Lake Abitibi (French: lac Abitibi) is a lake in northeastern Ontario and western Quebec, Canada. The lake is separated in two distinct portions by a short narrows, making it actually 2 lakes. Its total area is 931 km², and net area 903 km². The lake is shallow and studded with islands. Its shores and vicinity are covered with small timber.
Its outlet is the Abitibi River which empties into James Bay through the Moose River. "Abitibi" means "middle waters" in Algonquin, a reference to its geographic location halfway between James Bay and the Ottawa River. Rivers to the north flow north towards Hudson Bay and rivers to the south flow south towards the Saint Lawrence River.
One of the first Europeans in this area was Pierre de Troyes, who built a post on Lake Abitibi when he was on his way to capture English HBC posts on James Bay in 1686.
It was formerly used by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) as part of a canoe route to the fur lands of the north. A HBC trading post was located on the east shore of the lake in Ontario. The construction of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (now Canadian National Railway) through this district made it of some importance at the start of the 20th century.
Portions of Lake Abitibi's western shores and a section of the Abitibi River are part of the Abitibi-de-Troyes Provincial Park.
Famous quotes containing the word lake:
“What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone! None of your half-mile swamps, none of your mile-wide woods merely, as on the skirts of our towns, without hotels, only a dark mountain or a lake for guide-board and station, over ground much of it impassable in summer!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)