The Arctic Watershed
Text from the plaque
North of this watershed all flowing water eventually reaches Hudson Bay, while south of it all watercourses form part of the Great Lakes drainage system. The height of land follows an erratic course of some 2250 km across Ontario, ranging from 32 to 280 km north of Lakes Huron and Superior. This watershed was declared the inland boundary of the tract surrendered to the Crown by Ojibwa Indians in the Robinson Superior Treaties of 1850. It was also widely considered to be the southern limit of Rupert's Land, the vast, ill-defined Hudson's Bay Company territory transferred to Canada in 1870, and it figured prominently in the Ontario-Manitoba boundary dispute of 1883-4.
Transcribed from the marker, not summarised.
Find the place
The District of Thunder Bay
The Township of Golding
On Highway 17, about 23 km west of
the Highway 11/17 split west of Thunder Bay
N 48 49.099 W 89 55.177
Recorded November 2005. Check current access before visiting.
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Visitors' notes
December 27, 2011
The Arctic-Atlantic watershed boundary's eastern terminus is Cape Chidley; more precisely Killiniq Island, shared by Labrador and Nunavut, where, as with the Labrador-Quebec border, the political boundary follows the hydrographic one. Immediately beside the island is a point where Nunavut, Quebec, and Newfoundland and Labrador meet at a 'triple point'. The Laurentian Divide's western end is in Montana, but that divide separates Arctic from Atlantic waters, and is not the end of the Arctic watershed boundary. That continues north up the Rockies along the Great Divide, marking the division between Arctic and Pacific waters, ending in northwest Alaska's Lisburne Peninsula. -Wayne
February 15, 2011
The Laurentian Divide, separating the Arctic Ocean/Hudson Bay drainage basin from those of the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes, is a fascinating geologic feature. Its western end is at aptly-named Triple Divide Peak in Glacier Nat'l. Park, Montana (where it meets the "East-West" Continental Divide). Its eastern portion forms the boundary between Labrador and Quebec.