Great Bear Lake

Great Bear Lake is a lake in the Northwest Territories. It is a cold deep lake, with a large surface area. It is the largest lake contained entirely in Canada, and the eighth largest lake on Planet Earth.

The nearby population is very small. The small community of approximately 150 first nations people, at Deline, at the lake's mouth, the only settlement.

The lake is frozen from late November through July.

Port Radium, and its legacy

The Uranium mine, at Port Radium, on the eastern end of the lake, supplied much of the Uranium needed for the Manhattan Project, during World War 2. Tugboats pulled barges, stacked with Uranium ore, in burlap sacks, across the lake -- about 265 kilometres (165 mi). The Bear river, that connects the lake to the Mackenzie River, had two rapids which were too intense for transit, and the ore had to be portaged around the rapids. Additional tugs towed new barges up the Mackenzie River to Great Slave Lake, across Great Slave Lake to the Slave River, to Fort Smith, Alberta, where a portage of more than 26 kilometres (16 mi) was required. Additional tugs, towed additional barge up the Slave River to Lake Athabasca, and then up the Athabasca River to the nearest railroad terminal at Fort McMurray. Only then could the bags of ore be loaded on trains to be refined in the United States.

First nations men, including many of those from Deline, loaded those barges, served as deckhands on the barges, carried the ore over the portages -- all without dust masks to protect them from the radioactive dust the ore shed.

In subsequent years a very large fraction of those men died of cancer. The Radium Gilbert the most contaminated tug, ran aground just off Deline. It sat there, grounded, for decades, as a reminder of the health risks the men of Deline endured.