Lake Wiyashakami

Wiyashakami, “clear water” in Cree, is a vast lake east of Hudson Bay. Its western basin surrounds a ring of islands, the eroded remains of rock raised by an ancient meteorite impact. The lake feeds the Clearwater River, which runs west into Tasiujaq and thence to the bay. Cree people used its shores long before the Hudson's Bay Company built Fort Richmond on Tasiujaq in the eighteenth century. The Inuit name for the lake, Allait Qasigialingat, also refers to the Cree.