ca. 1765 Ma, with two significant exceptions. At the north end of the transect, older ages in the Peter Lake Domain (up to 2200 Ma) suggest that this region did not experience high-grade metamorphism that affected the rest of the transect and may indicate a structural break between these Archean rocks and the Cree Lake Zone to the north. In the south-central part of the transect, U–Pb (monazite, titanite) and 40Ar/39Ar (hornblende, muscovite) ages indicate that rocks in the vicinity of the Duck Lake Shear Zone, a ductile thrust zone separating the Kisseynew and La Ronge domains, cooled at a rate of 6 °C/Ma and that cooling was delayed by ca. 20–25 million years relative to that of adjacent regions. Based on generic thermal–tectonic models for large hot orogens, we suggest that delayed cooling in the vicinity of the shear zone reflects post-orogenic thermal relaxation of lower crustal isotherms that were perturbed by the effects of convergence.

First Record of the Deepwater Sculpin, <em>Myoxocephalus thompsonii</em>, from George Lake in Whiteshell Provincial Park, Manitoba

Two adult female specimens of Deepwater Sculpin, Myoxocephalus thompsonii, were collected by gillnet from George Lake near Point Du Bois, Manitoba, 36.8 km east of Lac Du Bonnet on 21 September 2000. This constitutes the first confirmed occurrence of the species in George Lake. The only other Manitoba lakes with known populations of Deepwater Sculpin are Lake Athapapuskow and West Hawk Lake. Deepwater Sculpins have also been collected from Reindeer Lake; however, these individuals were collected from the deeper Saskatchewan side of the lake.

The palynological record of Late-Quaternary arctic tree-line in northwest Canada

The palynological records of arctic tree-lines in North America give clear evidence of large scale northward displacement of the forest limit during the early Holocene. However, small scale or local changes in forests that occurred during the mid or late Holocene have been more difficult to detect using pollen analysis. A grid of sites from the region to the east of the Makenzie Delta, N.W.T., provides a good temporal and spatial record of tree-line (forest) movements. Detailed pollen and macrofossil analyses at thre sites, Reindeer Lake, Sleet lake and Bluffer's Pingo, which lie 50, 75, and 100 km north of the modern forest limit, respectively, provide a detailed paleoecological record. The evidence indicates that the northward displacement of forests in the early Holocene form 10,000 to 8400 yr BP was not simply a northward shift of trees but that a complex pattern of vegetation developed with white spruce populations growing north of open poplar stands. Open woodlands with black spruce grew as far north as Sleet Lake from 8400 to 3500 yr BP. These woodlands gradually retreated to just south of Reindeer Lake during the late Holocene.

Formation of Canadian 1.9 Ga old continental crust. I: Nd isotopic data

A Nd isotopic study was carried out on 1.9−1.8 Ga rocks from two parts of the Trans-Hudson Orogen in northern Canada. The first part is the Reindeer Lake Zone in the Churchill Province in Saskatchewan, where a variety of volcanic, granitoid, and sedimentary rocks are preserved in several lithotectonic belts that border a reworked Archean craton to the northwest. The second area comprises the Ottawa and Belcher islands, in Hudson Bay, and the Fox River volcanics, in Manitoba. These form part of the Circum-Superior Belt, a band of basaltic volcanics and sedimentary rocks that overlies the Archean Superior craton.From U–Pb zircon ages, Pb–Pb ages, and Sm–Nd ages, Nd initial isotopic compositions were calculated for all analyzed samples. In the Saskatchewan terrains, we obtained a large range of εNd values, from +5 to −8. The highest values (+4 to +5) come from two volcanic-dominated belts (Flin Flon and Western la Ronge), lower values (~+2) characterize intervening sediment-dominated domains (Eastern La Ronge, Glennie Lake, and Kisseynew), and still lower values (−1 to −4) were found in migmatitic and granitoid belts adjacent to the reworked Archean craton in the northwest. Each lithotectonic belt has its own characteristic, restricted range of εNd values, and, with few exceptions, there is no correlation between εNd and rock type; i.e., in individual belts, volcanics, granites, and sediments have very similar εNd values.In the Circum-Superior Belt, three lava flows from the Ottawa Islands have εNd values ranging from +4.5 to 0, and samples from the Belcher Islands have values ranging from +3.5 to −9.These results are explained by mixing between mantle-derived rocks and variable amounts of Archean continental crustal rocks. Assuming that 1.9 Ga ago the mantle had an εNd value of +5 and Archean crust had an εNd value of −12, we calculate proportions of Archean crustal material in Trans-Hudson rocks ranging from ~2 to 35 %, increasing systematically toward the Archean platform. The mean Archean component is about 8%: this area of Proterozoic continental crust is clearly dominated by material derived directly from the mantle.The similarity between the εNd values of sediments, granites, and volcanics in the Trans-Hudson Orogen suggests that sedimentary processes played a dominant role in transporting Archean detritus from eroding Archean continental areas into basins, where it mixed with mantle-derived volcanic material and melted to form granitoids.

Ernest C. Oberholtzer (1884-1977)

... In 1912 Ernest C. Oberholtzer and Titapeshwewitan, an Ontario Ojibwa better known as Billy Magee, made a canoe voyage of some 3200 km, during which they explored Nueltin Lake and the Thlewiaza River, N.W.T. This epic journey, more arduous and commendable than certain of the acclaimed explorations that preceded it, has remained all but unrecorded to the present day. ... On 26 June 1912 Oberholtzer and Magee left The Pas, Manitoba, in an 18-foot Chestnut Guide Special. Their destination was Chesterfield Inlet, by way of the Kazan. Neither man had ever canoed north of Rainy Lake, and from the first Billy was unsettled by the prospect of strange Indians, far stranger Eskimos, and the treeless regions for which they were bound. He was 51 years old. Oberholtzer, 28, stood 5'6 and weighed 135 pounds. A month out from The Pas they reached Lac du Brochet, the remote HBC post and Oblate mission at the northern end of Reindeer Lake. There, as at Cumberland House and Pelican Narrows, they were warned against attempting so audacious a venture, especially since no guides were to be had. Undeterred, and with Tyrrell's map to steer by, they pushed up the Cochrane, then followed the Esker Lakes to Theitaga lake, today known as Kasmere Lake, just south of the 60th parallel. From here Tyrrell had gone northwest, to Kasba Lake and the Kazan. But it was now the 8th of August. Knowing of the hardships and perils Tyrrell and his men had experienced in navigating the coastline of Hudson Bay in open canoes late in the season, and realising that he and Magee could not possibly reach Chesterfield Inlet in time to get out, Oberholtzer chose instead to strike northeast, toward the Chipewyans' mysterious Nu-thel-tin-tu-eh, or Sleeping Island Lake, where he hoped to find the vaguely charted Thlewiaza River and thereby make the Bay soon enough to get out ahead of winter weather. He and Magee now entered completely unknown territory, and Oberholtzer commenced time-and-compass mapping of their route. Following the river known today as the Kasmere, they entered Nueltin on 14 August. No white man had seen this enormous lake since Samuel Hearne crossed it in the winter of 1770-71. ... That Oberholtzer and Magee, complete strangers to the far North, canoed such a distance without mishap, and that the exploratory reaches of their journey were traversed without native guides, attests not only to their skills, fitness, and tenacity, but, above all, to the firmness of their friendship. An unassuming man, Oberholtzer never published a word about his odyssey. ... Ernest Oberholtzer devoted the rest of his life to the cause of conservation, indefatigably leading a decades-long campaign to preserve the Quetico-Superior country as an international wilderness. Concomitantly, he pursued his profound interest in the culture of the Ojibwas. ...

Manikewan: An early proterozoic ocean in central Canada, its igneous history and orogenic closure

During Early Proterozoic time (Aphebian Period) much of the southwestern Churchill province of the Canadian shield was covered by a sea, called here the Manikewan Ocean. Although the original dimensions of this ocean are unknown, the highly deformed and metamorphosed rocks that represent its evolution and final closure as the Manikewan mobile belt now crop out over an area of at least 6 × 10 5 km 2. Along strike (NE—SW) these rocks are buried at both ends by flat-lying Phanerozoic sediments, whereas, across strike, they are bounded by Archaean cratons, the Western craton to the northwest and Superior province to the southeast. Part of the Western craton and Manikewan mobile belt is overlain by the flat-lying, Middle Proterozoic, Athabasca sandstone, a remnant of a once wide-spread, predominantly fluvial group of rocks. Manikewan rocks can be divided into two major zones: 1. (1) The Cree Lake zone in the northwest consists of a predominantly meta-sedimentary succession which overlies unconformably the southeastern extension of the Western craton. This region appears to have been an ensialic stable platform to miogeosyncline during Aphebian time. 2. (2) The Reindeer Lake zone in the southeast consists of thick sequences of mainly mafic, island-arc type, meta-volcanic rocks (e.g., Amisk volcanics) and their meta-sedimentary equivalents. Locally these are overlain unconformably by thick molasse deposits (e.g., Missi Fm.). This region appears to have been an ensimatic eugeosyncline during at least part of Aphebian time. Numerous stocks and batholiths intrude the Manikewan mobile belt and form an integral part of it. They are mainly granitic and predominantly syn-tectonic. The largest, the Wathaman batholith is over 900 km long, making it the largest known Precambrian batholith. It lies along the junction of the Reindeer Lake and the Cree Lake zones. Radiometric dating is scanty, but what has been done indicates that closure of the Manikewan Ocean was well advanced by 1865 Ma and complete by 1800 Ma (Hudsonian orogeny).

Prentice G. Downes (1909-1959)

Prentice G. Downes was one of the most singular men to travel in the North in the last years before the 1939-45 War. An able man in the wilderness and a gifted cartographer, ethnologist, and naturalist, he is best remembered as the author of Sleeping Island: Story of One Man's Travels in the Great Barren Lands of the Canadian North, a classic of northern canoe travel. ... In a letter to George Douglas in 1943, Downes remarked that his having read Napolean Comeau's Life and Sport on the North Shore of the St. Lawrence a great deal to do with my ever going north, as I was so interested that I set off for the North Shore to find the old gentleman. Comeau had died, but thus in 1935 Downes commenced his northern travels. In 1936 he took passage aboard R.M.S. Nascopie from Montreal to Churchill, during which trip he made copious notes on climate, geography, wildlife, Ungava Eskimo vocabulary, and northern society. From Churchill he flew to Pelican Narrows and with an Indian companion canoed to Reindeer Lake and back again. In 1937 the New England Museum of Natural History sponsored a solo trip by Downes to study the Eskimos of Boothia Peninsula, before which he made his way to Brochet at the north end of Reindeer Lake and investigated the histories, languages, and ways of the Crees and the Chipewyans. This fascination with northern Indians, and above all with the significance of dreams in their cultures, was central to Downes's travels. Crees named him The-man-who-talks-about-dreams. Two of Downes's unpublished writings are a Cree-Chipewyan dictionary and a volume titled The Spirit World of the Northern Cree: Contributions to Cree Ethnology. first of Downes's major canoe trips came in 1938, when he paddled alone from Waterways to Fitzgerald, after which he moved on the Great Slave, the Mackenzie, and Great Bear. ... Sleeping Island trip of 1939 - from Brochet to Nueltin Lake - was followed by another, less triumphant, venture into that region in 1940. Despondent as he was at his failure to reach Kasba Lake by way of the Little Partridge River, Downes could still confide in his journal: Three important routes and one previously unknown river have been worked out. Kasmere Lake is now plotted, both north and east arm. Actually, far more was accomplished than a successful trip through to Kasba would have afforded. Much of the North was as yet imperfectly mapped then, of course, and one of Downes's primary achievements was his meticulous mapping of every obscure route he followed. ...

The Location and Structure of the Precambrian Kisseynew Gneiss Domain of Northern Saskatchewan

The Kisseynew Gneisses occupy a large structural basin which can be traced from Reindeer Lake to Kisseynew Lake in Saskatchewan, and for at least 70 mi (113 km) east of the provincial boundary with Manitoba. The domain is flanked on the south and west sides by metavolcanics and metasediments of the Amisk Series, and by their presumed equivalents of a higher metamorphic grade. The northern boundary is composed of foliated granodiorites.The rocks have been assigned to two lithological groups, the Nokomis and the Sherridon, which correspond to similar divisions of the Kisseynew gneisses in Manitoba. The Nokomis is predominantly a graphite bearing pelitic gneiss containing cordierite and sillimanite, with subsidiary amphibole bearing gneisses and calc-silicates. It is characterized by a low aeromagnetic relief (< 61 300 γ). The Sherridon, by contrast, is characterized by a higher aeromagnetic signature (61 300–62 350 γ), being a magnetite bearing semi-pelitic gneiss.The Kisseynew basin has a complex structure resulting from three phases of deformation. Large recumbent and reclined folds formed in the first period of deformation have been refolded during a second period of deformation producing complex interference patterns. A third phase of deformation produced a series of regional elbow-like folds with east–northeasterly trending axial surface traces.

Mew gull sighting at Reindeer Lake, Manitoba.

Mew gull sighting at Reindeer Lake, Manitoba.

Reindeer Lake Pottery

In the summer of 1936, while travelling on Reindeer Lake in northern Saskatchewan, a collection of potsherds was brought to me by a trapperprospector, William Douglas. These sherds were found in what appears to have been a well-established camp site on an island about one third up the lake. The lake itself is approximately 140 miles long and, like most lakes of the Precambrian Shield, filled with thousands of islands. The find was quite a random one but because of the high latitude would seem of particular interest. The position of the site is approximately 56°35" north latitude. To complicate the problem is the fact that both historically and in the tradition of the Crees and Chippewyans the lake has always been the almost exclusive territory of the “Idthen-eldeli,” Caribou-Eater branch of the Athabascan-speaking Chippewyan. The Churchill River, into which the outlet of Reindeer Lake flows seventy miles to the south, has traditionally and historically been the dividing line between these two peoples.