Great Bear Lake is the fourth largest lake in North America and the largest lake in Canada. The lake is located in the federal territory of the Northwest Territories.

The Great Bear Lake is partially within the Arctic Circle and drains into the Great Bear River, which in turn drains into the MacKenzie River. The lake covers a total of 12,275 square miles (31,800 square kilometres).http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Great_Bear_Lake.aspx The lake has an average elevation of approximately 390 feet above sea level, the lake is about 1350 feet at its deepest point.http://www.ohwy.com/nt/g/grebealk.htm

Great Bear Lake can be found between the Kazan Uplands portion of the Canadian Shield and the Interior Plains. Since the Pleistocene era, the lake has experienced several changes due to the melting of ice.

Between the months of November and July, the Great Bear Lake is covered with ice.http://www.lakelubbers.com/great-bear-lake-639/

The Great Bear Lake has three historic mining camps, these are:

1. Port Radium,
2. The Contact Lake and
3. The Terra camps.http://www.cooperminerals.com/properties.php

These mines produced the following quantities over the period 1930 until 1985:

• 48 million ounces silver,
• 15 million pounds of Uranium U3O8 and
• 7,000 tons of copper

Additional smaller quantities of Gold, Cobalt and Bismuth were also found locally.

The Great Bear Lake has a range of attractions for tourists. The majority of tourists travel to Great Bear Lake for fishing and hunting. The area is also used by people wishing to get away from it all and go out into the wilderness.

Fishing - The Great Bear Lake holds the world record for both the Lake Trout and Arctic Grayling.http://www.deline.ca/tourism/ Other well populated species include the Black Crappie, Blue Catfish, Bluegill, Carp, Smallmouth Bass, Largemouth Bass and Rainbow Trout.http://www.bigbearcountry.com/fishing-big-bear-lake.html

Hunting - The Great Bear Lake is also popular for hunting. Many hunting packages of about a week are available. Examples of species to hunt include Wolf, Wolverine, Barren Ground Caribou and Muskox.http://www.greygooselodge.ca/Hunting.htm