Lake Saint Pierre

The Lac Saint- Pierre ( also Wakefield Lake ) is a 353 km ² large lake in the south of the Canadian province of Quebec.

It is situated at a height of about 3 meters above sea level in St. Lawrence River between Sorel - Tracy and Trois-Rivieres in the southwest to the northeast. The lake is 35 km long, up to 10 km wide and forms a part of the St. Lawrence Seaway. The average depth is 3 m, the maximum depth of 11.3 m. On the south bank are the mouths of the rivers Saint- François and Yamaska ​​.

The lake has dozens of small islands that are flooded seasonally. These constitute important resting places for hundreds of thousands of migratory birds and also important nesting sites for herons; nowhere else in North America, the concentration of herons is greater than here. In 1998, the Lac Saint- Pierre was provided as a wetland of international importance under the protection of the Ramsar Convention. Since 2000, the lake is recognized as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO. The area of the reserve is 480 km ², of which 31 square kilometers in the core zone.

Was named the lake by French explorer Samuel de Champlain. He passed it on June 29, 1603 the feast of the Apostle Peter (French Saint- Pierre ). The former French name (from about 1535) was the Lac d' Angoulême. The Abenaki called the lake Nebesek what "at the lake".

The approximately two kilometers north-east of Lac Saint- Pierre located and now abandoned quarry " Evans -Lou " with rare-earth metal rich granite pegmatites taken as the type locality for the minerals Caysichit - (Y), Moydit - (Y) and Wakefieldite ( Y).