Kluane Lake
| Kluane Lake | ||
|---|---|---|
|
||
| View from the Alaska Highway to Kluane Lake | ||
| Geographical location | Yukon ( Canada ) | |
| Tributaries | Slims River , Gladstone Creek | |
| Drain | Kluane River | |
| Islands | Jacquot Island | |
| Places on the shore | Destruction Bay , Burwash Landing , Kluane | |
| Data | ||
| Coordinates | 61 ° 9 ′ N , 138 ° 30 ′ W | |
|
||
| Altitude above sea level | 781 m | |
| surface | 405 km² | |
| length | 70 km | |
| Catchment area | 4950 km² | |
The Kluane Lake (English pronunciation: 'Kloo-wah-nee') is 405 km², the largest lake in the Yukon Territory . It is about 70 km long. Places on the lake are Destruction Bay , Burwash Landing and Kluane . The meltwater of the Kaskawulsh glacier flows u. a. across the Slims River ( A'ay Chu River ) into the lake. The outflow of the lake is the Kluane River , which reaches the Bering Sea via the Donjek River , White River, and Yukon River . The Alaska Highway follows the south shore of the lake, which is also known for its moraine and the American Arctic char . The Kluane National Park is located by the lake . The current name is an English adaptation of the name of the local Southern Tutchone as Łù'àn Män ("big fish lake") and their trading partner, the coastal Tlingit , located on the northwest coast , who called the area around the lake as ùxh- àni (" Lake Whitefish area ") designated. Today's Kluane First Nation therefore traditionally calls itself Lù'àn Män Ku Dän or Lù'àn Mun Ku Dän ("Kluane Lake People").
More recent geological past
300 to 400 years ago, what was then the Slims River flowed in the opposite direction in the valley of today's A'ay Chu River and emptied 225 km of Kluane Lake into the Pacific . After the Kaskawulsh Glacier continued to expand and finally blocked the valley, the water level in the lake rose over 10 meters until it found a new drain ( Kluane River ) in the northwest and the lake now over the Donjek River and White River with the Yukon River connects. Since then, the water of Kluane Lake has been flowing ten times longer to get to the sea.
In the meantime, the bed of the new drain has flushed itself out so deep that the water level of the lake is back at its old level. Traces of the old water level can still be seen on the mountain slopes at the corresponding altitude. The Alaska Highway crosses the huge former bed of the Slims River, which was used in the opposite direction by the A'ay Chu River. The glacier itself has receded over the years and most of the valley has opened again, the water flow initially remained unchanged. In 2016, the glacier melted so much that the course of the river to the north (to the lake) fell completely dry, the meltwater of the glacier now flows exclusively over the Kaskawulsh River and Alsek River into the Gulf of Alaska, while the Kluane Lake over the new created drain feeds the Yukon River .
See also
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kluane River at the gauge at the outlet from Kluane Lake - hydrographic data from R-ArcticNET
- ↑ The Atlas of Canada - Lakes ( Memento from January 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
- ^ Natural Resources Canada
