Great Bear Lake

Great Bear covers about thirty-one thousand square kilometres, the largest lake wholly within Canada and the eighth largest in the world, straddling the Arctic Circle. It is extremely cold and nutrient-poor, and that shapes everything: lake trout here grow very slowly and live for decades, producing some of the largest specimens on record, and the fishery is almost entirely catch-and-release with barbless hooks. Ice covers it from November into July. Deline, the only community on the lake, is a Sahtu Dene town, and the lake was named a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 2016 on the community's initiative. Uranium mined nearby in the 1930s left a difficult legacy.

The landscape

• The scale - the largest lake entirely within Canada, straddling the Arctic Circle.
• The old trout - fish growing for decades in nutrient-poor cold water.
• Deline - the single Sahtu Dene community on the shore.
• The biosphere reserve - a UNESCO designation the community pursued.

When to go

July and August, the short open-water window; ice persists into July in some years and returns in November. Access is by charter aircraft only and weather cancels flights.

Things to know

There is no road and access is by expensive charter. Lodges are few and book a year ahead. The water is cold enough that immersion is dangerous. Weather grounds flights for days.

Nearby

Deline is the only community; Norman Wells lies west.

Key facts